“Doesn’t the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft? In self defence, anything goes.” ~Imelda Marcos
USA Today reported back in April 2006, that 180,000 families were living “off the grid” Moreover, USA Today in that same story reported that that rate has jumped to upwards of 33% a year for a decade according to their source Richard Perez of Home Power Magazine.
With all the contemporary focus on carbon footprints, pollution, global warming and the environment, there exists a new urgent quest for technologies that support the sensitive notions of the socially conscious citizens who buy into all of the Algore-isms. And to be certain, many new efficient technologies are emerging, making it easier, cheaper and more efficient to reduce ones’ carbon footprint.
Now, I will be the first person to tell you that I don’t buy into much of what these alarmists tell us. And to be certain there is a fair amount of evidence suggesting that much of the environmental movement is rank demagoguery and a subterfuge for political power. However, there is but one morsel that piqued my interest and that is the emergent technologies. Efficient LNG generators available for purchase to the average consumer; Led lighting technologies just to name a couple.
But for all the environmentalist whacko caterwauling and brow-beating over how we must all conserve, recycle and reduce, there has been an unintended consequence: More people living off the grid. And If you are a CEO for a large gas, electric or oil company depending on rate payers to sustain your empire, that is not good economic news.
The “off-the-grid” pinch is being felt right now in California where many municipalities have created provisions in their local codes requiring domiciles to be hard-wired into public utilities. If you don’t meet the local specified code, you face the local wrath.
You can bet that if enough people anywhere are living off the grid, to a point where there is a 5% reduction in revenues, such codes will fast be enacted that essentially make one a slave to the local power gods. —Food for thought.
