An e-mail is circulating (again) comparing two interesting homes.
House #1: A 20 room mansion ( not including 8 bathrooms ) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool ( and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern 'snow belt' area. It's in the South.The punchline of hte e-mail is that the first house belongs to Al Gore, and the second house is the Crawford ranch house of President George W. Bush.House #2: Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.
Whenever I receive e-mails like this, I check Snopes to see if the story is true. In almost every case, the story is an urban legend -- and I promptly inform the sender (in the vain hope I'll get fewer of these messages in the future). In this case, however, it turns out the story is basically true. Go figure.
On the one hand, it leaves out the fact that Al Gore owns several other homes. On the other, it leaves out the fact that Bush *doesn't have to live in the Crawford Ranch*. He's been an occupant of the White House for the past seven years, and before that he was Governor of Texas for five years (and thus lived in the Governor's Mansion). Obviously, it's much easier to have a smaller house when you spend most of your time in a taxpayer funded palace.
It will be a much more relevant question what sort of house President Bush chooses to live in once he has to have an actual full-time (or reasonably close) private residence.
I wish all new construction used the same principles as Bush's ranch, and I think it's great he had it built that way, but I don't think we need to demolish all the older houses in the country. It does sound as though Gore needs to install some more insulation, though.
What ever could have led me to believe that was not the case?
"On the one hand, it leaves out the fact that Al Gore owns several other homes."
Yes, it is worse. He's probably wasting energy there too.
"Obviously, it's much easier to have a smaller house when you spend most of your time in a taxpayer funded palace."
But Al is not a full time resident at his 10,000 square foot home. He galavants around the world and to his other homes wasting jet fuel ranting about Global Warming.
I'm surprised that with the hot air and body heat he and Tipper put out, that they need to heat the home at all when they are home...
It is instead something I've seen often at Instapundit.
I'll believe that we are in an ecological crisis caused by over-consumption when the people who tell me it is a crisis begin acting like it is a crisis.
When Gore retrofits his home with a geothermal heating system, I'll begin to believe his claims that Human-generated Greenhouse Gases are causing critical damage to the global climate.
You don't think a couple dozen offices might contribute to the energy bill just a bit?
also, "basically true" is also incomplete, failing to note that Gore renovated his house well over a year ago to conform to LEED gold standards, making it among the most efficient in the country.
But, don't let little things like facts get in the way of a partisan "gotcha" right?
AP news story regarding Gore's work last fall
I mean, do you really want Ed Begley Jr. to never fly?
So, are you convinced about Global Warming yet, karrde?
Gore asserts (and I have no reason to doubt) that he purchases "carbon offsets" and renewably-generated electricity to neutralize the climate consequences of his energy usage. I don't know anything about the reasons his home uses so much energy, how many people live there, what steps he has taken to reduce its power consumption, and so on, and without such knowledge I'm a bit reluctant to criticize him. But given the quoted numbers, it certainly seems as though he could find ways to reduce power usage, even given the size of the house. He could still purchase the same carbon offsets and be "carbon negative" rather than "carbon neutral".
But for both Bush and Gore, the environmental effect of the energy consumed by their personal living spaces is tiny compared to the effect that they create through their public action and advocacy. I'm not going to assert my opinion on which of the two is better for the environment, but I will say that you can safely ignore their *personal* energy consumption when trying to decide this question.
If you read either of the articles posted, they bought the 80 year old house in 2002 and have been continuously renovating it since.
Further, the articles note that their prior house was considerably more energy efficient than average.
This whole story is pretty silly.
So he renovated his house after his hypocracy became public?
But if you want to discuss this, you could try using The Google and learn more. Snopes reports the email started going around in March 2007. I wonder if anything could have possibly happened since then? In just a few minutes, I found Fox News reporting on the Gores' house decreasing its natural gas use by 93%, earning LEED-Gold certification, and decreasing its electricity use by 11% last summer (as compared to the year before) when most other houses had a 20-30% increase because of a heat wave. Oh, and it's 80 years old. And it's an office in addition to a house. More facts indicate that he had been planning a renovation even before this information came out. For example, he tried to install solar panels on his roof but couldn't because of local zoning rules.
karrde:
Start believing!
MXE:
Maybe not, but it does inflate his monthly energy bill (i.e. if he weren't buying offsets, it would be hundreds of dollars cheaper).
ejo
No. Just on a rational level, whether you argue for a big government or a small one, can we not all recognize that building planning, approval, and construction usually takes a long time?
The mendacity of this inane post...
What NGO does Al Gore run? None, as far as I know.
See 11:47
Gore lived in the Naval Observatory for 8 years so he also lived in taxpayer funded digs for quite a while.
Let's examine Gore's other homes now. How many homes does one family need, by the way?
Then we can go on to John Edwards.
I'm quite impressed by the green features of Bush's vacation home in Texas...
Its not his vacation home, it his only permanent residence. Sure he is living temporarily in the White House, but I hear his lease is up and won't be renewed.
1) We don't actually have a comparison here, because we don't know what the energy/water usage for the Bush house is -- we're just assured that the Bush house is well designed.
2) The claim that "[i]n natural gas alone, [the Gore's] property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home," seems designed to obscure the fact that lots and lots of homes don't consume any gas, or use only stove gas, because they rely on other energy sources. Another page at snopes indicates that Gore's gas bills average $1,080 a month. That's a lot, but it's nothing like 20 times my gas bills (it might be 3 times, which would make sense given that his house is bigger than mine, and there is a guest house).
3) Generally, there is a lot of spurious wordsmithing in the descriptions. For example, the 20-room Gore house is described as a "mansion." That's a big house, but mansion is extravagant: my own not-so-large house is 12 rooms, depending on how you count, and there are bigger houses on my street. Likewise, the fact that the Bush house is "nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest" probably makes it very scenic, but it's unclear why we're supposed to think that building a house in an extremely rural area is good for the environment.
4) The really shocking statistic is the Gore's electricity use. The page I linked above suggests that the Gores use in well excess of 200,000 kWh annually. My own household uses perhaps 10,000, which is a shade under the national average. I really don't understand how that differential is even possible, even taking into account that (i) the Gore's house is probably 3x bigger than mine, and (ii) the Gores use the house as an office, whereas my wife and I are gone during the day. I understand that the Gores have admitted this report to be substantially correct, so I'm not disputing it, but it still puzzles me. (Insert joke about "grow room" here.)
If you can't be a good example, people will doubt your cause and sincerity. I'm not sure Gore cares, which is sad.
For example, [Gore] tried to install solar panels on his roof but couldn't because of local zoning rules.
Zoning laws, and even private residential association rules, that bar satellite dishes are preempted by federal law. Zoning laws that bar cell phone towers are also preempted (IIRC, at least in part) by federal law. You would think that we would do the same for solar panels and the like.
BTW leadership includes leading by example. If a clergyman preaches against adultery, should he not also be faithful? I don't get this argument that Gore's personal habits are not relevant. He has taken up the role of an environmental moralizer, and as such he should practice what he preaches.
Gore also seems to promote himself as some kind of global warming authority. This from a man who took one or two watered down science courses in college and got a grade of "D." His book is a joke. It has no index, no table of contents and not a single reference. I do give him kudos for recognizing that immigration causes increased energy use and environmental pollution. In this respect he stand far above the other morons running for president.
But his views on global warming are the result of a recent epiphany. It's not like he held the first Congressional hearings on it back in the 70s...
It seems obvious that if you increase the number of people in this country, you increase our dependence on foreign oil, decrease open space, increase electrical usage, and on and on.
But most environmentalists prefer to put their heads in the sand and not see the obvious rather than appear xenophobic.
And when exactly was Bush going to admit that the nice energy-saving off-grid features of his own home are a good idea for everyone and approve federal incentives for them? Because as things look now it he must be thinking more about making the place a shelter when the economy tanks than anything else.
People generally don't get the straw man arguments that they create—that's the whole point of a straw man.
The critique isn't that his personal habits aren't relevant. Rather, that comparing the personal homes of Bush v. Gore is like discussing the quality of Marc Dann's AG-themed pick up lines he used at the office—it's missing the point almost completely. Yes, Gore could do better (and he is doing better) but taken as a whole, he has done significant good (where "good" is defined as "raising awareness of global warming and working towards preventing it). Especially compared to the EPA.
Unfortunately, some news channels, conservative organizations, and other individuals have transformed an honest criticism of Gore into "but he's doing it so we don't have to listen to him at all because he's doing it so there actually isn't any global warming by the way did you know that he's doing it?!?!" They fallaciously seek to dismiss global warming with an ad hominem attack against Al's personal behavior. That's what I, and others, object to.
I think there is another way to view the personal criticism of Gore. Though there is certain a an ad hominem element, there is also a substantial disconnect between his personal conduct and the rhetoric he has used to describe global warming.
If global warming is a moral cause, as he has stated, why should we make a moral exception for him just because he is raising awareness? To make an extreme example: killing people is wrong, but I would never be justified to murder people to bring awareness to that fact. His invocation of morality is at least ambiguous when compared to his behavior. In other words, why should we apply an "on-the-whole" analysis to his conduct? I already pollute less than he does. Why is he lecturing me again? Why should be make a moral allowance for him? That is not a morality that I recognize--it is politics. I don't mean to use politics prejoratively, but it is the most accurate descriptive term I've got.
Furthermore, Gore often talks of the necessity of making sacrifices and has espoused policies that would require me (for example) to either pay more for things or do without them. When someone tells me to make sacrifices and threatens to use the power of the state to compel me to do so, I take an interest in that person's personal conduct. A substantial disconnect between rhetoric and behavior suggests to me that Gore may be more interested in power than in the good of the earth.
But I won't deny that there is an element of "gotcha" involved. But it is not per se out of bounds to compare a public figure's rhetoric to his or her conduct.
Gore by his actions doesn't really seem to believe in global warming.
Without stepping into the other parts of the discussion (ew), I can confirm that he does, at least sometimes. I've been on the same flight with him. He and Tipper were in 1st class, though, so folks can keep making elitist jokes. (I got bumped up to business class, yay.) This was in 2003, I can recall, because I was headed to what turned out to be a really bad conference that I never attended again. Don't know where he was going.
Yeah, that misspelling crops up a lot on VC. Never fails to provide a good laugh.
YOU are the one with the logical fallacy - you are assuming the question, or perhaps committing circular reasoning, depending on how you want to interpret what you've said.
The question is not "What do we do about global warming?" or even "Is global warming real?", it's "Does the guy claiming global warming is real and that we should do a lot of things about actually believe that?"
The answer is a resounding, "NO!"
So, instead of "doing good", this puts him in the "fraudulent huckster" category.
And this is independent of the truth or lack thereof in anthropogenic global warming.
Is the point that to immigrate one must travel, and travel increases global warming? That might well be true as far as it goes, but it's an argument against travel in general, not merely an argument against immigration.
I cannot speak to Federal, but in many states solar panels are protected in part. I live in a national historic district. I can put panels anywhere I want. A few streets over, the local historic district starts and they are restricted. The zoning overlay cannot prohibit panels outright but they can limit them. In our area, they are limited to the sides of the home not visible from the street. That wouldn't be a problem for my North-facing home. I'd prefer to have them on the South face anyway. However, if your home is South-facing, you would need more panels to generate the same quantity of electricity as my roof could or you would need to place them somewhere else in your back yard.
It's not immigration to the USA causes global warming. It's immigration to the USA increases the demands for energy in this country, making us more dependent on foreign oil. It also increases pollution in this country. It reduces open space in this country. These are real, tangible and happening now problems in this country. Global warming isn't the only environmental issue.
Of course, whether or not we should enforce lower SOL on people to prevent AGW is a thorny debate I'm sure most greenies are desperate to avoid...
any more of that type of reasonable commentary will get you banned from this web site ...
Ah, distract and obfuscate. Keep trying troll.
Most carbon offsets are scams. For example, the money goes to plant trees in a third world country (can't do it here because it would be too expensive, and we have plenty of trees already). They then take credit for the next 100 years of carbon sequestration - now. So, they fly by private jet today, and pay for it over the next 100 years. But then it gets worse - typically money is not set aside for taking care of the trees over the next 100 years, and, indeed, in places with a shortage of water (and hence one reason there aren't that many trees), water is not acquired. Thus, we are already seeing whole groves of these trees dying. And, of course, some of the carbon sequestration allegedly caused by the growing trees is lost when they die and decompose. Do you think that those who took the 100 year credit are treating this as a debit?
Many of the carbon offset schemes are no better. Another one was giving away better bulbs in South Africa, where those who wanted to avail themselves of the bulbs would have to travel distances to get them.
This is the way that Al Gore justifies his expansive energy use and carbon footprint.
Nobody has talked about Al Gore's house in a while. Hey, anyone remember when he invented the intertubes? (What? I combined a joke with a Republican misstatement? Sorry, I'll do better next time.)
Expect a similar thing about Obama suddenly becoming a muslim again, but not really, but this forwarded email I got said he was, so this is going to be an issue in the general. Soon. Really, it will, tell your friends.
Hey Bruce, do you know what your energy/carbon footprint is? Are you interested in reducing it?
I know mine: .54 of the average American household, .61 of the average carbon. (Quibble about significant digits if you want, but we are well below the average, make well above the average yearly income, and I still fly a lot. No, I don't buy offests.)
If you don't care, then that's OK, lots don't. But then you shouldn't beat up on others, because it ain't a problem, right? If you do care, then you should know.
Google news search:
"McCain attacks Obama" = 158 hits
"Obama attacks McCain" = 1 hit
But to check my carbon or energy footprint would require that I believed first in the models behind those estimates and secondly in AGW. So, I don't.
Huh?
Gore has been declaring that "the Earth faces a planetary catstrophe within ten years" since circa 1992.
Think about it. If Gore actually believed what he says, then he would certainly be a traitor to the entire human race due to his profligate personal waste of resources. Therefore, he knows that his alarmism is bogus. QED.
For an interesting take on Gore's scam, see here.
[peer-reviewed source]
regardless of whether you think the carbon neutrality created by carbon offsets makes up for the pollution the people purchasing them cause, that's really not the point.
Al Gore/John Edwards can write a check to pay for a couple thousand bucks a year worth of carbon offsets without blinking an eye. If they expect American people to sacrifice to reduce pollution, they should be sacrificing themselves, not engaging in some meaningless gesture that doesn't have any effect on their standard of living.
Not necessarily. It depends where the people are moving from. If the person moves from rural Mexico to rural Iowa, yeah, that's probably just a shift from Country A to Country B and any increase is just attributable to the increased standard of living. But if you move a person from Sao Paulo to the Miami suburbs, it's an entirely different dynamic. Most of the US is a lot more decentralized than a lot of other parts of the world and our carbon footprints are higher just because of that fact.
His "carbon offsets" stuff - basically he's saying that cutting back is just for the little people, despite Gore et al are the biggest polluters there are. But don't let the facts get in the way of their elitist lifestyle - only the masses should sacrifice.
I may believe that Gore thinks global warming is serious. (However, he appears to one of few among many of the purveyors of Anthropogenic Global Warming Doom and Gloom to have done so.)
But there are other reasons to believe that whatever warming is happening on Earth may have primary causes that are larger than human activity.
I return to my original statement: Gore may have upgraded his house. Does anyone have numbers on the carbon footprint of the house? Were the changes cosmetic or fundamental to the mentioned energy bills and kilowattage burned?
Isn't it neat how in Al Gore's world the rich can continue to live like they want to - they only have to buy Carbon Offsets. From Al Gore. Making him Rich. Neat.
But we little people - we can't just drive our SUVs, keep our thermostats at 72 degrees and eat what we want to and expect the world to be OK with that (just ask Obama).
"Birth Rates Among Immigrants in America"
www.cis.org/articles/2005/back1105.html
No idea how accurate this is.
I know nothing about carbon offsets, but charging for pollution sounds like a reasonable method of reducing it to me.
My vote is for carbon taxes, as long as they are offset by other tax cuts to those paying the carbon taxes. The temptation of course is to just impose the tax and run with the proceeds, which ultimately means spending that money on earmarks to get reelected while causing a recession through the excess taxation.
Cap and trade only works if the "cap" is hard (firm) and is set below existing levels. But it also invariably introduces major distortions into the market when some industries are rewarded for past behavior, while other emerging industries are penalized for not being around earlier.
And, of course, we have discussed carbon offsets above - modern day indulgences, with about as much effect. Religious indulgences didn't work before the Reformation, and the ones Al Gore are selling don't work today, except to get those selling them rich.
It appears from some of the posts above that the main point of the story is no longer "basically true" - Gore has updated his house (which he bought in the condition described only a few years ago) and it now is LEED-certified. But some of the other commenters still seem to be taking you at your word that it is true. Do you think it's worth clarifying with an update in the main post?
But even if it were true, I'm puzzled by the logic of those who say that this would prove that Gore doesn't really believe in climate change. The personal behavior of Bush, Cheney, and many others in support of the Iraq war doesn't involve serious sacrifice in service of the war effort -- and in many ways (remember "Bring it on!") has undermined their own goals -- but I don't doubt that they truly believed it was a good idea when they started it (and may still believe that today). Really, though, I have no idea what they are or were thinking - I think the war was a terrible idea but their personal behavior has nothing to do with it. What makes you believe that Gore's behavior is evidence of anything at all? And why do you care, and believe that others should care? If he lived in a 700-square-foot hut powered entirely by solar energy and never traveled, you would still hate him and his cause. This is a silly distraction.
In contrast, Al Gore, who has been railing against climate change for, what, 30 years, only tries to upgrade his recently purchased house after his excessive carbon use is exposed. As others have pointed out, he travels the world for conferences and speeches (events for which he is financially compensated) using the most ineffecient means possible. Even his carbon offsets (a flawed approach at best) are problematic given the failures listed by other commenters.
Bush has made the honest effort to show his concern for those serving in the war on terror within the limits of his office. Is it too much to ask that Gore decline to charge his full speaking fee in exchange for him delivering his keynote speech via video conference?
Regardless of whether one "believes" in global warming, this silly argument fails by completely misunderstanding collective action problems. Also, by quoting Reynolds, but that's an easy punch.
I know mine: .54 of the average American household, .61 of the average carbon. (Quibble about significant digits if you want, but we are well below the average...." ---->
I would be MORE interested in knowing what each and every lawyer and judge's energy/carbon footprint is.
I noticed in the descriptions of the two houses, there was no mention whatsoever about whether there was Internet access or any PAPER usage/storage/disposal problem, or the #of vehicles maintained at the compounds.
For every house with PAPERLESS electronic Internet format access, there is a corresponding REDUCTION in #s vehicle trips to physical "briek and mortar" Courthouses, as well as a corresponding REDUCTION in the demand for print PAPEr products coming from Pulp and Paper mills causing HUGE mercury and carbon emissions.
Everyone thinks President Bush just sits around in the White House, but he is actually one of the most carbon-reduction-green Presidents in American History for converting the ENORMOUS carbon footprint Federal Bureaucracy print PAPER debacle into a more lean and green electronic Internet streamlined government. See e.g. e-strategy.gov.
"McCain attacks Obama" = 158 hits
"Obama attacks McCain" = 1 hit
Huh?" ----->
I think the original poster was referring to the desperation McCain supporters feel (to the necessity of obsessively making 158 hits) that McCain will lose the general election to Obama, as compared to the confidence level Obama supporters feel (feeling secure in making ony 1 hit) that obama is going to WIN THE PRESIDENCY.
DEAL WITH IT.