Tell me your thoughts
...and Bill Gates with a new book on the climate crisis, why now is a great time to go off-grid, and more
My current reading stack, which reflect some of my interests. I’d like to hear about yours now.
So, dear readers: enough about me. Over the last few weeks you’ve heard my opinions on a number of off-grid-related subjects.
Now I’d like to hear yours.
Specifically, I’d like to hear from you on topics you’d like to see covered in this newsletter.
Do you want to know what’s involved in going off-grid? Are you interested in its benefits, its challenges? Are you curious about certain appliances? What’s on your mind?
Be creative, be detailed. I’ll try my best to address your topics in future newsletters.
You can either respond directly to this post or email me through the Substack app. Either way, I’m interested, and hope to hear from you.
Also, I am looking for people who have made the jump to off-grid living for future profiles. If you would like to be considered, please drop me a line.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates with a copy of his new book.
Bill Gates weighs in on the climate crisis with a new book
Now, here’s a link to a review in The New York Times of Bill Gates’ new book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.
Author Bill McGibbon, who writes The New Yorker’s Climate Crisis newsletter, gives Gates’ book a respectful treatment, but finds it lacking; in fact, McGibbon calls the book “a little underwhelming.”
Adds McGibbon: “Gates — who must have easy access to the greatest experts the world can provide — is surprisingly behind the curve on the geeky parts, and he’s worse at interpreting the deeper and more critical aspects of the global warming dilemma.”
You can read Gates’ own take on things as well over at his personal blog
Electric grids groan under large loads as climate change brings increasingly intense storms
On a related subject, if you were ever hesitant about the idea of going off-grid, the news that millions of people are without power following the most recent winter storm might change your mind.
A sobering story , again in The New York Times, warns: “Electric grids can be engineered to handle a wide range of severe conditions — as long as grid operators can reliably predict the dangers ahead. But as climate change accelerates, many electric grids will face novel and extreme weather events that go beyond the historical conditions those grids were designed for, putting the systems at risk of catastrophic failure.”
The article is an in-depth look at the failure of the Texas power grid in the wake of the storm, and the ongoing disruption to power utility services in general from the climate crisis.
Headlined: A Glimpse of the Future in Texas: Climate Change Means Trouble for Power Grids, the article concludes: “All over the country, electric utilities and grid operators are confronting similar questions, as climate change threatens to intensify heat waves, droughts, floods, water shortages and other calamities, all of which could create new and unforeseen risks for the nation’s electricity systems.”
Open pens or land-based: salmon farmers find themselves at a crossroads
Finally, The Narwhal wonders about the feasibility of land-based salmon farming, an idea that’s been picking up steam recently.
The brief editorial notes “As wild fisheries collapse or reach peak harvest, land-based salmon farming offers an alternative to sea-based open net pen farming, which has been associated with the escape of Atlantic salmon into the Pacific Ocean, and with spreading disease to vulnerable wild salmon populations.”
But The Narwhal adds the practice of land-based salmon farming also comes with limitations, including the fact that it’s capital-intensive, and not everyone is going to be keen on GMO fish, such as the ones being raised in Prince Edward Island.
The uptake? “Taken together, we are left with unanswered questions about the future of sustainable salmon policy, technology and the industry writ large.”