And the Oscar goes to...

[mr_gyptian]

An Inconvenient Hypocrite.

http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/...article_id=367

"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). . . . 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."

How many trees does Al have to plant to remain carbon neutral?

[Mott the Hoople]

Veeery interesting. Not surprising.

[Obstruction]

Well that seals it! Obviously everything he has to say about global warming is bullshit.

[rideit]

That is almost as bad a listening to Bush talk about the importance of education.

[Jer]

So the guy's a complete hypocrite - what else is new?

The thing that gets me is that the movie was beyond boring. I don't watch douchebag awards shows - what other documentaries was it up against??

[Grange]

First Nov. 7, 2006 and now the Oscars. The last few months have been rough for a conservative. Now that you got that off your chest don't you feel better.

[BigDaddy]

Al and Tipper looked a little "global" themselves, too. Scarey.

[Tippster]

On a related note, I got to hold an Oscar today for the first time... (no, not mine. ) It was this one, being held here at my work location for the weekend by it's rightful owner, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the director of the German film "The Lives of Others."



It's remarkably heavy.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Did you use it to crack walnuts?

[BigKuba]

...being held here at my work location for the weekend...

Are you sure you're not a sniper?

[MassLiberal]

Gore uses 100% green power, which is from renewable resources. Though he may use a lot of kilowatt hrs, those hours are not from carbon producing plants. Soo, what exactly is your point? That he's a bad man for turning on lights which have no impact on global warming????

He's never advocated that we should all live in the stone age without any power. So it seems like your only gripe is with the fact that he has a big house, and since when did the right have a problem with successful people??

[Chainsaw_Willie]

Really? So he's not hooked into the municipal power grid? He has his own windmill farm or solar cells or something?

[MassLiberal]

The TVA has a program called "green power switch," which allows uses to buy their power from green sources rather than conventional plants. Similar programs are available throughout the country.

[backpack]

Yea, in Utah it's called "Blue Skies" and obviously you don't get a private power line from a wind turbine, but the small fee you pay each month allows the power company to buy X KWh of power from wind projects and use it on the grid. My family does it.

[splat]

Blue Skies.

Sounds like a self-negating spin name for a Bush-sponsored coal industry subsidy.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

So let's see if I understand this.

You can pay a little extra to receive all your electricity from a "green" (carbon neutral) source.

The capacity to generate electricity is finite.

Most electricity is generated by carbon emitting methods.

Demand is not reduced by simply shifting the percentages of electricity generated by any particular source around among all consumers.

Therefore, buying "green" electricity does nothing to reduce overall demand, which in turn does nothing to reduce total carbon emissions. There are only two ways to actually reduce the amount of carbon emitted:

1) Reduce the total demand for electricity

2) Increase the percentage of total electricity generated by green methods at a rate faster than the overall growth in demand, allowing the use of carbon emitting methods to be decreased overall, not just as a percentage of the total.

See the problem here? See the hypocrisy revealed by Gore's actions?

I'll restate with a very simple analogy which assumes everyone uses the same amount of energy, or in this case, candy covered chocolates.

I have 1000 yummy M&Ms chocolate candies. 800 of them are brown and 200 of them are green. There are 100 people who want these M&Ms and are willing to pay me for them. If each pays the same, each will receive 8 browns and two greens. If anyone wishes to pay me more, he can have all greens. If one person chips in the extra, he will get ten greens, leaving the remaining 190 greens and 800 browns to be divided among the other 99 people. At most, 20 people can pay extra for greens before the supply of greens is all spoken for, leaving the other 80 people with ten browns each, and no greens. The overall demand for M&Ms has not decreased nor has the amount of browns and greens being supplied. Only the pattern of distribution has changed and my profits have been maximized when 20 people pay the premium for all greens.

The only way to reduce the number of brown M&Ms being consumed is for people to simply buy less M&Ms overall, assuming all greens will be distributed any time total demand meets or exceeds 200 M&Ms.

[Tippster]

As long as you use the extra money you made to create more green M&Ms than brown I have absolutely no problem with your analogy.

[Mrs Roo]

Helen Mirren for Queen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(She smiles a bit more than the current one)

[f2f]

some numbers from here:

Electric bills obtained by The Tennessean, however, showed that Gore is paying a premium on his bills to be part of the “green power” program. Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.

That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program - is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.

The green power purchased by Gore in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans, or recycling 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the utility's Web site.

[Tippster]

Helen Mirren for Queen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(She smiles a bit more than the current one)

She has nicer boobs too. HM for HM indeed!

[MassLiberal]

some numbers from here:

Electric bills obtained by The Tennessean, however, showed that Gore is paying a premium on his bills to be part of the “green power” program. Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.

That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program - is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.

The green power purchased by Gore in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans, or recycling 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the utility's Web site.

Not only that, but it's important to remember that both Gore and his wife run full time offices out of their house. Offices tend to use more power than the average home does.

Gore also purchases offsets, which couteract the carbon he does cause to be emitted when he travels, farts or whatever. These offset go towards helping the poor install better insulation in their homes, or towards other carbon dioxide depleting programs.

Now, if you want to argue that his purchasing of offsets is elitist since it is not a course available to people with less purchasing power, then by all means, hammer that point home, but then it is the republicans who are hypocritical as they are engaging in that whole "class warfare" debate which they seem to abhor.

[ECbum]

Group questions level of energy use at Gore home
High electric billing records show 'green power' also was purchased

By ANNE PAINE
Staff Writer

A day after a film about his efforts to combat global warming won an Oscar, former Vice President Al Gore was called a hypocrite by a Tennessee group that said his Belle Meade home is consuming too much energy.

The home's average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.

"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 Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, identified as a free-market think tank.

Gore's power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.

Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.

The green power Gore purchased in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on NES' Web site.

NES joined the TVA program in 2000 to give power customers a way to support environmentally sound sources of electricity. The Tennessean could not determine when Gore signed up for green power.

NES gets its electricity from TVA. Most is produced from coal, which emits carbon, a greenhouse gas. A lesser amount comes from nuclear power and a small amount from hydroelectric.

An Inconvenient Truth, the movie about Gore's global warming battle, details how greenhouse gases are trapping heat next to the earth, causing a changing climate with melting ice caps and more violent storms.

"Every family has a different carbon footprint," said Kalee Krider, a spokeswoman for Gore. The Gores' 10,000-square-foot house on Lynnwood Boulevard has a large one.

The Green Power Switch program isn't all that Gore and his wife, Tipper, are doing, Krider said.

They use compact fluorescent light bulbs and are in the midst of a renovation project that includes having solar panels installed on their home to reduce fossil fuel consumption, she said.

Their car? A Lexis hybrid SUV.

"They, of course, also do the carbon emissions offset," she said.

That means figuring out how much carbon is emitted from home power use, and vehicle and plane travel, then paying for projects that will offset that with use of renewable energy, such as solar power.

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said.

Johnson, whose group usually focuses on government spending issues, said he "doesn't differ much from Al Gore on his environmental concerns."

"We went into this just asking the question, 'Is the leader of the environmental movement basically living up to his word?' Given that he's a Tennessean, I thought it's a question we should ask."

What they found is someone whose home uses as much power in a month as an average family would use in a year, he said.

In addition to the electric bill, the natural gas bill for Gore's home and guesthouse ran $1,080 per month last year, Johnson said.

"For someone in his position not to take steps to reduce his own energy consumption is disingenuous," he said. "He's simply not taking all the steps he can take and should take as the leader of the environmental movement."

Rather than attacking one man — Gore — Johnson and his group should be taking a larger view and trying to make a difference to reduce global warming, Krider said.

That should include helping to get government and corporations, which are big energy users, on board to reduce energy and move to renewable resources, she said.

"They're trying to single out one person rather than look at the big picture," Krider said.

[RootSkier]

I don't really have much of an opinion on Gore either way. I voted for him, but I think he is the epitome of 'blah'. However, that is a FUCKLOAD of energy usage. Can't quite figure out how you could use that much electricity and gas.

One would think the Gores would build a super efficient house as a model to others.

[mr_gyptian]

The TVA has a program called "green power switch," which allows uses to buy their power from green sources rather than conventional plants. Similar programs are available throughout the country.

no, it allows them to buy 150 kwh blocks that get put into the pool of energy. he does not have a private line to green energy.

[gorms]

Great global warming show on C-span last night
the spaeker was the head of NASAs Goddard institute--storng-straight forward interpretations of what is going on with the science

It was on the "newsmakers" program---see if you cant find it on a replay