Bush vs. Gore in energy consumption

Hey, more conservative misinformation. What a surprise!I notice your article omits the fact that while Gore's house uses only electricity generated without carbon or combustion (which is why the bill is so high), Bush's house uses electricity generated solely by combustion. Moreover, while Bush's house was designed from the ground up to be eco-friendly, Gore's house is many decades old and as such, is much more difficult to make "eco-friendly" than a house designed from scratch to be so.Al Gore's house consumes less power than others of the same size in the same area. The Snopes article, of course, misrepresents the big electricity bill as a symptom of being wasteful, rather than the truth - it costs a lot more to buy "green", carbon-free energy than the regular energy that heats Bush's ranch mansion.Moreover, Gore buys carbon credits to offset his carbon use. Can you show any evidence of Bush doing the same thing?No? Didn't think so.

Oh, and of course, I love this part:

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Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post.

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According to Media Matters, this conservative hit piece was parroted without rebuttal by Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, Lou Dobbs on CNN, Glenn Beck on CNN, Sean Hannity on Fox, an article on ABCNews.com, and reported in the Washington Times, the LA Times, and even on NPR. NPR! (Your "liberal media" at work, folks.) It's recently found its way into C. Krauthammer's column in Time, even.Wow, RR! It's like you hit two myths at the same time - the myth of liberal environmental hypocrisy and the myth of a duplicitous "liberal" media.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Their page makes it pretty clear that they're perfectly happy to tell a half-truth. Indeed, it's true that Bush's house uses a lot less power in a year than Gore's. Because Bush's house is only occupied for one or two months out of the year, while Gore's house is a year-round residence that also serves as business offices for many people.It looks like Snopes is a lot more interested in being true in the letter than in being true in message. Well, fuck 'em.

The average house in Nashville isn't offices for several people. I notice that, like the AP, you completely ignore this point. I'm saying that it's dirty pool to report half-truths that obscure, rather than clarify, the situation. You know, like you just did.

What questions, exactly? Like - why doesn't the Snopes piece compare Gore's house with Bush's primary residence, the White House? It'd be interesting to see how that comparison went. What, in the middle of downtown Belle Meade? Brilliant suggestion, RR. Do you think about this stuff before you write it?This year was the first year Gore was legally able to install solar panels, by the way, owning to local zoning restrictions. It took years of prodding to get that changed. The example Gore sets is that his home, despite being a primary residence for both the Gores and his live-in security staff, and being the offices from which both Al and Tipper manage their charitable organizations, uses less energy per square foot than the average house in the same region.That sounds like a pretty good example to me, unless you're determined to defend misleading comparisons against very large oranges and very small apples. How much energy does Bush burn in the White House?

Could you address the irony of asserting that a conservative hit piece being flogged in every major media outlet has been "concealed" by the "liberal media"?Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I alluded to that back in message 3, but it's a point worth repeating, since it was ignored.

Anywhere you're sitting on top of a significant geothermal heat source within easy drilling range, and you have a ready supply of cheap water for the thermal transfer, and enough room for the plant.You have no idea how geothermal power even works, do you? The idea that you could use geothermal power in the middle of a city is ridiculous. Possibly what?You had no idea where Gore's house was located until I told you, did you? How many such panels have you installed? How many towns? Proof. Isn't that a lot closer analogue to a house with a live-in security staff and offices for multiple people than a ranch house in Texas that people only live in about two months out of the year?Look, you're the one that started a thread on comparing people's "houses", not me. If you want to compare the houses of Bush and Gore, why don't you compare the house Bush actually lives in?

*snicker*No offense, but Holmes has sort of ruined the "self-claimed credentials" act when, coincidentally, he claimed expertise in literally every subject he ever commented on.I'll grant that I might very well be surprised where you can install a geothermal system these days. But you're talking about the costs of retrofitting a radiant-heat system into a hundred-year-old mansion and drilling to a sufficient depth in Tennessee to get geothermal heat - and the commensurate fossil fuel use of the production of those materials and the operation of that machinery. I'm not an expert in geothermal systems, but I know a thing or two about radiant heat in residential settings, and you're just plain lying to my face if you're telling me that's cheaper than offsetting the carbon emissions of a natural gas forced-air system. Do they? It hardly seems cricket to fault Gore for not taking illegal steps to reduce his carbon footprint. In the middle of a city? I think there's a number of reasons why that would be unfeasible, not least of which is the lack of sufficient wind. No, it's a residence (the East Wing.) The First Family lives there. It's also offices, sure - but then so is Gore's mansion. "Out of my way?" Do you think it's at all hard to prove you wrong?

Over a very long time. Perhaps much longer than the Gores intend to reside there.I still think it's a lot more expensive than you say, and moreover, the Gores may not want to tear up the floors and walls of a hundred-year-old house that they're living in right now to install such heating. It's just not feasible - otherwise they'd have done it. The gas the drilling machine burns. The power used to manufacture the materials for the geothermal loops. The transportation costs of all that equipment. Carbon emission offsets.You have no idea what we're talking about, do you? Ugly free energy. And while its true that a wind plant is carbon-free power, much carbon is used in manufacture and transport. And there are serious questions about the environmental effects of such generators on indigenous bird populations, etc.Again, if it were feasible and desirable, I'm sure the Gores would have done it. As it is, they pay a premium to have their power generated purely by carbon-free wind and geothermal sources, already. So it's not like they're not using wind and geothermal power right now. They just don't feel the need to generate the power themselves. Do you think that was the point of your email? Don't be naive. And when are you going to address the laughably false contention that "you won't hear this on the mainstream media?"

No. I'm saying that global warming isn't caused by one mansion in Tennessee, and I would prefer Gore keep on doing what he's already been doing - buying carbon-free electricity and offsetting the carbon that he does use, while campaigning and lecturing about global warming issues - rather than expend all his time and money to make one single house just a little bit more environmentally friendly. Are you familiar with the idea of "diminishing returns?" Please apply it here. We don't know anything about his house. If it were feasible and cost-effective, they would have done it already. I guess I don't understand. What are you saying? That your drilling machines don't run off of diesel or gasoline? That they show up at the site by magic teleportation? That they were constructed by hand by gnomes in Siberia?I don't understand what you're trying to argue, here. It looks like you have literally no idea how to think through your carbon use, so you're just calling me names. That's always been a winning strategy for you, sure. I don't know how I could be any clearer. He heats his house by burning natural gas (pretty common.) He offsets the carbon that emits by buying carbon offset credits.If you know what a carbon offset is, then it should be abundantly clear. If you're still confused it's because, contrary to what you said, you don't know what carbon offsetting means. It's basic economics. Eventual gains only offset initial expense if the eventual gains are larger than the initial expenses. That applies to cost, sure, but it also applies to carbon. You don't gain anything by putting in a new system if the initial carbon emissions of installation (running machinery, energy to manufacture, transportation - any place fossil fuels are used) exceed the carbon use of your current system, especially if you factor in offsetting your current carbon use. No, it's not. That's not what carbon offsetting is.As I suspected, you have no idea what we're talking about. Why don't you go look it up and then the conversation can proceed from a place where we both understand what the hell we're talking about. Bush didn't. He bought it that way. And he only lives there 2-3 months out of the year, so it's not a surprise that it uses a bunch less power. I have no idea if he's taken every step. I have no idea if Bush's ranch house has taken every possible step. My guess is that if there were obvious things Gore could do to reduce his carbon footprint, he's done them. And the stuff he hasn't done, he hasn't done it because the gains don't justify the expense, especially when you factor in the fact that installation, manufacture, and transportation of materials aren't carbon-neutral activities.

Well, I disagree - any analysis that labels this smear "basically true" and then proves it to be substantially false is clearly flawed.I'd love to quote extensively from the Snopes page, but they've disabled cutting and pasting (which is a little ridiculous.) "Mitigating factors" is a misleading way to refer to the fact that Gore's house is both a year-round residence for the Gores, a residence for several live-in staff, and offices out of which several charitable organizations are managed, while Bush's ranch house is essentially a vacation home occupied only a few months out of the year - which Snopes doesn't mention at all on either page.The Snopes article says that it's "surprising" that a home "four times" the size of an average American home uses "12 times the power", and neither that article nor the other one mentions that Gore's house uses 19.1 kwh/ft^2, compared to the region's average usage of 19.83 kwh/ft^2.So Gore's house actually uses less energy for its size than the average house in the region. That's a point that neither article on Snopes sees fit to report, and I don't see how the claim that Gore's use of energy is "extravagant", which Snopes called "true", is supportable. No, you're reading it wrong. Gore pays $432 more for clean energy than he would pay if the same amount of energy were supplied by "dirty" sources. Neither article claims that only %16 of Gore's energy is clean.The Gores pay $432 more than they would otherwise (that's what a "premium" means) because all of their power is clean. Not that they only buy $432 worth of clean power, as you misunderstood. Well, wait now. Is it 12, or is it 20? The second email, which again Snopes said was "true", says 20. But Snopes refers to the AP's direct investigation of Gore's power bill that came to the conclusion that they only use 12 times the national average.But, despite the fact that the numbers claimed by the TCPR were inflated by nearly 30,000 kwh, and that the TCPR

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said it got its figures from the Nashville Electric Service. Yet NES spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never received a request from the group and never gave it any information,

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No webpage found at provided URL: http://tinyurl.com/2wklnqSnopes determined that the claim that Gore house uses "20 times the national average" was "true."So I'm not terribly impressed by Snopes' commitment to the facts. I mean, if you can be that wrong on the facts, and clearly have just been pulling numbers out of thin air - and still be considered "true" by Snopes, just what the hell do you have to say that Snopes would consider false? Says you, but it's clear from the research of both CBS News and the AP that the region Gore's house is located in has the highest per-household energy use of any area in the country - 50% higher than the national average.So I'd say that's a pretty significant difference in energy needs.

Compared to, say, buying clean power from the power company? Which has no initial outlay of emissions caused by your actions? I'd rather see industry do it, quite frankly. People not using CFL's isn't the cause of most greenhouse emissions. Gore's not going to save the planet by changes to his own house. It's nice that he's leading by example, but c'mon, it's not like he can stop breathing or something. Allowances should be made, and are by reasonable people not looking to shoot the messenger with these "gotchas", for the fact that some steps just aren't feasible.Look, if you're so certain that it's so easy and feasible, why don't you call up Al Gore and try to sell him a geothermal heating system?That would really make me look stupid, wouldn't it?

Because of his policies, RR. If you want to debate those, we can. Quite frankly Bush has been in the position to do much more for the environment as President of the United States than just live in a green house a few months out of the year.Under his administration, they've gutted nearly every environmental regulatory framework - the laws that keep chemicals out of our groundwater, etc. He's turned things that used to be requirements for public safety into "guidelines" that companies can follow - if they want to.I mean I don't even know where to start. Maybe his house in Texas, that he lives at for 2-3 months out of a year, is really carbon-friendly; but compared to the fact that he's decimated the federal research funding for alternative fuel sources? It doesn't count for shit.Why is Bush portrayed as unfriendly to the environment? Because he is, whenever it's in a corporation's interest to be so.

What standards? If you're going to report on a claim that "Gore's house uses 20 times the national average in power" and call it "true", then Gore's house had better use 20 times the national average - not 12 times, and not less than the regional average.That's the only standard that I'm applying - that Snopes is calling specific claims "true" that its own research clearly indicates are false. Because the Green Power Switch program doesn't provide "half-dirty" power. That's what the program is for - you pay a premium to replace your "regular" power, in 150-kwh blocks, with clean power.Look, let me explain it again in a different way. The gas station down the street sells regular unleaded for 3.09, and Ultimate Silver Badass Gas for 3.29. If told you that I paid a "premium" of 2 dollars on ten gallons for the ultimate gas, for a grand total of $32.90, it's false to conclude from that that I put only less than a gallon of the ultimate gas in my tank.No. The whole tank is filled with ultimate gas, the 2 dollars is the premium I paid on top of what regular gas would have cost if I had gotten that, instead.$432 is what Gore pays on top of his regular energy bill - that's what a "premium" means - to get clean power instead of dirty power. At that cost he's paid for 194,000 kwh per year (according to the Clean Power Switch website), well more than his home's energy use of 191,000 kwh. No, look. Here's what you said:

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Gore pays $432/mo, a figure snopes.com provides, toward getting SOME green energy. That $432 represents about 16% of his electric bill.

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I know how to read, TL. The fact that you find it important to mention what percentage of his energy bill the $432 premium represents makes it pretty clear that you didn't understand what it meant. I don't know why the AP says "some" when the math makes it clear that it's really "all", but I suspect it's just the typical media bias against Al Gore. Yes. Isn't that interesting, that they don't mention those figures at all? Yet they conclude that a direct comparison of Bush's vacation residence against Gore's primary residence and business office, rather than being specious which it obviously is, is "true"?Sorry, I call shenanigans. For a site that supposedly "debunks urban legends", you'd think they'd operate with a little greater rigor. They did, TL. The email says "extravagant." Snopes calls it "true." The whole thing - "true."If the email makes claims that Snopes can't support, then they should label the email "false." Or at best "unknown." It's that simple. Snopes should be checking its sources before they give them the stamp of approval, and they clearly didn't in this case. They fail to report that the people who gave the figure of "20" did so on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, as confirmed by the Tennessee power company. So that's a major failure of their effort to "debunk", right there - not investigating the evidence behind claims.But that didn't stop them from calling the email "true." I'm sorry but that's not debunking. If I tell you that I won a million dollars in the lottery, but really I just found a ten-dollar bill on the street, my claim was not "basically true". The "gist" of my claim is not true. It's the same thing happening here - Snopes called "true" claims that are objectively false, and reached for the most specious of justifications to do so. They're playing fast and loose with the truth and I'm calling them, and you, on it. Which they didn't even attempt to do. Had they, they would have reported that the TCPR simply made up the "20 times" figure out of whole cloth.But they didn't. They didn't research the details at all. Yet, they called the email "true." That's bullshit, TL! When did I do that? As you mentioned, figures for Bush's vacation house aren't given. I have no idea how it stacks up locally, and I never said I did. I imagine that a house only lived in 2 months out of the year probably uses substantially less power than other, local permanent residences. No, they're being deliberately misleading by calling false information "true." They don't even say "basically true", or "mostly true" - they call the whole thing "true." It's there in black and white, TL. Are you even reading these articles? The Belle Meade area has the highest national average. Simple logic informs us that therefore, it must have a higher average than the Waco area. Is it significantly higher? I need more than your charming anecdotes to substantiate that.