Al Gores a Hypocrite (Obviously)

[TomCollins]

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As for carbon footprints, government regulation is the problem, not the solution, since government regulation is what prevents people who are damaged by such pollution from suing polluters in the first place.

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Becuase suing 2 billion people for three tenths of a penny is REALLY practical.

[Jack of Arcades]

Well, he still flies a lot, which is where the bulk of the carbon comes from. Plus, anytime he drives he still has to use gas. But there's carbon involved in every step of the process. I mean, he has to get the monkeys to his house somehow, right? Think of what it takes to create and put up those windmills.

MrMon: if his energy comes from green power, which it does, it's still a tiny footprint. Almost 100% of his footprint will come from flying cross country of overseas (commercial or private). I imagine his carbon footprint is probably around 4-8 times the average person's, almost entirely due to his flying.

[troymclur]

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I'd also like to point out that 10k sq. ft. isn't the ginormous size that people are making it out to be.

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You are joking right? What do you consider to be a "ginomous" house then? The average size american house is around 2,300 sq. ft. so I would say a house that is over 4x the national average is pretty large.

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So if i make 4x the national average salary (160k), am i stinking filthy godawful rich? I live in a house thats rougly 4000 sq. ft. and i'm very middle class. If his house was a compound like Jordans, or doubles as an airplane landing hub like Travolta's, i could understand, but Gore lives in a house that's pretty much standard for a rich person living in an area that is not concentrated.

Yes, it's a pretty large house, but it's not disturbingly extravagant as people are making it out to be.

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Travolta's house in Ocala is only 6,400 sq. ft. AND he can park two jets in front of it along with 6 cars... No 10k isn't big at all...

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Sorry. I assumed that parking a jet would require a massive compound (which it does, but that doesn't equate to an equally massive house). Your retort, though, doesn't mean anything though. Maybe its just a personal opinion, but i don't see how 10k makes for an obscenely large house. I routinely see large housed (6k-10k in size), so maybe i'm just desensitized to it all, however even if he didn't have live-in security and staff, i don't see how anybody could get up in arms about his wastefulness, especially considering he's doing what he can to counter the emmission output.

Hell, just look at Travolta's house. It's not massive (and it looks larger because it's sprawled out rather than stacked upwards). The land is large, but the house isn't anything to get up in arms about, so it's not much of an example for your argument.


Again, if i made 4x the national average am i obscenely wealthy?

Grey

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Do you have a live in security staff that is 1/4th the size of Gore's?

Or run half an office from your house?

Do you compensate for every bit of energy you use?

Do you have any place to talk?

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What's wrong with you exactly? Failed english? Where in any of my posts am i being critical of Gore? Hell, the post you quoted is exactly the opposite.

[MrMon]

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Well, he still flies a lot, which is where the bulk of the carbon comes from. Plus, anytime he drives he still has to use gas. But there's carbon involved in every step of the process. I mean, he has to get the monkeys to his house somehow, right? Think of what it takes to create and put up those windmills.

MrMon: if his energy comes from green power, which it does, it's still a tiny footprint. Almost 100% of his footprint will come from flying cross country of overseas (commercial or private). I imagine his carbon footprint is probably around 4-8 times the average person's, almost entirely due to his flying.

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You're really seeing only what you want to see. Look at the gas bill for the pool house. That from heating the pool, nothing more. And that's not "green" power.

It's also a fallacy to think that you can buy your way to greenness. It's possible for him now, because few people do it. He would have us believe we can all do it. We can't. If everyone did it, there aren't enough green power sources or enough offsets to accomplish it. As more and more people do it, the price will rise for both. People like Gore will be able to afford it, the average citizen won't. And besides which, the average Joe is struggling to pay his conventional power bill as it is, let alone a green one.

If he were serious, he'd be making sacrifices like the pool, smaller car, etc. He's not. Part of his message is this is painless, and that's just simply not true.

[samsonh]

LOL at saying 10k sq ft is gigantic in Belle Meade. You should see the neighborhood, beautiful old homes and lots and lots of old money.

[pvn]

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He pays almost the same for the pool house as he does for his residence in gas bills. That is pure indulgence, and I doubt his office and security staff are using the pool.

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So are you taking issue with indulgence or environmental impact?

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Unless he's allowing the entire neighborhood to use the pool, that is a wasteful use of a carbon-polluting non-renewable resource.

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Is it? Several posters here have said his home is powered by "green" energy sources (at considerable extra expense). Is there any way to tell?

[Money2Burn]

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Again, if i made 4x the national average am i obscenely wealthy?

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This is irrelevent, there are differen't data sets for these two things with different standard deviations. 4x the average for one thing, may not be a big deal, while for another it could be a HUGE difference.

Maybe you have been desensitized to the size of houses, I don't know. I have been around extravagent houses most of my life. My roomate's home is right at 10K sq. ft. it would put most of the houses on Cribs to shame. I just thought it was amusing that you were trying to act like a 10K sq. ft. house wasn't anything special just to defend Gore. All this is really irrelevent to the greater discussion at hand, so I'll let it drop.

[JackWhite]

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If a celebrity environmentalist uses 10x the energy of an 'average' person, but convinces 1000 people to cut down, guess who has done more for the environment? Not the non-hypocritical, energy efficient guy, but the polluting, resource hungry celebrity.


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For those who are using this argument to defend Gore on the hypocrisy charges, would you apply this same standard to others?

If the Rev. Ted Haggard convinced dozens of people not to use meth with male hookers, then should he get a free pass for doing it himself?

If Rush Limbaugh convinced many to not harm their bodies by abusing pain killers, certainly he shouldn't be charged with hypocrisy for doing it himself.

If a businessman convinced others to hire more blacks, but refused to hire blacks himself, should he get a pass if the net effect was more jobs for blacks?

[troymclur]

I'm curious how people respond to the notion of him running office work out of the house and having live in security. It didn't really click with me before, but he is an ex-VP which means he has lifetime Secret Service detail, which probably accounts for the live-in security.

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Again, if i made 4x the national average am i obscenely wealthy?

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This is irrelevent, there are differen't data sets for these two things with different standard deviations. 4x the average for one thing, may not be a big deal, while for another it could be a HUGE difference.

Maybe you have been desensitized to the size of houses, I don't know. I have been around extravagent houses most of my life. My roomate's home is right at 10K sq. ft. it would put most of the houses on Cribs to shame. I just thought it was amusing that you were trying to act like a 10K sq. ft. house wasn't anything special just to defend Gore. All this is really irrelevent to the greater discussion at hand, so I'll let it drop.

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Ugh. I never said it wasn't anything. I said it wasn't anything to get your panties in a bunch over. It is a large house, but not "F'ING GINORMOUS"!!! And it is germane to the discussion because people are using the size of his house as a measurment of his sincerity of his message, so the real problem is one's definition of extravagant.

Is 10k a big enough house for somebody to say "boy, you're going off the deep end" or is it enough for somebody to say "well if i was rich, i could see myself having a house like that"?

Also, you're right in that 4x N isn't equivalent across the board, but i merely used that as a means of pointing out how it's not much of an indicator for anything, including the size of your house. Besides, 4 times the national average of house sizes doesn't strike me as all that big of a leap when you consider how far above the national average Gore is with respect to anything else (Status, wealth, etc.)

[pvn]

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I'm curious how people respond to the notion of him running office work out of the house and having live in security. It didn't really click with me before, but he is an ex-VP which means he has lifetime Secret Service detail, which probably accounts for the live-in security.

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He is, of course, free to decline the SS detail.

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I said it wasn't anything to get your panties in a bunch over. It is a large house, but not "F'ING GINORMOUS"!!! And it is germane to the discussion because people are using the size of his house as a measurment of his sincerity of his message, so the real problem is one's definition of extravagant.

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What percentage of residences in the US do you think are bigger than Gore's? What percentile do you think you would draw the "extravagant" line at?