The truth is non-partisan

Some facts inconveniently left out of here are --

* The Gore home is NOT an average home. It is four times larger than an average home, it is used as an office for both Al and Tipper, and this is a 70-year old home! They were not built energy efficient back then. HOWEVER --

* This year Gore was finally given the green light by city planners to install solar panels and other green additions at his mansion. Previously, town zoning laws did not permit residents of the upscale neighborhood to install solar energy technology because they were considered generators, and therefore, unsightly. Gore had been quietly protesting these laws for some years, but when an audit of his energy use surfaced in February he was raked over the coals, even though plans were underway to make his home more efficient and eco-friendly. Now he’s able to make green renovations in addition to the solar panels; he is also upgrading the furnace, windows, and light switches, as well as installing new floor radiant heat and solar vents, to improve the home’s energy standards
(ref: http://www.ecorazzi.com/?cat=21&paged=3)

* Gore pay a premium in order to get some of their electricity from Green sources. He purchases enough energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance 100 percent of his electricity use.

Sometimes when people don’t like the message -- in this case that global warming is real -- it’s convenient to attack the messenger. Should Gore work on the energy consumption level of his house? Yes, of course, and he IS doing so! Should the CURRENT energy consumption of his home obscure his efforts to alert the country and the world to an impending crisis, as this sniggering email tries to do? Of course not!

Individual homes aside, this email, which has been circulating for a while, is a scurrilous attempt to divert attention from the fact that Al Gore (as a private citizen without any responsibility to lead the world) has worked very hard to draw attention to and to find solutions for the problem of global warming. Meanwhile George Bush (as President of the greatest country on Earth and thus the person with the greatest responsibility of anyone on Earth to lead the world) has dragged his feet in getting our country to pay attention to this impending global crisis.
 

Dear Rick or is your name Bob - This is the second comment I have received with the same content but different names. No last name. No indication of who you are. Obviously, you are part of a PR effort to discredit claims about Gore's extravagance and to put Gore in a favorable light. Private citizen Gore is not a private citizen - he is a celebrity who is pushing an agenda and his own brand of fear. Gore is determined to see government action that will control our lives and harm our economy. And Gore bases his agenda on bad science. Richard Lindzen wrote in the April 12, 2006 Wall Street Journal, "Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today....
But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."
-John Fisher