GORE THE GUZZLER
March 1, 2007 -- How big is Al Gore's carbon footprint?
Pretty hefty.
Gore grabbed an Oscar Sunday night for his global-warming horror flick, "An Inconvenient Truth" - and took the opportunity to lecture America about its duty to Go Green and stay there.
Now a Tennessee think tank has revealed an inconvenient truth of its own - about what Gore actually practices, as opposed to what he endlessly preaches.
The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, using public records, calculated the Gores' energy use for the past two years at their new 20-room, 10,000-square-foot home in suburban Nashville.
In all, the main house and the pool house used an average 18,414 kilowatt-hours (KWH) of power a month last year; that's 14 percent more the 16,200 monthly KWH they devoured in 2005.
Thus does the carbon footprint - the amount of greenhouse gas generated to keep Gore in kilowatts - grow.
But just how much juice is that?
Well, average national household use is 10,656 KWH. For an entire year, that is.
Al and Tipper beat that monthly.
For perspective, the average residential customer in New York City skimped by on just 300 KWH a month, or 3,600 a year - less than 2 percent of Gore's use.
OK, so that's mostly for apartments.
Up in Westchester, where most customers own comfortably large homes, the average monthly usage is 450 KWH, or 5,400 KWH a year - still under 3 percent of what the Gores consume.
As for cost, the average New York City residential energy bill last month was $62.88 before taxes, according to Con Edison; in Westchester, it was $81.80.
What about the Gores?
They paid $1,359 a month for electricity - or about $16,000 per year.
No doubt one could raise a family on that in Tennessee - though not in a home quite as large as Gore's.
And just how big is that palace, comparatively speaking?
Take your typical 800-square-foot, one-bedroom Manhattan pad: You could fit 121/2 of them inside the Gores' abode.
A spokeswoman for Gore didn't dispute the figures, but insisted the former Second Family purchases enough energy from renewable sources to offset their sizable carbon footprint.
No doubt.
But that's just another way of saying that the rich truly are different.
Gore, a Kyoto Protocol advocate, has enough socked away so he won't miss a meal should that treaty ever be adopted - and wreck the U.S. economy.
It was the fear of such damage, recall, that led the U.S. Senate - Veep Al Gore presiding - to reject Kyoto 95-0.
What a hypocrite he is.
And he's not alone.
As The Los Angeles Times reported this week, two of California's greenest pols - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein - continue to flit around on their private Gulfstream jets.
A single cross-country flight on such an aircraft emits up to 90,000 pounds of carbon dioxide - nearly double the amount the average American produces from all activities in an entire year.
Meanwhile, Laurie David, producer of that Gore documentary, also uses private Gulfstreams - though she rebukes those driving SUVs. (She now says she's cutting back on her private jet usage - but gradually, like a smoker trying to quit.)
And so it goes.
Gore always was tiresome.
Obviously nothing has changed.
AI
