Motorhoming and Global Warming — page 2

What About Alternate Energy?

When it comes to figuring out electricity usage how does one compute the global warming cost of solar generation?  The RV park bound resident—especially those locked in at night behind security gates, with safety lights that show through any privacy curtain— admittedly does use extra plug in power to run two air conditioners at the same time. Those of us who dry-camp high enough in the mountains in the summer to benefit from a fresh pine scented breeze still can enjoy an evening of TV, or better yet a DVD, through the freedom of solar power, converted to all the 110 needed. I have also been looking to purchase a solar operated water evaporation (swamp) cooler that does a better job than the expensive AC units in dry climates.

I asked Mrs. Two Shoes if she and Goody had solar power on the roof of their yet another boring housing unit in their ghetto for the rich?  No, that was too much cost to add to a house worth half a million dollars.  Tit-for-tat she asked me if we were packing around a generator.  She had me there, as my motorhome came equipped with a 7,000-watt unit, that weighs and costs a gallon or so of gas per month running it to maintain the motor, and very occasionally fire up the microwave.   I don’t know why RV manufactures feel retired people are so interested in such time saving devices?  I do know that the two aftermarket panels ($1,500) we have on our roof, in summertime Alaska keep our house batteries 90% full, no matter the use, whereas our generator ($5,000 price tag)—besides our global warming contribution equal to a lawn mower— costs the goodwill of neighbors, and our sense of serenity. We were delighted when visiting Big Bend National Park in Texas last year there was a campground where generators were not allowed.

The last sentence sort of was a set-up for another way to measure the impact of man in his environment.  That is the total cost.  It is one thing to support the politically active Sierra Club in its efforts to deny rural Americans their historic birthright through a sense that we are part of the cause of the blight effecting our cities. Know that pressuring the BLM to drive working ranchers into selling the historic home ranch so that wealthy movie and media stars can build a huge log cabin on land that comes with a “conservatory” tax shelter only the wealthy can afford (just as their big tax write-off for Hummers), is not fair.  It is doubly not fair that the government has been doubling campground fees — “Pay your fair share of the cost, or else!”— when closing, not expanding, recreational opportunities open to motorhomers because of a misdirected mentality of the “do-gooders” of the so-called Sierra Club.

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