It took about a year for Luke to regret his move off the grid. “It’s not that it wasn’t what we expected,” he explains. “We wanted the difficulty of it.” But he also wanted to show people it was possible to live with a smaller carbon footprint; instead, he was burning gasoline and watching the island’s electric utility outpace him, installing solar power and cutting carbon all over the island.
“That was all happening, not because of me,” he remembers thinking, “but despite me and my efforts.”
He wanted to be a pioneer, a leader of some sort. This was more important to him than "saving the planet." His goal of going off grid was to position himself as a hero, a frontrunner. Instead of being happy that the island is converting to solar at a pace that exceeds its stated goals, he just feels cheated of his goal of being a role model.
But, I like the ending:
Walking me out past the taro patch, back across the swinging bridge that spans the creek surrounding his property, Luke points out one last thing. “It’s funny,” he says, “it was only recently I learned that Thoreau had his mom bring him food out in the woods.”