{"id":5177,"date":"2022-12-22T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=5177"},"modified":"2022-12-21T16:56:34","modified_gmt":"2022-12-21T16:56:34","slug":"why-go-off-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/why-go-off-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Go Off-Grid?<\/span>Nick Rosen<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two magical things happen when you move from the grid-connected life to an off-grid existence. The first is that you become instantly attuned to the natural world. You centre yourself around the daylight hours, because your batteries, if you have any, must be preserved for the essentials.\u00a0 The rain, sun and wind directly affect your daily routine. The many varieties of rain, each with their own atmospheres, become your friends. The rain and the wind clean you and your surroundings. The sun and the rain nourish you and your crops.<\/p>\n

The second change is that you are confronted by the need to run your own power station, and manage your own water supply and waste. You literally have to deal with your own shit.<\/p>\n

These changes are, for want of a better word, electrifying. They are liberating. You feel in control of your own life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFind your place on the earth,\u201d says American poet Gary Snyder, \u201cDig in, and take responsibility from there.\u201d In the on-grid world, that place is very hard to find. Everything from planning laws to electricity regulations to your neighbours\u2019 views about acceptable behaviour, are pitched against anyone who wants to live the lowest of low-impact lifestyles.<\/p>\n

So the primary rule of living off-grid is not to do it on your own, but as part of a community. By community, I don\u2019t mean a commune. I have nothing against communes, but I wouldn\u2019t want to live in one myself because it makes decision-making difficult and long-winded. Instead, I recommend a collection of separate households in the same patch of land, or the same area, where people pool skills and share resources as far as it’s practical to do so, or a more dispersed community brought together because of a local council with looser planning laws than most.<\/p>\n

These are such strange times.\u00a0 Everybody knows our ‘advanced’ economies are speeding us towards collapse and social breakdown. It\u2019s perfectly obvious we must cut global energy consumption by 75% – and since at least 2 billion of the world\u2019s poorest are using hardly any energy, the advanced economies are going to have to cut consumption by perhaps 90%.\u00a0 And that is simply not happening.<\/p>\n

There is a rising interest in off-grid techniques for saving energy, and learning how to bypass the utility companies. Until very recently, those companies were entirely focussed on selling us more electricity. But today, we are in the paradoxical situation of expecting those same utility companies to sell us less of what they make. Their business models are not fit for that purpose.<\/p>\n

The giant Swiss bank UBS is forecasting that $160 trillion will be spent between now and 2050 \u201cdecarbonising\u201d the energy grid.\u00a0 That is $160 trillion of our money \u2013 in taxes and energy bills \u2013 being handed to the same companies that caused the problem of high prices and pollution in the first place.\u00a0 That, says UBS, will sort out the grid. Nothing to see here, millennials.\u00a0 Technological solutions will be found.<\/p>\n

Actually, the solutions are not being found, and don\u2019t look like they will emerge any time soon. Mini-nuclear? 2030 at the earliest. Hydrogen? Still too dangerous. Carbon capture? Negligible difference at huge cost. Solar reflectors in outer space? We\u2019ve seen that movie, and we know how it ends.<\/p>\n

No wonder many millennials see issues of mental health as more important than the warming planet. The disconnect between society\u2019s addiction to energy consumption and the reality of global warming is literally maddening. Governments have failed us; NGOs have failed us; the\u00a0COP27\u00a0process has failed us.<\/p>\n

So where does that leave us? Well, we just have to do this ourselves \u2013 make our own goals, carry out our own adaptation \u2013 and do so in a way that makes economic sense as well as climate sense. We need a system change that offers us a zero-carbon existence while maintaining some sort of continuity between the present and the future. And we have one: bypassing the grid. It is the grid which gave us our addiction to power, which nourished and sustained the rise of amoral, corporate capitalism. Dismantling the grid would change everything.<\/p>\n

Power is the harnessing of energy. It\u2019s no coincidence that the same noun applies to the exertion of political control or influence over others. Look at the way politicians quail before the energy companies.\u00a0 Electrical power IS political power. And the grid is all about one thing: the centralisation of power. That is why it was built in the first place, and why utility companies have managed to retain their oligopoly despite terrible service and sky-high prices. That is why there are regulations to stop you selling your surplus solar power to your neighbour, and instead sell it to the utility companies at a much lower price than you pay them for it.\u00a0 And now they want to fleece the planet of another $160 trillion.<\/p>\n

We have it in our power to stop this happening, because there really is a better system: local, community-owned energy. This really could change the paradigm. And it\u2019s easily achievable, one community at a time. The decentralisation of power means power to the people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So let\u2019s get together and start off-grid community owned, off-grid power companies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everywhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CALL TO ACTION:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can sign up to help start a renewable power co-operative in your area \u2013 just go to www.off-grid.com<\/a> and place yourself on the map. Wherever you are in the world, Off-Grid will inform you when 50 people in your area have signed up \u2013 then you can get together take back control of your energy supply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nick Rosen<\/strong> began his career in journalism as a member of the Undercurrents collective. \u00a0He wrote How to Live Off Grid<\/em> (2008), and this year launched Vivum Publishing, dedicated to fiction and nonfiction which advances the cause of environmental justice,\u00a0and\u00a0exposes the injustices of the current energy grid.<\/p>\n

The press\u2019 first book, How We Went Off Grid<\/em><\/a> by Matthew and Charis Watkinson, explains how to gain planning permission to live in a zero-carbon home with a market garden.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two magical things happen when you move from the grid-connected life to an off-grid existence. The first is that you become instantly attuned to the natural world. You centre yourself around the daylight hours, because your batteries, if you have any, must be preserved for the essentials.\u00a0 The rain, sun and wind directly affect your […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from Why Go Off-Grid?<\/span>Nick Rosen<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":5179,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[1020,1016,1017,1019,1018],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Go Off-Grid? - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dreaming of a greener existence this Christmas? Does going 'off-grid' sound intriguing and horrifying at the same time? 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