Did you know that according to the Tennessee Center (which dug up some utility records) Al Gore's personal mansion consumes 20 times the energy of the average American home, which according to Al Gore's own numbers, consumes more on average than other homes in the world. According to the article, "The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359." That is $29,268 a year for those of you at home with out calculators.
So I did some searching, looking up the Davidson County Assessors office, looking up a certain owner named Albert Gore Jr, and noticed his parcel. I won't provide any direct links to any of those sites, but any reasonably smart monkey and Google can find the address and look up the property information. That "house" by the way, is a 10,010 ft^2 (finished, the unfinished area is 13,461 ft^2) mansion built in 1914.
This property contains 2.09 Acres of land mainly classified as RES with a(n) RY SING FAM style building, built about 1915 , having FRAME exterior and ASPHALT roof cover, with 1 unit(s), 20 total room(s), 5 total bedroom(s), 8 total bath(s), 2 total half bath(s), 0 total 3/4 bath(s). The Building Value $2,124,400; Land Value $897,000, and a Total Value $3,021,400
So Mr. The-Earth-Is-Burning-Up is running around complaining about MY energy use while consuming 20 times the average home AND while flying in a private jetliner and being driven to the airport in a motorcade of SUVs. I just did a quick look at my gas and electric bills. My gas usage for last month (the coldest of the month) was 78 therms, costing me $103. My electricity usage in August (most use of the air conditioner) is around $120 (cannot remember the amount of Kw used) but tapers off to $30 in the fall/winter/spring months.
My electric utilities are about as "green" as Gore's (80% of Idaho's power is generated from Hydro, probably near the same for Tenn. because of the extensive TVA system) and I run a total yearly utility cost of around $900 (rounded UP to nearest hundred dollars) which compared to Gore's yearly gas / electricity bill of $29,200 (rounded DOWN to nearest hundred dollars), I run a very green 3.08% of his home energy consumption.
To be fare, he has a (finished) 10,010 ft^2 nearly 100 year old mansion and I have a 15 year old 1250 ft^2 (finished) starter home (with a cheap 60% efficient forced air gas heater) (and brand new door seals I just put in) in the 'burbs. Lets look at consumption based on a per square foot basis to compare apples to apples. My home costs $0.72 per ft^2 per year to run and his costs $2.91 per ft^2 per year. That still means that Al Gore consumes 404% per ft^2 compared to me (or I consume 25% compared to him).
So don't try to scold me for being ecologically damaging. Despite the economic fallacy of recycling, I still do recycle most of the feasible items. Despite living in the suburbs I still carpool when possible and live =2 miles from my work. Despite being a white, male, socially conservative, economically libertarian, practicing big game hunter, evangelical Christian, and everything else Greenpeace / PETA / etc stand against... I am doing my part to live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle and bucking their stereotypes.
In fact, stay tuned to this journal / blog for news of two video productions I have in pre-production both about ecologically sound and (more importantly) economically sound