Bristol Indymedia Presents "How to Live Off Grid" a talk by Nick Rosen

bristol | the environment | event notice Friday September 18, 2009 15:11 by madboy23

Nick has written extensively on the notion of living off grid, that is how to disconnect yourself from energy and utility companies in order to make yourself self-sufficient and sustainable. Why would you want to do that you may ask? Well as climate change and energy resources such as oil continue to decline, the cost and availability of cheap energy will also decline. Currently our energy needs are being fulfilled by others, such as gas from Russia and Oil from all over the world putting the UK in a very precarious position in terms of energy. This means that new energy solutions will have to be found for the population of the UK.

Nick Rosen Book How To Live Off Grid

So how do people live off-grid, well there is no one way of doing this. Nick outlines a variety of ways that people are living off-grid in his book, from those who are living in forests and using a minimal amount of energy, to people who have developed complex technological systems to provide themselves with large amounts of energy, to those living in canal boats and storage containers. All of these people are finding ways to live off grid using a variety of methods such as solar power, water power, growing their own food in a drive to become self sufficient. Off grid communities are springing up everywhere and Nick has recently been travelling around the US talking to them. Nick also runs a website http://www.off-grid.net which has huge amounts of information on all aspects of living off grid.

The option of living off grid has never been so important - with unemployment about to rise above 3 million (and real unemployment above 4.6 million), with the collpase of banks and companies and houses still out of reach of first time buyers, living off-grid maybe the only solution to survive in these austere times.

Living off-grid is destined to become more and more part of public debate as time moves on and energy resources change, recently it has featured on the front cover of Wired magazine.
So come along to the Cube Cinema and find out more about How to live off grid on the 2nd November at 7.45pm / £4 or £3 (but nobody refused for lack of funds).