vichris,

I can't believe nobody's posted a reply to your post, yet. How about a lil' more fuel for the fire.



The articles below should show why it's so hard to take anything Gore and his ilk say seriously. Like; Robert Kennedy cris-crossing the USA in his personal jet plane to appear on talk shows about conserving energy. Yeah, right!



Buyers Beware!



The online gotcha gang is circulating this report on the amount of energy consumed by the Gore compound in Tennessee. The source of the report and the way the guy provides his own odd quote may make you scratch your head, but I was able to confirm that the 10,000 kWh per year average is about right.



For what it's worth, Gore does have a response, the short version of which is that after employing a number of energy saving tactics (what would the energy draw be without those?) he buys carbon offsets to make up the rest. In case you're not familiar, buying carbon offsets is giving money to some kind of eco charity or technology company so that you're advancing the green cause even if you're not personally hitting all the green cylinders.



I have to guess that something like this was also how they justified saying the Oscars were green since I didn't see anyone arriving to the red carpet on bicycles and I don't recall reading about solar panels power all those production lights (of course, I could always look it up to find out what was so green about the Oscars. The Times recently had a piece on whether these offsets actually alleviate the guilt of polluting. Apparently the effectiveness of some of the offsets is questionable and furthermore, by not forcing people to change their behavior the offsets can be counterproductive in the long term.



In case you're interested, the Bush ranch also has some green features www.commondreams.org/views01/0429-03.htm. I clicked that link among the considerable collection in this blog entry wizbangblog.com/2007/02/26/al-gores-own-inconvenient-truth.php making the rather lengthy case that Gore is a hypocrite.



http://clicked.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/02/27/72535.aspx



More Gore

Last night, Al Gore's global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.



Gore's mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).



In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.



The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average.



Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.



Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.



Gore's extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.



"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.



In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.



http://wizbangblog.com/2007/02/26/al-gores-own-inconvenient-truth.php
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It is said that 1 out of every 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Think of your 3 closest friends, if they're normal, then it's you.

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