Bush vs. Gore in energy consumption

I have to pitch in here to defend Snopes. Snopes does an amazingly good job of investigating urban legends, and this is no exception.The Snopes article says there's "mitigating factors" and they link to their own article giving the mitigating factors. Gore pays $432/mo, a figure snopes.com provides, toward getting SOME green energy. That $432 represents about 16% of his electric bill. Since his house is 4 times the normal size and consumes at least 12 times the average, he's still looking at around 2.5 normal energy consumption.So, it's not really true, unless you can provide a source for your statement, that Gore's house uses ONLY green sources for power, and it's also not true that this is why the bill is so high, though it does account for 16% of the bill.You can claim it's conservative misinformation. I don't think you've proven that, and snopes.com did an excellent job of providing both sides of the story. You will note that Gore's rep has 3 paragraphs of direct quotes on snopes.com.I live in Tennessee and I've lived close enough to Crawford, TX to know its weather. There's not a real significant difference in energy needs. Nashville is colder in winter, so there would be more of a heating need.Gore was doing something about his energy use even before the article and perhaps more afterward. Bush is doing a lot, too. However, someone putting out a video like "an inconvenient truth" had better expect to be raked over the coals when he's got a house like that.

They're not wrong here, either. They were VERY fair. I think Crash was complaining mostly about the original piece, and he surely must not have followed their link to the "mitigating factors."

Off topic? hmm... Seems to apply enough for me to try responding.I don't believe that. The prophet is tested by his fruit, according to the Bible, and Jesus sent his apostles out with the statement that "he who receives you receives me, and he who rejects you rejects me."Maybe in environmentalism the message can be separated from the messenger, but you can't use the Bible to justify that.

Gosh, crash, by the standards you're trying to apply to snopes.com, your post (the one I'm responding to) doesn't stand a chance, either. Nor did my post. You'll have to substantiate this claim. I simply pointed out that the Snopes article, quoting the Tennessean, said that "some" of Gore's energy use is from clean sources. Why do you say all?As for your "that's what a 'premium' means," that's exactly how I treated the $432. Any suggestion that only 16% was clean came from you, not me. I did say it wasn't 100%, as you had claimed, because the source said "some." You've given no source for your 100% claim. As far as I can tell, it's simply what you hope is true. Bush's energy consumption compared to the average home isn't mentioned. Bush's energy consumption compared to Gore's isn't mentioned. The article simply says that Bush's home is environmentally friendly, which it is, so the fact Bush lives there only 2-3 months per year isn't relevant, because nothing was said about how low Bush's power bills are. They didn't say this. What they did say is that "other factors...make the Gore home's energy use comparable to that of other homes in the area." Snopes reports that both figures were given. Since the wording of their report makes the issue of 12 or 20 is irrelevant, there's no reason for them to verify one or the other. I opted for the lower one out of simple fairness.Snopes job is not to evaluate Gore's energy usage. Snopes job is to find out if the details in the urban legend are factual. The details ARE factual. You object to the conclusions in the email. It is not Snopes job to evaluate those conclusions down to the nth detail. Nonetheless, they did get responses from Gore and enough info to "mitigate" the conclusions, though they had no responsibility to do so. No, they didn't. They concluded that the "gist," which is that the Gore household "consumes a substantially larger proportion of energy than the average American home" is true. For any reasonable reader, this is a very clear statement that they are not backing either the 12 times or 20 times figure, just that it's "substantially larger."But you are not being anywhere close to a reasonable reader of their article or even my post (as suggested by your interpretations of what I said about the $432). They're not wrong on the facts, they're dead on. There's several things you claim they said, which they didn't say, but who can get "facts" right when those facts are nothing but the very unreasonable interpretations of a disgruntled reader? Of course, you would say that, but you'd give no reason for it. You'd accuse and complain about Snopes for comparing Gore to the national average rather than to his local area, but you're perfectly happy to lump Bush's house into the national average without checking.I didn't say that the Nashville area has no significant difference from the national average. I did say that the energy needs between the Nashville area and the Waco area shouldn't be significantly different, based on their similar weather.Nashville's energy needs may be 50% higher than the national average, but are they 50% higher than Crawford, Tx? I don't know (and you don't either), but I do know the weather in the two places is very similar. I only live 150 miles from Nashville. Winters are not that bad here, and summers are, if anything, less severe than in the Waco area of Texas, though not much less.

It's hard to know where to start, Crash. You've misconstrued so much of what I said and what snopes said, that answering is almost a matter of having to restate everything said earlier. There's nothing in what I said that even remotely indicates I was suggesting green power was only 16% of his electricity. YOU said that the REASON Gore's bill was so high was because he was buying green power. Therefore, I pointed out that the green power only raised his bill by 16%, so your explanation for his high bill doesn't work.I said nothing about his green power being only 16%. I did, however, say that it was only "some," not all, because that's what Scopes said. I asked your for some backing for your claim that "all" his power is green.You did at least go provide this: It's not well more, which it would do your argument good to note. The other page gave a figure of 16,200 KwH/mo, which is exactly what $432 would pay for. Gore's 2006 consumption was up to 221,000, so I suspect the premium is tied to the usage, and Gore is probably specifically paying for all his energy usage as green. Yes, as a matter of fact. What are you reading? The one you keep quoting says "there's a fair bit of truth to the email." So why in the world did you write the paragraph you just wrote? It's bizarre. I can't even understand why you would write that, and then end by asking ME if I had read it. Good grief. You're the one making accusations, not me. I'm simply questioning your statement when you implied that Gore's area uses 50% more than Bush's. When I said: Which I said about the Crawford, TX area and the Nashville area based on weather, you said: Since I was talking about Bush's area vs. Gore's area, and you reply stating that the difference is significant because Gore's is 50% above national average, your statement is only true if Bush's area is the same as the national average. Otherwise, your "I'd say that's a pretty significant difference" makes no sense at all. Actually, according to your source, it's the East South Central area, consisting of TN, MS, KY, and AL that was the highest. I was unable to verify that. Unfortunately, the info's doggone hard to find. However, I did find a 1997 report that's difficult to read and a 1993 report that's easier.The 1997 report has a table on p. 18 that shows energy expenditures higher in the East South Central than in the West South Central (where Bush's house is). However, it's nowhere near the highest.The 1993 report gives energy consumption per household on the second page (table 1). It has the West South Central, where Bush is, higher than the East South Central, where Gore is. The Northeast and the Midwest dwarf both, being about 30% larger.I guess both sides can be purveyors of misinformation, huh, crash?By the way, I also found a web site pointing out that the math doesn't work very well on the claim that the region uses 19.83 kwh/sq. ft. Since the average use is 10,656 kwh/yr, a little division makes the 19.83 kwh/sq. ft. figure only work if the average house is 537 sq. ft. If the average house is over 2,000 sq. ft., as stated by The Buildings Energy Data Book, then the real average energy use must be closer to 5.3 kwh/sq. ft.You know, as I read this more, it's funny, but newer homes use more electricity than older ones, so the argument that Gore's house was built in the 60's doesn't help. In the 1997 report, it shows that average household use was 10,219 kwh then, but in houses constructed in the 60's, it was just 9,459. It was houses constructed in the 1990's (new then) that averaged over 12,000 kwh.Anyway, since I can verify that 10,219 kwh was avg. household use in 1997, I think the current 10,656 figure is very likely correct. The 2,000 sq. ft. figure is also correct, so it looks like the claim that the average house uses 19.83 kwh/sq. ft. is more liberal misinformation.Sorry, I couldn't resist the jab. I don't believe I qualify as a political conservative.

Well, thanks for your time.The similarities between the application of your politics and the creationists' science amazes me.

Well, it wasn't meant as an argument, but as a statement as to why I was dropping the discussion. I maintain a small hope you see why I said it.A better response than I expected, though, so thanks.