Sun Powers Loon-y Pontoon Boat - A new, eco-friendly powerboat costs pennies to run and doesn't pollute. But will America's giant powerboat industry climb on board? By Stephen Leahy. [Planet Earth]

I applaud the Gisborne family for their efforts to help minimize the pollution in this world. Monte Gisborne is a man who actually cares about the future of this planet. Gisborne has made an entirely solar-electric pontoon boat which he plans to build and distribute. The Loon is a twenty foot, twin hull party boat, designed to be a leisure cruiser instead of a speed boat. When the sun is out the boat is powered by a 738-watt solar panel and when the clouds are out it is powered by several batteries. After a recent 100 mile cruise, Gisborne was glad to say that the cost of fuel was zero along with the amount of pollution his creation had released into the environment.
It is true that most people, who buy boats, buy them to go fast, but some people do not care about the speed as much as having a good time out on the water. This is the crowd Gisborne plans to market towards, the 50 and older crowd. He hopes the people who want to spend time with the family out on the lake one weekend will choose his pontoon party boat over a loud, expensive, gas guzzling power boat. Gisborne not only has converted this pontoon boat from a gas powered vehicle to a solar electric but in the winter time you can find him riding his electric snow mobile, and in the summer he rides his electric lawn tractor. Gisborne is a man with his sights on the future, and is actually doing something about it. With the rising prices of fuel and rising pollution people will soon have no choice but turn to alternate sources of energy. These people will turn to Monte Gisborne for this solution.
Boaters do not believe Gisborne will have much success with his pontoon boat due to people’s “need for speed.” With over 220,000 power boats sold each year in America, people do not care for a boat that has a top speed of about 9 miles per hour. The problem with trying to revolutionize the boating industry is people who buy boats are typically higher income families. A person who is willing to spend half a million dollars on a 45 foot power boat is not going to care how much gas costs go up, they are going to continue to buy their power boats and continue to pollute. This brings me back to the idea that the people who could have the most affect on reducing pollution do not care to do anything about it. The rich are the people who could reduce pollution the most. They have the resources to help engineer newer, cleaner forms of energy but choose not to. They also are part of the population that pollutes the most with their power boats and other large vehicles. If the higher income group of America gave up some of their unnecessary power and invest some money in people like Gisborne to help build more efficient vehicles such as the Loon, the future for this planet would be a lot brighter. People need to stop being selfish and start caring a little about the environment they live in.