I was astounded by the irony of this, so I thought I would share it.
I’m sure everyone has probably heard by now about how Al Gore’s house in Tennessee uses somewhere around 20 times more electricity than the national average.
As someone who has personally taken steps to reduce my own electricity usage by switching out lightbulbs, using a programmable thermostat and switching to Green Mountain Energy for my electricity, I can say that I am personally disappointed.
Sure, all offsets his carbon usage, but can’t he help set a better example for us? Why wouldn’t he take some steps to really green up his house, since he obviously has the money for it.
Maybe he should call George W, and ask for his advice!
I had completely forgotten about this until I read this terrific blog post reminding me that Bush’s ranch house in Crawford was built from the ground up with sustainability in mind.
Here is an excerpt from the post, which I encourage you to check out.
The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.
Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this “eco-friendly” dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.
A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.
No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.
That sounds like a “Gore house.” Can you believe that they are describing the Crawford, Texas ranch of President Bush? Believe me, I am no George Bush fan, but what kind of bizzaro world is this if Bush has a lower carbon footprint than Gore? And given the size of Bush’s ranch house in comparison to what I expect is the size of Gore’s mansion, I would say that is a distinct possibility.
FYI, Gore’s mansion in question is approximately 10,000 square feet, compared to the President’s ranch house, which is around 4,000.
Like I said before, is that ironic, or what?
I guess it’s right up there with the irony of George W Bush as the governor of Texas jumpstarting the state into becoming the biggest generator of wind energy in the US.
Pat Wood, a friend of the president, was chairman of Texas’s Public Utility Commission when the push for wind energy started.
“At the end of a meeting on transmission policy in mid-1996,” he recalled, “I was on my way out the door of the governor’s office, when Governor Bush said to me, ‘Pat, we like wind.’ He was at his desk. I said, ‘We what?’ He said: ‘You heard me. Go get smart on wind.’ ”
Mr. Wood, his fellow commissioners and the Texas utilities did just that. They conducted polls and were stunned by the results: Texas electricity customers were ready to pay a little extra to get more clean renewable energy. So Mr. Bush instructed Mr. Wood to work on wind with the utilities and the environmentalists. Together, they created the Texas Renewable Portfolio Mandate, which Mr. Bush got passed by the Texas Legislature in 1999, as part of a power competition bill. The mandate stipulated that Texas power companies had to produce 2,000 new megawatts of electricity from renewables, mostly wind, by 2009.
What happened? A dozen new companies jumped into the Texas market and built wind turbines to meet the mandate — so many that the 2,000-megawatt goal was reached in 2005. So now the Texas Legislature has upped the mandate to 5,000 megawatts by 2015. Everyone knows they’ll beat that, too, because all this investment has driven down the costs and made wind power in Texas competitive with clean coal, nuclear and natural gas, even without the temporary tax break. Mr. Wood says he thinks Texas could be producing 15 percent of all its energy from renewables by 2015.
My brain hurts just thinking about it!
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Perhaps you should read skippy’s post where he points out that the right wing noise machine puts out hot air and noxious fumes – in other words, they lie about Al Gore once again.
I agree with the above comment. When I heard the hype surrounding the “irony” of it all etc, etc… I was suspicious of the right’s likely hand in blowing things out of proportion. Or perhaps it was another democratic nominee trying to harm Gore’s chances as a party leader in the coming presidential elections. Either way the fact remains that Mr. Gore has done an amazing job of raising public awareness about global warming.
The practical environmentalist is an excellent resource that is listed in the renewable energy directory – environment blogs category.
Let’s not forget that Al Gore is a big profiteer from the Energy Initiatives he supports as well. It would be nice if the mighty $ wasn’t making all of our politicians decisions for them.
BTW, the science behind his movie is not yet conclusive and there is plenty of opposition by very influential and well respected climatologists. Maybe Al should have titled his movie “An unproven truth” or “not really truth at all” or even something like “still unproven claim” to really qualify as documentary and not be fiction.
The same people that encouraged GW to build an eco ranch house are pushing PV-PHEV at pluginamerica.org
The unfortunate part of the story is that GWB has yet to encourage the American public to follow his example on houses. Al Gore at least has retrofitted his 1910 mansion with state-of-the-art insulation and PV and solar hot water and upgraded his appliances. Allegedly Al is also hooked up with qtww.com
I have to completely agree with this article, its bull when you have a guy like that who doesn’t practice what he preaches, and another point to add to that is his gas consumption. He’s supposedly doing all he can to lower emissions as he’s flying his jet around the world burning more fuel in a year than most people will burn in their lives. Talk about a good example.
In the late 80’s Bush Sr put the energy policy act and clean air act to work which stimulated the development of todays alternative energy technology then Mr. Gore helped end that era with mandates that replaced tax breaks.. ending a lot od R&D as well as demonstration projects that were often privately funded.
The two Mr. Bush’s will have to wait and let the historians do their homework and hopefully the truth about their own privately funded “green engineered” homes. The far left neo-environmentalists ( I used to be one) would accomplish something useful if they could put politics aside and find out why people like Mr Bush and his papa built their energy efficient low environmental impact homes. I wonder who their architects were? They deserve some credit too.
Ah, but Travis – he’s ‘important’! In his own mind, because he’s showing the rest of us the light, his own personal behaviour is excused. Unfortunately, this is how any successful politician thinks – the ones who don’t think like this aren’t mean enough to rise to high office. It should be a disqualification from the job to want to do it.