Thursday, August 10, 2006

Al Gore- Inconvenient facts

USA Today had a great editorial today on their site about Mr. Gore and his preaching. More specifically, his hypocritical preaching.
Gore preaches at Americans to sacrifice in their personal lives, reduce their consumption in order to 'save the planet' from a sure apocalypse. But in actuality, does Gore do anything to actually put his money where his mouth is?

In short...NO.

He and Tipper live in a 10,000 square foot, 20 room, 8 bathroom place in Nashville, which I do not begrudge him whatsoever. However, the supply of power in that area can be done through renewable sources (solar, wind, etc). Has Mr. Greenjeans signed up to pay the extra couple of cents per kilowatt to live a 'carbon-neutral' lifestyle? No.
How about his 4,000 square foot home in Arlington Virginia? Surely, he's signed up for the renewable powered energy option there, since it's a smaller place and will probably be a cheaper option (although given the fact that Al was GIVEN thousands of shares of Google as a payment for sitting on their board, I don't think $.02 per kilowatt will break him). No, he hasn't signed up for it there either.

Does he drive a hybrid? No
Does he use mass transportation when traveling across the world to promote his movie and policies? No. He uses a private jet. Of course, he says he pays for renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. In actuality, the movie company pays that as well, so it's disingenuous for him to assert that.

How about his stock holdings? You'd think that someone as 'green' as Al would never hold a company like Exxon or Occidental Petroleum in their portfolio right? Wrong.

Ok, well, at least he doesn't allow companies to mine for Zinc in an environmentally unfriendly way on his property right? Wrong again, as Pasminco Zinc operates a mine on his property in Tennessee and has been cited for adding large quantities of barium, iron, and zinc to a local river.
But the $20,000 in royalties that Mr. Gore gets doesn't seem to get pointed toward an organization to clean that up.

Just nice to know that hypocrisy isn't just restricted to people who currently hold office.....

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