11–20 of 61 posts
That's the sort of thing that people go to remote off-grid cabins to get away from!
Interesting what "off the grid" means today. - full internet access - a pletora of internet capable devices Not exactly my definition. Plus, spending 600€ + 125€ a month for internet isn't exactly something everyone can afford.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ultimate sustainable living is a commie-block in a reasonable small, walkable city with a good public transport and services mixed with residential areas. If you do that - it doesn't matter what the source of heating, energy etc. is, and what kind of a car (if any) you drive. Even if it's all coal and fossil-fuel powered - you are order of magnitude more sustainable than people living in suburbs with solar panels…
I guess you watch Adam Something, this line is something he repeats a lot and I agree with most of it but as someone who grew up in maisonette block housing (like this https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/44549465930/in/faves-c... ), it is not nearly as nice as living in your own house (even a terraced house). You are at the mercy of your neighbours, shit neighbours, shit time. It's not a bad thing to make compromis…
> The cabins are handmade by Treesign, a local builder of tiny homes. Each house had to be hauled into position by a truck along several miles of dirt roads. This isn't sustainable living, it's a niche luxury product.
> This isn't sustainable living, it's a niche luxury product. I agree, this article is a mis-characterization of what 'off-grid' should mean: not only do these sorts of cabins have all modern utilities, they're also constantly serviced by the owners, who themselves need to drive around to each of them, probably destroying any 'ecological' benefit they might otherwise have. In nordic countries cabins similar to this h…
So, Burningman for suburban families…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ultimate sustainable living is a commie-block in a reasonable small, walkable city with a good public transport and services mixed with residential areas. If you do that - it doesn't matter what the source of heating, energy etc. is, and what kind of a car (if any) you drive. Even if it's all coal and fossil-fuel powered - you are order of magnitude more sustainable than people living in suburbs with solar panels…
No doubt it's greener, but not by an order of magnitude. Looking at the car: A large part of emissions are produced during manufacturing, especially for electrical cars. Driving less helps, but not an order of magnitude. Same with heating. A heat pump just needs (generally speaking around) 1/3 of the energy, so you really need a large size differential to get to an order of magnitude. People living in a large city al…
For example - if you live in a commie-block - you don't need and often you don't have the option to own multiple cars per family. Often you don't own a car at all. Parking space is at premium and walking/public transport solves most of your transporting needs anyway.
So that's the difference between producing 1.75 cars per family vs let's say 0.75 in the city. And then driving let's say 5000 km per year vs let's say 30 000 km per year. And changing these cars every 3 years vs every 6 years.
Heating is another thing. Surface area of my block is maybe 4 times the surface area of a detached house. But it houses 16 times more people.
But that's nitpicking. The big thing is infrastructure.
How many km of roads, cables, pipes, etc do you need per 1 detached house vs 1 flat in a commie block? How much concrete and steel do you use for that? How much energy is spent building and maintaining that infrastructure over the years?
My 4-stories commie block houses 16 families in a plot that would be roughly equivalent to a plot where 1 detached house would stand in the countryside. And it's pretty low-density as far as city planning goes. You could easily make it much denser. There's a small park and a playground in that plot of land.
So that's ~1/16th the infrastructure to service the same number of people compared to the countryside. And building the infrastructure is cheap compared to maintaining it for decades. The real unsustainable part of suburbia is maintaining all the extra infrastructure that low population density housing requires.
If anything - 1 order of magnitude was an underestimate.
Interesting what "off the grid" means today. - full internet access - a pletora of internet capable devices Not exactly my definition. Plus, spending 600€ + 125€ a month for internet isn't exactly something everyone can afford.
Off grid simply means no grid connection. These days that indeed can mean very few compromises with respect to modern comforts like working internet, hot showers, heating, electricity, etc.
Interesting what "off the grid" means today. - full internet access - a pletora of internet capable devices Not exactly my definition. Plus, spending 600€ + 125€ a month for internet isn't exactly something everyone can afford.
Off grid simply means no grid connection. These days that indeed can mean very few compromises with respect to modern comforts like working internet, hot showers, heating, electricity, etc.
1. Physical infrastructure that runs uninterrupted all the way to your home. E.G. Electric grid, gas pipes, copper/fiber telecom wires.
2. The above plus big wireless infrastructure as well, so being on range of a cellphone tower would be on-grid.
3. The whole network of human society, so any instant on-demand exchange of goods or information would mean on-grid.
So having internet trough Starlink would definitely be on-grid for definition #3, and maybe on-grid for #2 as well if conceptually you put a mesh of LOE satellites in the same category as a mesh of telecom antennas (which I personally lean towards).
The dude was in a cabin in the woods for a week on vacation. It was off-grid, but he insisted on glamping with his family and carried a bunch of his own tech in. That's the sort of thing that people go to remote off-grid cabins to get away from!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ultimate sustainable living is a commie-block in a reasonable small, walkable city with a good public transport and services mixed with residential areas. If you do that - it doesn't matter what the source of heating, energy etc. is, and what kind of a car (if any) you drive. Even if it's all coal and fossil-fuel powered - you are order of magnitude more sustainable than people living in suburbs with solar panels…
I guess you watch Adam Something, this line is something he repeats a lot and I agree with most of it but as someone who grew up in maisonette block housing (like this https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/44549465930/in/faves-c... ), it is not nearly as nice as living in your own house (even a terraced house). You are at the mercy of your neighbours, shit neighbours, shit time. It's not a bad thing to make compromis…
Like waiting for luggage in an airport.
Would it be nice to take a step forward and be closer to your luggage and have a better view, yes it would.
Would it be nice if everyone took a step forward. No, it would suck for everyone and be worse overall.
The fact that people can still say "yeah, but if just I do it, then I'd get all the benefits, so it's a good idea" is a failure of our civilization.