Centerfield

*checks watch* Yes, I was wondering how long it would take the right wing swift boaters to ambush Gore after his Oscar win. Right on time. Thank you, Starbuck.

Besides, he has repeatedly said (in one of the Oscars' funniest bits) that he is not running, so the question is moot.

BTW, Gore received 51,003,926 votes (48.4%) in 2000 compared to 50,460, 110 votes for W. So it's clear that the public did follow Gore, even if W's buddies on Supreme Court didn't.

Nice try.

*checks watch* Yes, I was wondering how long it would take the right wing swift boaters to ambush Gore after his Oscar win. Right on time. Thank you, Starbuck.

SR went out of his way to write a paragraph about how he liked Gore and thought Inconvenient Truth reshaped the political debate and you accuse him of ambushing Gore? Wow, speaking of nice tries, that has to qualify in the pantheon of nice tries.

How about addressing the fact that Gore wants the rest of us to do something he clearly isn't interested in doing himself? And buying carbon credits doesn't cut it.

How about addressing the fact that Gore wants the rest of us to do something he clearly isn't interested in doing himself? And buying carbon credits doesn't cut it.

I think he is doing a lot himself. According to here:

1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.

2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint.

Now, I'm not completely familiar with purchasing carbon offsets, or its potential, but a quick search on Google came up with this:

Purchasing high quality carbon offsets from projects such as wind farms also helps support the transition to a sustainable energy economy by providing an additional source of revenue to developers of renewable energy.

So, while he does live well in a huge house, he tries to minimize his energy usage within the house, and uses programs that produces electricity from renewable sources. And anything he doesn't make up for that way, he quantifies the remaining 'carbon footprint', and invests it in renewable resources. Isn't that what he's asking other people to do?

What I think Gore wants (and his actions support this) is to be able to jet around the world in private planes, have a 10,000 SQ FT house that uses more electricity in a month than most people use in a year, and be able to reduce his carbon footprint (guilt?) through carbon offsets.

He has the means to live in a smaller house that's more eco-friendly, fly commercial and do things that support his supposedly super-duper important purpose. Instead, he buys carbon offsets. Forgive me for finding that terribly inadequate.

By contrast, Bush's Crawford ranch is 4000 SQ FT and apparently is the "paragon of environmentalism". One man preaches, the other lives it.

On the subject of Gore's "carbon credits," check through the links here, and you'll see that what's he's really doing is a lot murkier than he claims. There's a real possibility that what he's claiming as the purchase of carbon credits is nothing more than making commercial investments in a company he owns which works in the field of alternative energy. Itself a good thing, probably, but I don't know that it really offsets his usage.

Many of the "carbon offset" programs being used by charter jet operators seem to be using very simple calculations which are actually based on the carbon footprint of a passenger in a large, full commercial scheduled flight, rather than the carbon footprint of a single individual or small group flying in a Gulfstream.

And I've seen very little details of these "offset" purchases anyway. It's not like they're buying part of the rainforest to be set aside forever as a carbon sink or anything. Some of them may be buying some carbon emission permits, but they're providing no details at all.

The Economist reports on the mendacity of the carbon offset "market" here.

Where have you been for the last few years, SD? PolySci 101 says; "Always start out praising your opponent, then slip the knife in." ;

"I think my opponent is a good man, but he's an evil, rotten hypoctite when it comes to blah blah blah."

It's like me saying "Yes, Starbucks is quite convincing in his praise for Gore; SR would make Nixon proud."

See how easy it is?

BTW, you set a perfect example by how you trash Gore, then rush on to praise W, even though I don't believe W flies commercial, lives in a studio apartment, or does anything else you'd consider environment friendly. W's ranch wasn't built by his specifications, but by his staff. If you want a real shock, see how GW and Barb live in Houston.

Gore is an ex-vice President; he runs a business out of his house, he hosts conferences, he needs security, etc. He can't fly commercial; too many security concerns. If he was allowed to fly commercial, his citics would be grumbling that he should ride a bicycle. If he rode a bicycle, they'd grumble that he should walk. If he walked...well, then he'd still be breathing carbon dioxide, so his critics would say he should drop dead. See how the game is played?

I find it quite amazing that the story hasn't come up in past six months, but the moment Gore wins an Oscar, then OMG! Suddenly all the right wing blogs talk about his utility bills.

Just a coincedence, I'm sure. ;->

Pat, if you want the full story on Gore's green use, check here.

He has the means to live in a smaller house that's more eco-friendly, fly commercial and do things that support his supposedly super-duper important purpose. Instead, he buys carbon offsets. Forgive me for finding that terribly inadequate.

I guess the house part is a fair criticism, but, to be honest, it doesn't bother me much. Going around asking everyone to abandon luxurious houses and expensive cars to save the planet is, IMO, the wrong approach. I like the 'carbon neutral' idea because it allows people to do whatever the hell the want, but makes it more expensive to do it. It's that economic incentive, I think, that's important. Of course, it depends on people being serious about being carbon neutral, and that's a personal decision.

As to whether carbon credits/offsets are useful, I have no idea. But there seems to be a movement towards quantifying environmental costs into economic costs, so that economic activity into more environmentally friendly directions. I view carbon credits/offsets as initial efforts towards this. It's not perfect, of course. But offsets can go towards more than just wind farms: Carbonfund.org lists renewable resources (wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and others energy sources), energy efficiency ("Energy efficiency is the reducing of energy use by using better technology to gain the same benefit, either industrial, transportation or residential, with less energy"), or reforestation (which, I understand, is somewhat controversial way of offsets).

With regards to economic arguments made by Tyler Cowan (and others), I don't know enough about the economics of power generation to be able to make a comment.

By contrast, Bush's Crawford ranch is 4000 SQ FT and apparently is the "paragon of environmentalism".

That's great, and kudos to Bush for that.

The real issue here is that Gore preaches to the rest of us but doesn't seem to do that much (aside from buying carbon credits) to practice what he preaches. This stinks of elitism. Sure he drives a hybrid but he has 3 (3!!) houses, at least one of which uses 15x the average electricity.

Blue Jean, I've read that article you link to and find it lacking. It still comes down to the fact that Gore lives a life of excess. Bush runs the country for a month in a 4000 SQ FT house, you're telling me Gore needs 10K for his business? Buying green power when you're using 15x what the normal person does doesn't seem that helpful either.

From my vantage point, Gore is a hypocrite. He rails for change to cure a crisis but doesn't seem to invest that much of his own money in fixing his own usage. Before he inflicts the hardship on me, I'd like to see him inflict it on himself first. Cuz I can't afford carbon offsets so I'd like to see how that works.

Carrying carbon offsets to their logical conclusion, doesn't this just mean we can do whatever we want but buy enough carbon offsets to be carbon neutral? Think Gore would like that idea?

Luckily, it looks like all this global warming crisis is the Sun's fault. I'm going to go get that Hummer I've had my eye on. And no, that's not a euphemism for anything, as far as you know.

I don't have the answer to this, but what goes on in this mansion? How much activity occurs there and for what purpose? How many people are in the house at a given point in time, and how much energy would they be using were they elsewhere? I don't know that the place isn't an utter energy waster, but it's possible that the numbers are taken out of context and don't mean anything close to what they are being purported to mean.

I'd be careful of thinking Bush' activities are a marvel of carbon utilization. He causes distinctly more air transport to his ranch than Gore can hope to. Of course, Bush doesn't intend it to be particularly conservative. I tend to agree with mitch that his payment of carbon offsets is a good idea, but I'm annoyed with Gore for exxagerating the rate of the problem for dramatic effect.

And Kyoto was about guilt, not science. I'm not going to be happy until we see some science-based recommendations on remediation that pay proper attention to getting good effect for our offset dollars.

Thanks for posting the GOP talking points.
I already read them. What a waste of bytes.
Do note that according to news reports Gore's energy usage is eclipsed by smaller homes in TN that use just as much power as he does.

On conservation, if you try to buy a house in Vermont you generally want to buy the ones made in the late 70's or early 80's when Carter's energy tax credits were in effect. These were built with passive solar and use much less energy than homes built since the REAGAN administration (which also removed the White House solar panels)removed those tax credits.
I will also note that the largest photovoltaic plant in the US will be in Oregon, run by a German company. That Sharp is one of the biggest advertisers of PV in the Bay Area. US companies are taking a bit of a beating...there are some smaller ones building up but them furreners have taken a big bite out of US market share. That's becsue we gave all those tax credits to the oil companies.
Yep, we had market share, R&D and everything in our grasp and because Reagan dropped the ball, and others after him, we're more dependent on exported energy than ever. Lest you think that energy conservation inhibits economic growth I will note that since the 1970's California's economy has grown quite well considering that per capita electricity use has remained at Carter-era levels. According to PG&E and their California cohorts, we avoided building the equivalent of 24 full size power plants. They consider it an economic plus for the state. These plants tend to be in the 1,000MW - 1,300 MW range. Each equivalent to burning 5 million tons of coal per year, producing 10-15 million tons of CO2 per plant. So right now, with minimal investment and to great benefit to the California economy we've avoided burning more than a quarter billion tons of CO2 per year. So for those scoffing at investments in energy efficiency, I'd say take a hike to the 12 feet to your SUV(you may want to use your power chair). Furthermore there's plenty of room for more conservation without sacrifice. (God forbid you should ask a Republican to sacrifice for the future so that their children can live better)
There's some new heat transfer technologies being developed that can potentially double the efficiency of air conditioning(cooling and heating). Do that and you save about 1000KWH/yr or 1700 lbs of CO2 per household. Just think what that would do at Lucasfilm which has a lot of 38 ton chillers to deal with it's 11.38 TB/sec throughput(yes that was their throughput as of July last year).
Right now 5 states are insisting that the Feds keep hands off on state energy regulations that are stricter and more effective than Federal ones.

Remember, Republicans talking about energy conservation is like a bunch of 7th Day Adventists deciding if the barkeep at the Edinburgh Castle pulls the best Guinness in SF or not.

BTW, electricity use, even with all the computers I use for editing and graphics at home, is 4-5KW per day. It'd be lower except my gf with the MS comes over and I have to keep things warm for her.
Body temp regulation is a bitch, esp with menopause on top of that. I can still make it lower when I add more ceiling insulation after I'm done rewiring the house.