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February 27, 2007

Gore hit piece full of gaping holes

Something calling itself Tennessee Center for Policy Research issued a press release yesterday slamming Al Gore's alleged hypocrisy. But the most compelling feature of the piece is that it demonstrates my long-time contention that the average arch-conservative couldn't think his or her way out of a wet paper bag if their life depended on it.

Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth” Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average

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.

The fundamental problem with this report, which I first found posted by the resident rightwinger at a woodworking forum, is that it is classic demagoguery. It throws a bunch of figures out with the insinuation that they somehow demonstrate that Gore is a hypocrite. But in fact it demonstrates nothing of the sort.

The fact that the rightwing echo-chamber has jumped all over this simply demonstrates their own inability/unwillingness to think.

#1. How much electricity Gore's mansion uses would be utterly irrelevant to the issue of greenhouse gases if that electricity isn't generated from energy sources which emit greenhouse gases. And the fact that many of them probably do doesn't prove anything because the premise of Gore's documentary is not that humanity needs to use less electricity... it's that HOW we currently generate that electricity is causing problems.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much greenhouse gases 221,000 kWh of electricity generated by wind, solar or geothermal processes releases?

#2. Perhaps even more telling is this report citing Gore's alleged consumption of natural gas. Natural gas of course is the cleanest burning fossil fuel known to mankind. For example, burning it generates almost 30% less carbon dioxide as oil and just under 45% less than coal. So that means that Gore's alleged usage of natural gas in such large quantities actually demonstrates that he is relying heavily upon the cleanest commercially available energy source he has available to him.

But hey... the self-evident point of this report isn't greenhouse gases. It's about trying to embarass a perceived ideological opponent and fire up the conservative base in the process.

Posted by Kevin at February 27, 2007 09:20 AM