First, let me make it clear that I don’t have any negative political baggage with Al Gore. However, his claim that it’s OK for him to have a huge house with a gigantic power bill because he offsets consumption by purchasing carbon credits in other countries doesn’t hold water.
What if everybody did that, Al? The economic theory is sound on an industrial level, but it doesn’t mean we could all do that. It is absolutely more efficient to spend a million bucks making a Chinese coal plant cleaner than it is to spend that much on an American plant (which is already pretty efficient, low hanging fruits and all that), but it doesn’t mean that we can all live in mansions. It’s tantamount to eating caviar and paying a hobo not to bitch about being hungry.
People who want to reduce global carbon emissions while running up a $5000 a month utility bill are basically saying that they hope most of the world’s population will never achieve a level of economic success remotely near theirs.
I hereby pit people who think the answer to global warming is taking the subway a few times a week, turning the lights off when they leave the room, and buying some carbon credits if they happen to be rich. The only remotely feasible medium term solution that might stick and doesn’t involve making a lot of people much worse off is to build nuclear plants like crazy.
He has the money, he should put it up for the cause.
He should buy and use Solar Panels and Wind Turbines. He should install Geo-Thermal Heating and Cooling.
I am not rich and I spent the money of Solar panels to decrease my electric use by 75%. I think he should attempt to do the same. It is the right thing to do.
However, I believe he says he buys green power, not just carbon credits. There is a large difference. I just think he could do more.
Did you hear that he also just installed a coal burning machine in the backyard? It doesn’t even convert it into energy, it just burns coal 24/7. Yeah, he’s got a big conveyor belt of coal and trucks coming in every three days!
Look, if you’re going to decide not to even bother with truth or accuracy, you may as well go full out. Dumbass fucker.
David Suzuki isn’t exactly pure as the driven snow either. I tried to find some recent news articles but either they haven’t made it into Google or my google-fu is malfunctioning this early in the morning, so my apologies for inadequate cites.
He and his cohorts are taking this humongous diesel (NOT bio-diesel) tour bus across Canada to raise awareness of his ecological initiatives. Apparently it is far bigger than they reasonably need for the number of people actually travelling in it (again, my apologies for no cites).
He is saying that it’s OK because the trip is “carbon-neutral” because his group is contributing to various other environmentally friendly initiatives to compensate for the crap he (and his bus) is spewing into the air.
Excuse me?! If you don’t need a diesel guzzling monstrosity to get you and your crew across Canada, then no amount of contributing to environmentally friendly initiatives will change that fact! Take a minivan AND contribute to your environmentally friendly initiatives at the same time! twit.
I’ve lost faith that that is possible. I think that all that one can do is counter the bullshit and hope for the best.
Gore does not simply purchase carbon offsets. He purchases all of his electricity from green power providers, uses energy reducing technologies, and is installing solar panels. His residence already uses less energy per square foot than the average for his region of the US.
Whatever remains of his “carbon footprint” from all his activities, he addresses with carbon offsets.
I’ve said this probably 6 or 7 times on this board in the last week. It won’t make a difference.
I didn’t join the Gore pile-on, except to pass along a joke I found funny. What he does is his own business.
I don’t think it can be argued, though, that if he took his considerable resources and did as President Bush did, and built a home that is a model of energy conservation and sustainable building practices, then there would not only be no room to attack him but he could have an additional rhetorical point to demonstrate to people how energy conservation can be achieved in daily life.
As a reminder, Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch is relatively modest, at about 4,000 square feet. It is passively solar heated, has a geothermal heating and cooling system, and has movable screens inside to take advantage of breezes.
Waste water from the home is purified and used to irrigate landscaping, and large portions of the home were built from locally quarried stone other builders regarded as waste material.
Gore could have built a home like this, but he did not. At the minimum, I think this ought to be regarded as a missed opportunity for him.
Does he buy carbon offsets to counter the thousands of miles by private jet and helicopter he takes to various locations during the course of a year? You ever heard of Al Gore riding a subway?
Look, I got no beef with Gore, but then I don’t let a celebrity of any type tell me how to go about living my life, especially when they are exercising at least a little hypocrisy in their own.
Tom Cruise was running those stupid fuck ads that ran before video rentals years ago telling me about how I was destroying the planet and I have to get off my ass and make a difference, all the while he was making movies like Days of Thunder, where 35 cars were destroyed, thousands of gallons of gasoline burned and hundreds of tires used up during the filming of various scenes. How many films have been made by these douche bag celebrities where gasoline explosions are filmed and re shot over and over throughout the course of their careers? Then I have to listen to them telling me that I have to make a difference?
That’s super. I think everyone should do that. I don’t think Bush built the home, but purchased it already like that. I hope more people have the opportunity to buy such green houses. I hope more presidents do more than Bush has to make those opportunities more prevalent.
Has no bearing on whether the OP is fuckwitted regarding his or her suggestion that all Gore is doing is purchasing carbon offsets, nor does it get to the deeper point that the OP probably doesn’t give two shits about what Gore actually does or doesn’t do, but is merely trying to push the current rightwing bullshit meme du jour, which is more typically your bag anyway, Mr. Moto.
Probably as often as Dan Quayle and GHWB do, shit for brains.
bullshit.
This demonstrates that the whole purpose of this recent Gore right wing bullshit hysteria is for fuck for brains like you to have a tiny little hook to hang your hat on. “Oh, shit, the guy lives in a big house. Therefore I don’t have to worry about global warming. Not that I was going to in the first fucking place, but at least I can shout, ‘Oh yeah, well Al Gore lives in a big house’ whenever someone points out the latest empirical evidence for global warming.”
So he did. That’s highly commendable. I’m saddened, again, for the disconnection between his personal commitment and his policies, which you must agree, have a far greater negative environmental impact than the positive impact of his single residence.
What is also interesting is that this Wikipedia page says that “Heymann was selected by George W. Bush and Laura Bush to design a 10,000 ft² (930 m²) honey-colored native limestone environmentally-friendly single-level home on the Prairie Chapel Ranch, which serves as their home away from the White House.” Everywhere else I’ve heard this (e.g. from you and on the web), Bush’s house is described as 4,000 square feet. Apparently, Bush’s house is just as big as Gore’s. And if he isn’t using green power sources, he’s leaving a bigger carbon footprint than Gore is.
Jim expect an email when I get around to it. I’m not particularly worried about global warming. I am worried about my electric bill. I got some questions about your solar panels.
Except that neither Quayle nor GHWB are going around like Chicken Little either, and if you took Gore’s sweaty, flaccid piss pump cock out of your mouth long enough to think about that, then perhaps you’d realise that this is the key to the argument. I don’t give a fuck if Gore’s house is the size and shape of God’s rusty cock ring, nor do I care if he uses a fleet of Black Hawks to go check his mail as long as he doesn’t tell me how I am polluting the world and accelerating Global Warming, because that makes him a hypocrite.
Wrong again, asshole. I’m just indicating that if you are going to tell me that I am polluting the world, the least you can do is pollute less than I do. Otherwise, I give him the same advice I give fuck sticks like you: Shut the fuck up, lest someone make you look like a flaming shit bag by simply pointing out the flaw in your argument, which at present is as weak as a mixed drink in a strip club.