This is hilariously ironic. Gore’s house is 10,000 square feet and consumes electricity at a rate 12 times the average in his area, 191,000 kwh vs 15,600 kwh. Bush’s ranch house is environmentally friendly with geothermal heat pumps and a cistern to gather rainwater, and is only 4,000 square feet.
Politics aside, it’s just amusing that “Mr. Environment” feels the need to consume 12x the electricity of his neighbors.
Considering Gore’s crusade for the environment his energy use is rather absurd.
However this is nothing new. People have been pointing out that he does not seem to practice what he preaches for awhile now (and it extends past his house…iirc he flies around in his own jet).
Agreed, there’s irony of sorts here, but … what’s the debate?
This is like all the politicians flying to the Kyoto green house conference in private jets.
No doubt Algore donates enough money to green causes to make this all better.
Regards,
Shodan
I figured I better put this in Great Debates due to the political nature.
This is another snopes article that explains Gore’s usage a bit more. While it is true that his house does use a lot of energy, one must look at the bigger picture. Both he and Tipper have their office there, so not only do they save energy by not commuting, but the energy that they would use at an off-site office is used at their residence. I don’t know how much energy the typical employee uses at the typical office building, but you have to keep that in mind. Also, what would the alternative be for that property if Gore hadn’t bought it? Chances are that someone less environmentally minded would own it, and have an even larger carbon footprint.
It’s an apples to oranges comparison.
Au contraire mon amic!
You know that the Shrub does plenty of Prezinentin’ at the Crawford ranch, and that’s not including brush clearing. But honestly, Bush does do his job from there from time to time as well…
I can’t believe he’s still not living in a cave yet! That bastard!
Is carbon footprint that hard to understand?
Just out of curiosity, did Bush have his house built or was it there when he bought his ranch? I’d really like to know.
According to Wikipedia, it was built specifically for the Bushes.
Do you believe that an office supporting 10 people (making an assumption that each have a staff of 5. I’d bet it is more like 2 or 3 each) is going to use 20 times more energy than average house? The business I work at runs a 24 hour a day operation with two servers, anywhere from 4 to 20 computers running, AC/Heat and all that junk and it does not use 20 times the energy of my house. Cut that down to normal office hours (8 hour days/5 days a week) and the energy use is even less.
Slee
I always suspected Gore was a pussy, even when I voted for him.
Wow. So I’m free to do whatever I want to the environment, as long as someone else in the world would cause more abuse than I? I understand that if he’s your guy you’ll defend him, but that’s an impressive defense!
That Snopes article hasn’t been updated recently enough. Here’s an article describing some recent improvements to his home’s energy efficiency.
One thing that is important to consider is that Gore and Bush operate at a macro level. While the micro level is certainly worthy of consideration, one needs to look at what impact each has at the macro level, because that’s what affects the world many orders of magnitude more than the micro level. Without digging into specifics, I believe it’s pretty obvious that at a macro level, Gore slays Bush.
scoff So he was shamed into doing it after having rings run around him by Bush.
Or shamed into it by the media attention.
Is/was this Bush’s only residence, or is it more of a vacation home? I realize that his main residence is now the White House, but did he live on the ranch full-time before becoming governor/president?
Rather vote for a pussy than a prick. Any day of the week, twice on Sunday. (Rather fond, actually…)
Actually this is an important point. Bush does not ‘live’ at the ranch. He lives at the White House. Some contend the ranch was purchased as a political move to give him the backdrop of a ‘reg’lar Texan’ to the voters.
Once he is out of office, we will see how and where he chooses to live.