Infographic: The Hippie Continuum
posted by Shannon on April 28th, 2011
Ok, so these days, in developed countries like the United States, the average household has about 35 electrical appliances. The average annual cost of using these appliances is about $1,100 and if you live in a state where electricity is expensive*, that annual price tag goes up to about $1,600 a year. In five years, you’ll pay somewhere between $1300 and $1900 a year to use your fleet of devices, and that’s only if you don’t buy anything new to plug in between now and then.
Not likely. Analysts say the small electrical appliances market is still growing like gangbusters . Baby boomers are moving to the South and Southwest where houses are big and air conditioning use is high. The electric car market alone is expected to present a significant new draw on the grid nation-wide. All good for the economy, right? There are just a few problems. For one, in the U.S., grid power is fired primarily by dirty fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, so any increased pull on the grid means more CO2 and particulate matter in the air. The other is that utilities are raising their prices, on average, by six percent every year.
The question, then, is this: as the average houshold’s energy needs increase, will people be willing to pay a higher and higher percentage of their income to utility companies every year? Or, will they reach a tipping point where they see their own roofs and yeard as a way to reduce or even eliminate this growing annual spend?
*California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Alaska, or Deleware.
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Even though I work for the competition (Sungevity), I love this!
lol
Wow, you manage to alienate every member of our society. I like!
funny
Totally love this! Except for the dig at ultimate frisbee, because it IS definitely a sport. Throwing a disc around barefoot in the grass is not. But sprinting for hours in cleats = sport.
Yup, somewhere between level 5 & 6. ‘Nuff said
same here.
Saw this on High Heels and Honey Bees blog. I think I’m the level 5 NPR hippie.
I know NONE of these people… or do I?
Love it!
An unfriendly image for dial-up. Surely it could have incorporated more text and less image.
6&7
We never rated our hippie level. We just were. We believed we were powerful enough to change the world and damn it we did!! And you haven’t seen nothing yet!
Home Solar Power Discounts – One Block Off the Grid
WHOOPS-never under estimate our effort to levitate the PENTAGON!
never under estimate our effort to levitate the PENTGON!
whoever wrote this is obviously no hippie! :). Please allow me…. Level 8: you are a political activist, actively working to change the world for the betterment of all mankind. You were raised by real hippies who took a stand, sacrificed careers for the cause of stopping wars, hid draft dodgers in the basement, and were proud of being hippies, long before hipsters got ahold of the term and long before fake hippies morphed into “yuppies”. You have minimal environmental impact, live off the grid, but stay politically active and work to educate others about the importance of renewable energy, permaculture, preserving our natural resources, and the list goes on.
This is great. I’m totally a Level 6 Hippie 2.0! Check out Reset San Francisco’s webcast tomorrow about SF’s solar incentive program, GoSolarSF: http://www.resetsanfrancisco.org/news/may-6-11/san-francisco-ask-solar-experts
OMG I am a 6 or a 7 – make it stoppppppp!!!!!!
i wanna get off the grid!
not ready to go solar? You can help make it mainstream (your burning man camp did it too):
https://1bog.org/user/invite/
LOL. I think I’m a Level 5 Hippie :)
I’m a 1 – if it costs less I’m in…
I think Im pretty much like #1, and you?
2-6-7
My neighborhood is an unsavory mixture of #4 and #5, but I hate ‘em all
for whatever reason, GO SOLAR!
Yippee skippy we’re all SOME kind of hippie! We’d all be ‘solarized’ by now if we’d added low cost solar water heating as we started to in the ’70s (and now mandatory for new construction in Hawaii). Not as glam as PV panels but effective at reducing the overall enviro impact.
Pennsylvania where are you? Doesn’t the sun shine on you?
The basement for our off grid house will be finished TODAY! We are going off grid because it is the best return on investment we can make. Screw Wall Street and bye bye TVA. Visit http://www.sunshineworks.com and see what’s happening with off grid solar.
Which one are you?
Level 8 : Green Divas and Dudes
1. I really was a hippie striving to live off the land back in the ’70′s
2. I took a break in the ’80s and 90′s and let my kids watch TV, but still recycled
3. I went back to eating meat but it has to be organic grass fed and free range
4. I donated my Armani suits from the 90′s to charity, compost again, but I still shave my legs
I am the bumper sticker hippie no doubt :P! nice post!
Wait! Where is Tibet? Tote bags aren’t cool? I do like the concept of saving money… doesn’t everyone? Frisbee isn’t a sport?!?!