All over the world today, the number of people decided to cut their normal lives and go life off grid is increasing. A great example of this trend is an island one hour of the coast of Vancouver.
Named Lasqueti, it lies between Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Sporting a population of around 400 people this island is completely off the grid. It is not connected in any way to the British Columbia hydro power infrastructure. It falls to the residents to find alternative forms of generating electricity.
Living off grind essentially means you are cut off from utilities all together and you are truly indipendant.
“It does not mean living in the stone age, it’s not about bush craft. It’s about generating your own power, your own water, dealing with your own waste. Probably as part of a community, not living on your own like a hermit. It’s also about being more self-reliant and being less dependent on the system. Perhaps realizing that the system isn’t really protecting us anymore and we have to look after ourselves.” – George Noory From Coast To Coast Am
Many people wrongly think that living off-grid is like going back to the stone age. And sure there are people that like to give up a lot of modern amenities (like the ones in the video above) but there is a lot of potential for the entire human race to be “off-grid” and maintain all the modern amenities while being more free from corporations. Today, we possess all the technology required to make this into a reality without losing most of our modern privileges.
The biggest issue with off-grid living is generating electricity. The way we have been generating power (and still do) is very harmful and dangerous for the environment. We don’t have to do this, we can live without oil and we can surely stop stripping the planet of resources to provide us with power. This is why many of the big players in the energy game are dropping their investments from the old methods and investing into new methods of alternative cleaner energy.
The biggest private bank in the world, UBS is telling investors to join the clean renewable energy movement. Some analysts even said that it’s expected that most power plants in Europe are going to go extinct in the next 10 to 20 years.
“Most of the plants retiring in the future will not be replaced, large scale power plants could be on the path to extinction.”
There are many different methods we can go off the grid and provide power to the entire planet. We could install solar panels on the world’s deserts and we can also use wind power or vortex induced vibrations from the ocean currents, or simply a combination of them all. The possibilities are endless. It can be frustrating to think about this especially when we know we have the means and the technology to do it yet we aren’t.
If we could harness 0.1 percent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power.” – Michael Bernitsas, Professor of Naval Architecture at the University of Michigan
The point is, there are very different and very viable solutions to our energy needs which we could implement if we wanted to. It is quite sad to think that even though we have so many solutions there are people on this earth who do not want this to change at all. This is quite scary and very difficult for some people to accept. Especially when these people control most of the resources on the planet.
The way we generate power today could be replaced with these clean new renewable sources and more and more people are becoming aware of this by the day. We could make our entire world off-grid and all necessities could be provided to everybody. It is possible but we are running out of time to make this a reality…