I usually do not find much truth in emails that are sent around, but today I did get one that illustrates a great point. Here it is.
Look over the descriptions of the following two houses and see if you can tell which belongs to an environmentalist.
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 ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.
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 contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid 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 winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the 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. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape. The Chicago Tribune called this house “a model of environmental rectitude”
HOUSE # 1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.
HOUSE # 2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the former President of the United States, George W. Bush.
The great point of this is that you should be careful of blindly following someone just based upon what they say, especially a politician. As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words. I have written about the hypocrisy of Al Gore before so I already knew about his outrageous house just as I know of his outrageous global warming claims, but this really puts it into perspective comparing his home to the one he claims is destroying our environment. Maybe Al Gore should be following the example of George W. instead of criticizing him.
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Haha. This came out a while back; I believe that he has made some adjustments to his house since this became public, which makes everything even more amusing.
Whats even more amusing is that after Al Gore made some ‘green’ changes to his house, the same group went back and discovered his electricity usage actually went up another 10%. Poor Al Gore.