Casey Libby

stephen lowe wrote:I would reexamine your solar options. It is fairly cheap to get a little system set up and it doesn't take much to do most of the things we do. What are your major energy uses? My portable solar system cost me a grand total of around 1500$ and with it I can run a compost tea aerator for about 72 hours, have no problem keeping cellphones/lap tops charged, can run way more lightbulbs than I'd ever need, I even found a coffee grinder I could run off of it. To make it more portable and cheaper you could sacrifice some battery capacity. You could also look into tiny wind generators for your balcony, those would be less of an obvious presence but would otherwise require lots of the same infrastructure I'd imagine and I have no idea the status of their availability or cost.

What resources did you use to figure out this system?  I live in a tiny NYC apartment and would love to do this - right now I just use a solar phone charger but would love to go bigger.

Hi all - super brand new to this site!

I am a '94 baby, so towards the younger end of millennialism.  I am currently in grad school and like the idea of working in academia to help make some of the "hippie" values more mainstream and so that I can carry out research in a financially supported way.  That being said, I struggle greatly as I am attending an urban school and currently make do just with living as close to zero waste as possible in my tiny NYC apartment and vermicomposting.  I also don't think that it is likely that I will end up back in rural america (where I grew up) any time in the near future especially because of my partner's career.  I like to take solace in the fact that even for those of use living the urban life, it is still possible to take bits and pieces of permiculture and implement them into our lives.  I think a lot of the people I know are interesting in things like zero waste living, composting, apartment gardens, etc.  The more people who do that in urban spaces the better!  I guess all of that is to say that I think there are a good number of millennials interested in this movement that are participating in any way they can within their own lives.