Remember the story from last year about how Al Gore's home uses 20 times as much electricity as the national average? Well he must have been embarrassed because he spent a bunch of money renovating his house to make it more energy efficient. Too bat it didn't work.
In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. ...In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.
After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.
Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month – 1,638 kWh more energy per month than the year before the renovations. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration. The cost of Gore’s electric bills over the past year topped $16,533.
If a guy can't even control the energy usage of his own home, why should we trust him with any sort of national or global energy plan? If I were cynical, I'd say the whole global warming gig was a scam cooked up to enrich its spokesholes.
In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore’s film won an Oscar, and he won a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria.
(HT: John Tierney.)
And the increase in energy consumption doesn't even include all the energy used to manufacture and install all the eco-nonsense.
It would be interesting to know what he's doing in there. Does he run his office from home? How many people in his household. etc. If his household supports over a dozen people, then it doesn't make much sense comparing it to a household of 3 or 4 people.
I'm a micro-generation sceptic in general, but maybe with the roof area of a mansion and the climate of Tennessee it's more viable than on a 3-bed semi in rainy England. But geothermal is cool, and efficient light bulbs are no hardship or extra cost. It would also be interesting to know exactly what he had installed, to better judge whether it's "eco-nonsense".
But why do we have to presume that it all makes sense until it's conclusively proven to be nonsense? I would rather presume that it's nonsense until it's conclusively proven to make sense---and to work.
My theory is that we don't know much about climate change and our ability to affect it. Gore's theory is a wonderland of speculation about CFCs, carbon dioxide, global temperatures, and all sorts of other variables chosen mostly on the basis of their ability to sound scary. Which theory does Occam's Razor suggest that we support?
My son, who's about to turn seven, asked me about recycling a few nights ago. He listened closely as I tried to explain it, but I could see that he wasn't really getting it. Finally I boiled it down to something a seven-year-old could understand: "Oh no, there's a giant dinosaur coming! Quick, give me all your money! He's going to come kill us all! Quick, give me your lunch, too. And all your good toys."
You can believe in the giant dinosaur if you want, Mauyr. And you're free to give those con men your money. But if you want to take my money for your gullibility, then we're having a very different conversation. Al Gore's schtick is in the same mold as Rachel Carson's mass-murdering con job from over 40 years ago. It would be funny if we weren't talking about real dollars and real lives.
BB: Gore may lack scientific credibility (his goal appears to be to create action, not so much to be scrupulously truthful), but you're not doing any better imo. The ozone depleting effect of CFCs is not in dispute. The correlation was noticed, and the effect of reducing CFC production is having the predicted effect. Even the mechanism is known. To include it what you call speculation and wonderland betrays some ignorance and/or political bias on your part.
Anyway, we probably disagree less than you think about all this. While I see human caused climate change as a plausible theory, I also see a lot of things on the market which are eco-nonsense, because they just don't work. Micro-generation is an example. Most implementations on sale today are fairly naked attempts to swindle well-meaning consumers / hippies. It's capitalism at it's worst.
But if you're including things like intelligent insulation / ventilation, efficient lighting and /all/ recycling then I must disagree with you and suggest that your position is unrealistically extreme. Efficiency is always better. It means that we can safely have more. Recycling is notoriously sometimes more energetically expensive than eg. incineration, but consider this.
I'm more skeptical than you are, Mauyr. You say that efficiency is always better. Not true. Efficiency is only better when the energy savings is higher than the cost of purchase and installation over a reasonable time frame.
This is why the math gets complicated if you buy something like a refrigerator, water heater, or air conditioner. You have to make important assumptions about the life of the unit, the cost of energy, and so forth. I suspect that many people are sold too much efficiency in areas like appliances and insulation precisely because they have been led to believe that efficiency is always better.
The market eliminates true waste. If there's a better way to do something, then the market will quickly make that way the standard. So I'm immediately suspicious of any scheme under which little children will save the earth by recycling paper, or status-conscious eco-fanatics install solar panels. If that stuff really worked in an economic sense, then giant companies would already be doing it on a massive scale. A decision to recycle some material or install a new gadget on a house should be a straightforward math problem, not an emotionally driven attempt to save the world.
BB: You're opinion of CFCs is not scepticism, it's cynicism which is not quite the same thing.
Your point about the lifetime of a new "efficient" purchase is a good one which I agree with, but glossed over in my overly terse sentence "efficiency is always better". I pretty much stand by that in context though. Quality insulation quickly pays for itself in cold climates (like mine), and I'm sure intelligent architecture which keeps cool in warm climates will work out cheaper than AC very quickly. Efficient bulbs also work out well. I don't consider these things eco-nonsense.
Whether you're sceptical or cynical wrt ecology, I think you're charmingly naive about economics and the interests of large businesses. Ecological interests are medium-long term. When I decide whether to buy a new fridge, I'm calculating over 15 - 20 years what my best option is. Businesses don't do that, with the argument that 15 - 20 years don't matter if they loose their market share in the next 1 or 2 years. They are necessarily short term organisms. I don't see that as an evil thing, it's just the way they are, it's an unavoidable consequence of competition.
It's the same with elected governments by the way. No point having a brilliant 5-year programme if you'll be unelected 3 years into it, before it's had time to pay off.
So if there's a better way to do something, and the maths make it work in the short term, then businesses and politicians will do it. If it costs them in the short term but makes savings in the longer term, they would need to be compelled or encouraged to do it. Otherwise the one company that didn't play along would enjoy a short-term advantage and some if its competitors would fail altogether. And that's where an argument for emotionally driven campaigns has some traction and while, although I find Gore annoying and very over-simplistic, I can tell that I'm not his intended audience and he might be trying to get something done.
I accept that I could be naive about him. It's not my considered opinion, I haven't invested any time looking into it. It's my default position is to entertain the notion that he might have a basic level of decency. I'm trying not to be cynical.
I think Gore has a huge conflict of interest that adds to my general skepticism of perpetual environmentalist panic. Gore has made at least $100 million over the past 8 years by his scare tactics... not through legitimate *business*, which I'd have no problem with, but by harassing people with externalities and public mockery.
Well, I skimmed through Gore's entry in Wikipedia, so the normal caveats about the following "Facts!" apply.
"The former vice president's home has 20 rooms, including home offices for himself and his wife, as well as a guest house and special security measures. Furthermore, the Gores buy energy produced from renewable sources, such as wind and solar."
Does Gore use that much more energy than you do, if you include your office activity? Would it be fair to include the energy you use to commute? I think he probably does use more, but is that a bad thing?
Again, according to wikipedia, since he sources his energy from renewable sources, the cost of his electricity is voluntarily more than twice what it would be from the cheapest supplier.
The entry continues to claim that the ecological retrofit continued into November, overlapping with the beginning of the period for the latest total. Ie, the increase is at least partly accounted for by the upfront costs of installation.
Al Gore's business interests could be seen as a conflict of interest, or as an expression of his environmental commitment... if he is sincere about climate change, why shouldn't he invest his working time and money to it? I don't have a detailed summary of what his interests are, but I know that one of them is as chair and founder of Generation Investment Management, which manages funds based on environmentally friendly portfolios, which I would regard that as legitimate business -- satisfying a demand that some ethical investors might have to keep their money and pensions away from sources of pollution.
Which interests of his do you think are illegitimate business, or do amount to a conflict?
Do you imagine that Gore couldn't make a lot more money by other means?
Well first off, I don't care how much energy Gore uses -- I just think it's ridiculous for him to use 20 times more than me and then lecture me about my "waste". You ask about my commuting and so forth, but Al Gore commutes all over the world for his speeches, and takes private planes everywhere. Including commuting and business energy consumption pushes him even farther beyond the average.
Secondly, the GIM is built on a scam! Sure, people voluntarily buy into it, but he's the one propagating the lies that build the demand for what his company then provides. That's the very definition of a con artist.
Al Gore is as much of a charlatan as the stereotypical televangelist who begs money for his god, exploits his followers' gullibility, provides no useful service, and ultimately leaves everyone in his wake worse off than they were before.
"Global warming is a scam" is your opinion, a rather eccentric one shared almost uniquely among politically conservative partisans who see the "illusion" of scientific consensus as part of a left wing socialist conspiracy, or as part of an atheist's surrogate religion. -- Both absurd hypotheses IMO. The real socialists regimes around the world aren't at all concerned by environmental issues, and while new-age hippy air-heads do exist, they always have so what's new?
Even if petrol-company funded science turns out to be right and we aren't affecting the climate, the fact that so many people believe we are surely would make it reasonable to accept Gore's belief in it, at least?
And if he does believe it, then the financial services he provides are not hypocritical, but a sensible way to get investment into the technology through the capitalist system. Strikes me it's as important a prong to the attack as is his political campaigning.
Al Gore travels a lot, it's the nature of his job. Would it be better, from the point of view of bringing about change to environmental policies world-wide, for him to give up that work? Would it be better for him personally to not produce a few hundred tons of CO2, or for him to persuade governments to reduce emissions by several thousand times more?
You can read it either way.
My "scam" belief will be vindicated, just be patient.
In any event, you dodged the original issue at-hand: Gore's house is a tribute to his hypocrisy. He could promote his cause just as effectively if he lived in an average house.
And YOU brought in the commuting issue, not me! Al Gore could fly on commercial airlines while he's saving the world. Nothing prevents that. Even flying FIRST CLASS would reduce his "carbon footprint" by an order of magnitude. But no! Private jets all the way.
He doesn't believe his own hype. Or if he does, he thinks he should be exempt from the restrictions he'd put on the rest of us. Oooo, he buys "offsets" -- from companies he owns! Most Americans couldn't afford to maintain their current standard of living if they had to pay 300% as much for energy due to buying "green" or "carbon offsets". It's ridiculous.
As far as I know, Gore uses a mixture of ordinary airlines and private jets. I don't know if it's really 300% the price, but if it is it's a good thing Gore's trying to set up the infrastructure to make green energy or offsets cheaper then.
I'm not sure how useful it is continuing with this. Just to sum up, you're saying he's a ridiculous hypocrite, I'm saying he might not be. It is not automatically wrong to spend money and energy setting things up so that they can be cheaper and use less energy in the future.
I agree that building infrastructure for important things is important in itself. I also think that Al Gore wants to enjoy his wealth more than he wants to limit his "carbon footprint". I want to do the same, and so do most Americans, and most Chinese, Indians, etc. His tax plans and carbon limitation plans would undermine the rest of us even if they won't significantly affect him.