Al Gore Energy Whore?

Well maybe, maybe not. In a story conveniently released immediately following Gore's oscar win for An Inconvenient Truth the Tennessee Center For Policy Research
has come forth with the assertion that Gore's 10,000 sq/ft home in Nashville, TN consumes nearly 20x the national average and significantly more than the average Nashville home. Gore's consumption last year was something like 191,000 KW/Hrs to 15,600 KW/Hrs for the average Nashville home, that is at least according to the TCPR which claims to be an independant think tank though it has strong ties to the right wing. It's founder/President Drew Johnson cut his teeth at The American Enterprise Institute and notorious conservative think tank out of Washington, DC. He has also worked for right wing media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and The National Review in addition to being seen often on Fox News.

Here's the thing, even if we accept those numbers as fact (the Nashville utility claims no request for information was ever submitted)
, what do they really mean? Gore's 10,000 sq/ft. home used more energy than the avg. Nashville household...ok, here's a question; just how big is the average Nashville how? Well according to this story the average single family home sold in Middle Tennessee is about 2,000 sq/ft. about 1/5th the size of Gore's home. Of course that's only single family homes, this does not include the 33% of Nashville residents who rent apartments, condos, trailers, etc which we all no are generally smaller than single family homes. Now even taking this into account Gore's home uses considerably more energy than the average Nashville home per sq/ft so why not say this in their attack on Gore? Well maybe it has to do with the nature of what Gore's home is used for? Gore and his wife both run their home offices out of the home, that in and of itself could account for a sizeable increase in energy usage.

Regardless, Gore puchases Carbon Offsets and invests in renewable energy research so while he may not live the perfect green life, he is doing a lot to try to improve the world around him.