This polar bear has nothing to worry about, thanks to Al Gore's excessive electricity use. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Al Gore debunks global warming by using a lot of electricity
By Eoin O'Carroll | 06.18.08
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research found that Al Gore uses many times more electricity than the average American, conclusively demonstrating that climate change is a hoax.
According to a press release from the Nashville-based think tank, in the past year Mr. Gore’s home, located in Nashville’s upscale Belle Meade area, consumed 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity in 2007, enough to power 232 average American households for a month. This consumption level is sufficient to expose all of the claims made in his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, as a sham.
“Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.” said Drew Johnson, the TCPR’s president.
This is the second time that the TCPR has completely disproved the hypothesis that the burning of fossil fuels is disrupting the earth’s climate. In 2007, following Gore’s Oscar award for his now-debunked film, the think tank noted that in 2006, Gore’s house consumed nearly 221,000 kWh of electricity.
The TCPR claims that “in the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%”.
Global warming alarmists may assert that the 213,210 kWh that the TCPR claimed Gore consumed in 2007 is actually 3.6 percent less than the 221,000 kWh consumed in 2006. Such calculations, however, would be based on computer models, which are notoriously untrustworthy.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider pointed out that in the past year the Gores have installed a geothermal heating and cooling system and 33 solar panels. They also participate in the Nashville Electric Service’s Green Power Switch Program, which allows them to buy their electricity from renewable sources such as wind power, solar power, or waste-to-energy systems.
These efforts are useless, however, because, as Al Gore has established through his use of so much electricity, there’s no such thing as global warming.
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2. Andrew | 06.18.08
Brilliant deduction from Tennessee Center… Screaming for Al Gore’s head when he has not done any contribution to global warming by using all green energy with zero emissions.
Genius!! I do wonder who funded Tennessee Center for Policy Research…
3. owl | 06.18.08
Maybe they were so busy claiming a gotcha they forgot to check out their story. The Center is claiming their previous scoop got Al scurrying to do the refit - it was actually a 3-year project. Looks like their number may be a tad skewed as well - a Gore spokesman notes the project (and its energy costs) wasn’t completed until last November. Their crunch on before to after is a 40% reduction. http://outside-blog.away.com/blog/2008/06/vicious-gore-mo.html
Wag the dog time, eh?
4. George | 06.18.08
The fact that there are people out there that believe that Al Gore’s energy consumption is viable proof that climate change is a hoax is disappointingly no longer surprising to me. Every day I do public interest research in the Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania. All to often the public associates the things Al Gore says and does with all environmental issues (from climate change to air polution).
To be honest the article is only adding more nonsense on an already astronomically large pile of falsities.
The only thing that makes me smile about this article is that it appears in The Christian Science Monitor, clearly the name of an unbiased and completely truthful source whose purpose is obviously to provide the public with an unbiased, factually based, fair, and balanced view on serious issues.
5. Naota Channel | 06.18.08
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically ..
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects ..
The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be …
cooling down.
Newsweek – 1975
6. Alan | 06.19.08
That Al Gore uses more energy than a middle class American may suggest that he’s a hypocrite, but doesn’t disprove his theory. To say that he does is a form of fallacious reason and speaks more to the idiocy of Eoin O’Carroll or at least a strong wish to deceive.
7. CyberCitzen | 06.19.08
Non sequitur! The conclusion does not follow the premise. What are the folks at Tennessee Center for Policy Research smoking or eating?
9. Frank | 06.19.08
Andrew, I’m pretty sure that the Tennessee Center for Policy Research is funded by THE oil industry. At the very least, Halliburton.
Do you really beleive that tripe? Global warming? I as recall from basic earth science, we are coming out of the most recent ice age - hence I would think that means it’s warming up, again. Maybe you were sick that day. There were also a few ice ages before the one we’re coming out of so that would mean there was global warming before - at least twice. Seems like there might be some kind of cycle there, no? Out sick again?
I bet you even think your generation “Invented” sex.
Idiot!
10. Jason | 06.19.08
@#6 “To say that he does is a form of fallacious reason and speaks more to the idiocy of Eoin O’Carroll or at least a strong wish to deceive.”
I think you’re missing something… :) (Hint: The article is supposed to be fallacious.)
11. Eoin | 06.19.08
George, your analysis is right on the money, but Jason gets higher marks for reading comprehension!
Frank, please keep it civil. I don’t mind if you call me an idiot, but please lay off the name-calling when it comes to other readers.
12. Mark Schaffer | 06.19.08
Naota Channel uses a Newsweek article from 1975 as if it were valid proof of what scientists were thinking. Please look at this Real Climate article which links to an actual study showing that article to be foolish at best:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole/
Matt is also wrong when he claims there has been global cooling from 1997 to 2007 as based on actual data here:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/
Frank should go back to school as he clearly has a poor memory and noting he wrote is correct according to best current knowledge. For those interested in learning and tackling AGW start here:
http://www.realclimate.org
13. Kalee Kreider | 06.19.08
Simply put, the analysis put forward from this group is simply wrong. Since receiving Gold LEED (Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design) certification from the US Green Building Council in November 2007, the Gores’ natural gas and electricity bills have decreased 40 percent. Their home is both more energy efficient and powered by renewables–which includes their geothermal system and solar panels as well as their purchase of power through the Green PowerSwitch program through their local utility.
14. SeanH | 06.19.08
“What disproves his theory is a decade of dropping temperatures
1997-2007″
It might disprove it if it was true, but global temperatures went up in that time period.
“”Global warming stopped in 1998,” has become a recent mantra of those who wish to deny the reality of human-caused global warming. The continued rapid increase of the five-year running mean temperature exposes this assertion as nonsense. In reality, global temperature jumped two standard deviations above the trend line in 1998 because the “El Niño of the century” coincided with the calendar year, but there has been no lessening of the underlying warming trend. ”
GISS
15. Sparky | 06.19.08
This disappointing article represents the most vapid– dare I call it thinking–I’ve ever seen printed by the CS Monitor. Where is the journalistic spirit to get to the heart of the story? Assuming it’s even true, what are the reasons for the large energy consumption of the Gore household? Might it involve costs of working at home full-time to help wake up humanity to the need for addressing and preparing to respond to the needs resulting from extreme climatic changes? Or is it just a larger or older home than usual that has needed to be made green?
How is this biased article upholding the standard of the CS Monitor “to injure no man but to bless all mankind” when the name-calling was initiated by it?
Certainly it borders on a satirical statement of the lack of thoughtful care for humanity that characterizes the disinformation big oil interests put forth to confuse the issue. Not to mention the need for all of us to walk the talk. Nevertheless, the logic is lame. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to be taken at face value by those who are willing to justify a consumptive lifestyle that may be nonproductive for the general good and is at the expense of others here and abroad. Where is unbiased spirituality being expressed here to help bring reason and rectification to urgent concerns of humanity? Let’s have a retake on this one.
16. Randy | 06.19.08
Lower global temperatures in recent years in no way discredits many of the green iniatives suggested in An Inconvenient Truth. Oil is a finite resource controlled by a cartel often at odds with American interests. Natural gas is subject to rapid, sharp supply and price disruptions. Despite improvements in scrubbers and other clean technologies, coal remains a high-polluting fuel. Too great of a dependence on these types of fossil fuels has resulted in rampant urban sprawl, traffic congestion, increased wear and tear on transportation infrastructure, and all types of environemntal degradation, from air pollution to the damage or destruction of countless wilderness areas. Whether you fully agree with or understand Al Gore’s home electricity bills, we are all better served by sustainable energy, greater fuel and energy efficiency standards, increased conservation, and a transportation system centered upon pedestrian, bicycle, and mass transit.
17. James Chamberlain | 06.19.08
Anyone who still believes GISS temps as compared to the other 3 believed records is a fool.
18. James Chamberlain | 06.19.08
James Hansen may be a brilliant scientist at his core, but he has lost his bearing at the fundamental, philosophical science level. He now lets his belief system steer his analysis of the data rather than vice-versa. It is true. Any real scientist that looks at his data and explanations of it knows this.
19. Jon | 06.19.08
What cracks me up about this whole warming thing is the fact that we are using historical data which only goes back a couple hundred years (not quite sure) to forecast trends in temps. The earth is million or billions of years old!! How accurate do you think ANY prediction in temps is going to be with this type of data??
Oh, and for you people who will be quick to point out that the “ice samples” that they collected showed other periods warming…Maybe it was just a huge dinosaur that happend to “fart” on that particular chunck of ice. (thus warming it and partially melting it).
The fact is, the earth will do what it wants regardless of what we try to do TO it or FOR it.
Global Warming = Pure Nonsense
20. adam | 06.19.08
” Global warming = pure nonsense”
Thanks president Bush for your input. Global warming has been proven by every peer reviewed scientific article ever written on the subject. Sure, there are some articles out there that say it isnt true, but guess what??? They are not from scientific journals, but from media outlets. The entire scientific community agrees on the occurance of global warming.
21. Jon | 06.19.08
“Global warming has been proven by every peer reviewed scientific article ever written on the subject.”
….not even remotely true (did you actually read them all?).
By the way, Bush drank the Global Warming Kool-aide too so the first line of your response doesn’t even make sense.
nice try.
22. Jan | 06.19.08
Gore spends a lot of money on energy-saving upgrades and his energy consumption goes UP 10%? 1+1=2 — it seems pretty simple to me. Consumption up=money wasted and Global Warming sounds like a big lie to me.
23. Randy | 06.19.08
Long-term energy bill savings gained from using alternative energy tehcnologies like solar and wind power will more than pay off installation and maintenance costs. This is especially true in light of recent spikes in fuel prices.
Jan wrote:”Gore spends a lot of money on energy-saving upgrades and his energy consumption goes UP 10%? 1+1=2″
You are assuming that his rise in energy costs arose soley from alternative energy installations. Could it not be true that Mr. Gore simply used more energy during that time period? After all, the geothermal and solar equipment used in the Gore home do not use energy. They create it.
24. JonDo369 | 06.19.08
Actually, Global Warming is quite profitable for Mr. Gore. He’s well-positioned to continue to profit from carbon offset companies and leveraging his alarmist activism into speaking engagements.
And you people are falling behind. Since the temps have been under 1998 levels for a decade, and are now forecast by some scientists to drop for the next decade, it’s called “Climate Change” these days.
And Climate Change causes all extreme weather phenomena, too. Really. Trust the scientists. They told us it was so.
25. Chas Bee | 06.19.08
Best satire ever! Not only are the denialists trotting out all their old fallacies, even the realists are fooled!
“Global warming alarmists may assert that the 213,210 kWh that the TCPR claimed Gore consumed in 2007 is actually 3.6 percent less than the 221,000 kWh consumed in 2006. Such calculations, however, would be based on computer models, which are notoriously untrustworthy.”
TWO PEOPLE GOT THAT?!?!? =)
26. Randy | 06.19.08
Why the obsession with Al Gore? Is this some kind of weird, offshoot bastion of America’s celebrity-obsessed culture? He’s a hypocritical politician. Big surprise.
I don’t care about Mr. Gore. The message is what matters, not the messenger. And I believe the ideas put forth in An Inconvenient Truth are important and should be acted upon for the betterment of this and future generations.
27. kim | 06.19.08
Global warming is a hoax, just like y2k, and the Harmonic Convergence. This planet has it’s own consciousness and its expansion of well being is exponential–with or without my carbon footprint, or yours for that matter. (Hope that doesn’t bruise your ego too much.)
There is something bigger than any human perspective–including Al Gore’s hysterically hilarious hypocritical wannna be God perspective–running the show here folks. And that something bigger–call it God, Source, Mickey Mouse, or whatever you like–was able to scrape enough dirt together and launch this beautiful, thriving, planet in to PERFECT orbit within the universe. Until Al Gore and all of his non-thinking followers manage to scrape enough dirt together and launch another planet Earth in to perfect orbit, I’m going to put my confidence in that “something bigger” to take care of business here.
Btw, I’d love to see what things would look like if the enviromentalists had their way protecting the man-eating dinosaurs from extinction….Has anyone ever considered that perhaps it’s natural for the polar bears to go the way of dinosaurs?! People need to realize there is something much bigger than themselves managing the universe, SO GIVE IT UP! And by that I want to clarify–feel free to fly in your private jets Al Gore, Obama and Hollywood–ie Oprah, John Travolta, Brad Pitt, etc–just don’t force me to use fluorescent compact lightbulbs and one less napkin at lunch. (And for the record, I live a modest lifestlye on a teacher’s salary in an 800 square foot apartment and have been recycling because it makes sense to me, WAY before it way trendy to do so. AND, just because recycling makes sense to me, I do not feel the need to MANDATE that anyone else do it. Individual freedom to choose, that’s what I mean by “give it up.”
And for all you suckers using Florescent compact lightbulbs, remember to program the number for hazardous material removal in your cell phones so that when you accidentally break one you can shoo the pets and children outside and wait for haz mat to come clean up the poisonous mercury for you. Also, what’s your brilliant plan for all of the people who are unaware of this proper removal procedure who toss their burnt out FC bulbs in the trash, littering our landfills with even more poisonous mercury??? Yeah, “they”-meaning environmentalist whackos- forgot to think that one through. As a matter of fact, they forgot to think, period.
29. kim | 06.19.08
Thanks Jon, and right back at you.
Too bad Bush and McCain, along with everyone else pandering for votes from people who do not (can not?) think for themselves are buying in to Gore’s Global Warming Hoax. That gave me a good chuckle when Adam made a (failed) attempt at being witty and credited your comment, “Global Warming=Pure Nonsense”, as one coming from Bush. What perfect evidence that our friend Adam is CLUELESS and has NO idea what he is talking about.
Ahhhhh, I enjoy basking in the knowing that you and I, and others who see Global Warming as the GORE POCKET- LINING SCAM that is, get to reap the pleasures of critical thinking and thinking for ourselves. Unfortunately my chuckle over Adam’s display of ignorance pales in comparison to the chuckle Gore is getting at the expense of Global Warming Kool-aide drinkers everywhere, as he laughs himself all the way to the bank.
“Global Warming=Pure Nonsense” really says it all. What a great bumper sticker that would make! I live in Aspen, CO and everyone drives around here with bumper stickers that say, “Relax…it’s Aspen”. I find myself quite inspired to manufacture and distribute bumper stickers that say, “Relax. . . Global Warming is a Hoax”
;) What a fun idea!
30. R James | 06.19.08
I do not support Ag Gore, and consider significant anthropogenic global warming to be no more than an unproven hypothesis. However, I have to agree with George (4). This article is quite foolish, and doesn’t help anything. Nothing Al Gore does will “conclusively prove that global warming is a hoax.” I suggest you limit your conclusions to logical scientific facts, otherwise you will just be laughed at.
31. Eoin | 06.19.08
Did it ever occur to you that being laughed at might be the intent of this post?
For people who claim to be adept at spotting a hoax, some of you are pretty credulous.
32. kim | 06.19.08
OBVIOUSLY Eoin’s “article” that claims “Al Gore’s energy use proves climate change is a hoax” doesn’t make any sense. Yes, it is non sequitur, as # 7, CyberCitzen, smartly points out. (But #7, I want to know what Gore himself and Global Warming supporters are smoking, not what the TCPR is smoking/eating.) Eoin’s being funny–well, not really–but perhaps trying to be? Anyhoo, we didn’t need any numbers on Gore’s energy use to conclude global warming is a hoax. The above article/post/hoax by Eoin headlined “Al Gore debunks global warming by using a lot of electricity”, whatever the intent, STILL OPENS THE DOOR for lively (and healthy, hopefully?) discussions and opinions on Climate Change, the environment, spoof articles, non sequitor headlines, etc. (Btw, Eoin, not everyone posting is responding directly to your goofy-spoofy “article”, but to other comments posted.)
Here’s a straight forward article with by Steve Malloy at JunkScience.com. This guy is a talented, smart writer who truly has a sharp sense of humor. Enjoy…
Al Gore imagines that future poets will be singing his praises 1,000 years from now. In the meantime back on Planet Earth, he may have to settle for the slings and arrows that he deserves for his epic hypocrisy.
A year after the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s prodigious personal use of electricity at his Nashville mansion (20 times the national average), the center reported this week that Gore’s personal electricity consumption during the past year actually increased by 10 percent.
So while he campaigns for Americans to curtail their electricity use — you should take cold showers, forego air conditioning and dry your clothes on a clothesline — Gore is plugging in and turning on more than ever.
He tried to defend himself by stating that his family “has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power …, installing solar panels and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy-saving technology.”
But aside from increased energy use not being consistent with Gore’s preaching about downsizing our lifestyles, it’s worth noting that his personal energy use increased despite using energy saving devices and solar power.
During a time of an alleged crisis, the profile of his personal power consumption is more akin to “greed” than “green”; moreover, the environmental impacts of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s “green power” program from which Gore buys high-priced energy are murky, if not downright trivial.
Only 0.05 percent of TVA’s power is “green” and TVA acknowledges its green power program still produces greenhouse gases. All Gore really knows about any alleged benefits is that he pays an extra $4 for every 150-kilowatt hours of “green power” purchased.
He also says he has purchased “carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint.” It’s not at all clear, however, that carbon offsets actually offset anything. Carbon offsets and the industry that sells them are so dubious that Congress and the Federal Trade Commission launched investigations of them last year.
Gore’s electric bill is outpaced only by his amped-up rhetoric and chutzpah. In his new slideshow, a sort of “Son of An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore ironically chides those who “talk the talk” but don’t “walk the walk” when it comes to saving the planet.
In observing that religion is about behavior rather than belief and citing Gandhi’s “you must become the change that you wish to see in the world,” Gore says, “… the outcome about which we wish to be optimistic is not going to be created by the belief alone except to the extent the belief brings about new behavior.”
Well, we’ve seen Gore’s behavior with respect to his personal energy consumption and it certainly doesn’t match up with the alleged beliefs he continually broadcasts through a gullible media to a gullible public. Gore’s new slideshow goes on to expand the definition of behavior.
“As important as it is to change the light bulbs, it is more important to change the laws,” he says.
Here’s where it gets more interesting. The laws that Gore is referring to, of course, are those that would provide subsidies to and mandates for the alternative energy industry. Gore spotlights a number of these companies, including Smart Car; Amyris Biotechnologies; Altra Biofuels; Mascoma (cellulosic ethanol); Great Point Energy (biomass-to-gas and carbon capture technology); Altarock Energy (geothermal energy); Bloomenergy (fuel cells); Missole (solar technology); and Ausra (solar technology).
As the companies; corporate logos flash on the screen, Gore states: “Here are just a few of the investments that I personally think make sense. I have a stake in these.”
Putting aside the questionable legality of Gore’s promotion of his investments — conduct that could very well be contrary to federal and state securities laws that forbid an unlicensed individual from promoting unregistered securities to the public — it seems that it’s important to change the laws so that Gore can expand the $100 million-plus fortune he’s already accumulated since leaving public service in 2001.
Without laws that either mandate the adoption of alternative energies or subsidize their use, society has little use for these inefficient and not-ready-for-prime-time alternative energy technologies. While showing an image of the founding fathers signing the Declaration of Independence, Gore calls for a new “hero generation” to save us from the “planetary emergency.”
He apparently sees himself as a 21st century Ben Franklin. But while the founding fathers risked their lives and fortunes in the pursuit of political freedom and self-government, Gore risks just a small part of his vast fortune in pursuit of potentially huge profits that will come at the expense of our pocketbooks and freedoms.
He can hardly be called heroic. Even more grandiosely, Gore sums up his slideshow by stating, “I think we ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation about which a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying ‘they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future.’”
Move over, Achilles and Hector. Make room for Gore-acles, the hero of the future epic “The Iliad (Global Warming Edition).”
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
33. kim | 06.19.08
Here’s one more well written article by Steven Milloy, old but good (3.8.07), once again demonstating smart observations and giving me a chuckle right off the bat with a punchy, NON-non sequitur headline and ending with a blistering explanation of what Gore meant when he asked, “Are you ready to change the way you live?”
Al Gore’s Inconvenient Electric Bill
Thursday, March 08, 2007
By Steven Milloy
The March 1863 Enrollment Act permitted wealthy men to legally dodge the Civil War draft by paying a $300 commutation fee to the U.S. Government. This controversial loophole fueled public perception of a “rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.”
The sight of well-dressed men during the 1863 New York City draft riots prompted angry crowds to derisively call out, “There goes a $300-man.”
It is, therefore, somewhat odd that Al Gore has ventured to become a latter-day $300-man in his crusade against global warming, especially since he touts himself as courageously leading the charge for wide-spread personal sacrifice.
At the end of Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” viewers are asked, “Are you ready to change the way you live”? Following this line of thinking, the movie’s web site suggests many ways that you can “reduce your impact at home,” including using less heating and air conditioning, buying expensive fluorescent light bulbs, using less hot water, using a clothesline rather than a dryer, carpooling, flying less and buying cost-inefficient hybrid cars.
Given that Gore calls the fight against global warming a “moral imperative” in the movie, you might reasonably think that he practices what his movie’s web site preaches. But you’d be wrong.
In the wake of the movie winning an Oscar last month, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reported that Gore’s Nashville mansion consumed more than 20 times the electricity than the national average. Last August, the Gore mansion burned more than twice the electricity in a single month as the average American family uses in an entire year. Gore’s heated pool house alone uses more than $500 in electricity every month.
These latest revelations are reason enough to rent the movie just to see Gore standing before an enormous bar-graph comparison of individual carbon emissions by nationality while sanctimoniously tut-tutting about how the average American’s energy use is greedily off the charts.
A Gore spokesman tried to deflect the charges of “do as I say, not as I do” by stating that the Gores “purchase offsets for their carbon emissions to bring their carbon footprint down to zero.” Gore himself has been very public about this approach to carbon neutrality, but not only is this claim not exactly true, it’s quite meaningless in terms of global warming.
First, Al Gore doesn’t purchase carbon offsets out of his own pocket and the actual economic cost, if any, to him is unknown.
The actual offset purchaser is a London-based investment firm, Generation Investment Management (GIM), that Al Gore co-founded with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood and others in 2004.
GIM supposedly purchases carbon offsets for all 23 of its employees to cover their personal energy use, according to a March 7 CNSNews.com report. These offsets, then, would be provided to Gore more as an employee benefit, thus requiring very little sacrifice on his or his family’s part.
Trading and or purchasing carbon offsets is an emerging business, and CNSNews is also pursuing an investigative story into whether Gore or his company are making money from these offsets. It’s quite possible, for example, that GIM’s offsets actually produce financial benefits for the Gores either through tax deductions or even business profits.
A Gore spokesman refused to shed light on the personal net financial impacts to Gore, instead telling CNSNews that Mr. Gore, “as a private citizen, does not release his private income.”
Financial matters aside, what are the environmental impacts of Gore’s offsets?
I was surprised to find that even a leading advocate of carbon offsets acknowledge that they have no impact on global climate.
The Carbon Neutral Company – one of the two vendors that sell offsets to GIM – says that offset purchases “will be unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions… in the short term.”
Instead, they merely: (1) demonstrate commitment to taking action on climate change; (2) add an economic component to climate change; (3) help engage and educate the public; and (4) may provide local social and environmental benefits that help to encourage the use of low-carbon technologies.
The real design behind offsetting, then, is to impact the public debate, not to avert the dreaded global warming. This purpose is consistent with what I heard Al Gore say about the Kyoto Protocol following a private presentation of his climate slide show I attended at the Americans for Tax Reform offices in January, 2006.
“Did we think Kyoto would [reduce global warming] when we signed it [in 1997]?… Hell no!” said Gore. He then explained that the actual point of Kyoto was to demonstrate that international support could be mustered for action on environmental issues.
But it’s the carbon offset purchases through which Gore really validates application of the $300-man epithet to him. His company buys the offsets for their employees. There’s no cost to him. He benefits politically – and perhaps financially, as well – from them. He then advocates that the rest of us who cannot so easily offset are carbon production suffer myriad personal sacrifices.
While Gore relaxes in his posh pool house and heated pool, you should be taking shorter and colder showers, and hanging your laundry outside to dry. As Gore jets around the world in first-class comfort to hob-nob with society’s elites about his self-declared “moral imperative”, you should travel less and bike to work. You should use less electricity while Al and his wife, Tipper, use 20 times the national average. Now that’s a real carbon offset.
“Are you ready to change the way you live?” Gore literally meant you – and only you.
34. George | 06.20.08
Eoin, my apologies for misreading the satire of your article. After reading some of your other works i realized you must have been saying what you said in good humor. Unfortunately the close minded members of the American community have frequently said things similar to what you wrote in your article with no humor intended.
To those of you who would choose to deny the possibility of a man made cause for global warming:
To refuse to believe that it may be possible for air pollution, specifically greenhouse gases, to cause global warming is an exercise in ignorance. There has not been a single climatologist that can predict the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global climate change. So those of you who would suggest that we pay no attention to greenhouse gas emissions are suggesting that we embark on a planetary experiment to see what will happen when the pollution gets so bad that we can no longer do anything about it. Stop focusing on complaining about what our environmental problems are and start being part of a real solution. If you really are an advocate for air pollution then you should call you local representative and tell him/her that you would like to pollute our country as much as possible and you would appreciate he/she vote no on any environment initiative. This is America and your lack of altruistic nature as well as education has a right to be heard by your senators and representatives.
35. George | 06.20.08
Kim,
If I had heard you say the things you wrote in this blog in a conversation I would have been forced to leave you in silence. Not because I don’t want to hear what you have to say, but because I have already heard what you have to say. You are part of what the rest of the activist, politically involved, and humanitarian communities would call the delusional minority. I say this because you are not uninformed and uneducated, you are of a totally different bread. You are the same as the High School attendee who gets their news from the Daily Show or the Colbert Report, or for that matter FOX News. While Steven Milloy may be one of the most amusing news writers I’ve recently read, I get this horrible feeling of discomfort that he is the only person you are listening to.
While the other writers of this blog are trying to make sense of the science and economics behind our environmental concerns in America, you have chosen to ignore them both.
I sincerely wish I could give you a list of things to read so that you could have an open mind to factually based information but I think it would be safer for everyone to let you bask in the bliss of ignorance. I can only beg you to do your best to be open to the possibility that climate change may be a serious issue.
36. L Metzger | 06.20.08
Plain and simple…I would like to view his utility bills before and after and any upgrades during the process. Is there is a website that supports this information? Forgive me, I do not have time to review the blogs.
38. jimmy | 06.21.08
Here’s the deal: Al Gore is blowing his chance at changing the world by not practicing what he preaches. He has the ear of the world and his message is valid and important, but by choosing to subvert himself, his message falls on deaf and skeptical ears. Climate change is real, and we may play a part in it. REUSE, RECYCLING, CONSERVATION and CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR SURROUNDINGS AND OUR EFFECTS ON THEM are all fabulous policies. Al Gore’s personal choices are disappointing, but we have the power to overlook them and make the right choices ourselves. Turn down the water heater. Turn off the lights. Insulate. Ventilate. Strategically open and close blinds and windows to reduce the load on the HVAC. Don’t buy bottled water. Drive less and walk more. Drive more slowly. Turn off the T.V. and read more. Buy used books, clothes, toys and furniture. Think, think, THINK for yourself and the world will be a better, greener place.
39. Brian | 06.21.08
Just because energy is said to be green is no reason to be wasteful with it. Green energy costs more than regular electricity. Perhaps if Mr. Gore would conserve more energy, there would be more green electricity for others and it would be cheaper for them also.
He also owns three houses and flys exclusively on private jets.
Hypocrite
40. Starbuck | 06.21.08
Al Gore is another over blown windbag! He is a real goober whose only fans are those who are dumb or dumb.
Congrat, AL!
You have made zero contribution and made millions, violated the trust of the world and lost the tiny shred of credibility you had left.
Now you and Micheal Moore can disappear now.
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1. natasha | 06.18.08
So Gore is buying his electricity from renewable energy and zero to low emissions sources…. doesn’t that mean he purposely avoided energy sources that contribute to global warming? How does that debunk global warming?