Earlier in the week I joined a Facebook group about off grid living and homesteading. They asked for a brief explanation on why new members were interested in odd grid living, and here is what I wrote…

I am interested in the off grid life because I back country camp about 30 nights a year, mostly in my truck camper shell which I installed a 100 watt panel on it with two 12 volt deep cycle batteries for lights and other small appliances for camping. I like working with electricity and the forced conservation and thought about energy that comes with generating your own.

I also toured an off grid home back when I was in college and eventually want to own a house up in the woods where I can have fires, chop and heat wood, burn my trash, have livestock that I can process myself, hunt and fish, shoot my guns and listen to music as loud as I want to. I am a bit of a electronic hobbyist. So much cool little components you can get from China for a few bucks these days.

I don’t have internet at home and I certainly would never want one of those creepy smart devices or televisions in my home. I have a basic smartphone for internet was $45 that I bought two years ago or visit public hot spots. I hate all the advertising and consumerism end of the disposable plastic electronics that’s everywhere. I also like the idea of having a simple home that is easy to clean and fix when things break.

I hate how so much of modern life is hidden and fake, from distant power plants to landfills to massive slaughterhouses while the virtuous liberals pretend that they’re not part of it with their renewable energy credits that come with a glossy brochure with pictures of industrial wind mills and 1,000 acre solar facilities, they recycle their milk bottles and even buy over priced organic fair trade materials as they look down at the common folks who hunt and fish, farm or even burn their own trash.

Lastly I’m very concerned about climate change. I doubt off grid living is much of a way to reduce emissions but it can protect myself from the vulnerablity caused by an increasingly unstable climate that puts all life at precarious position. Most thermal generating nuclear and fossil plants are going to be trouble in coming decades due to warming waterbodies used for cooling and increasingly extreme storms and flooding. If I have a tractor I can fix washed out roads on my own land and recover from severe weather better than the urbanites.