Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How Gore's massive energy consumption saves the world
Chicago Sun ^ | 03/04/2007 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 03/04/2007 10:10:29 AM PST by etradervic

Stop me if you've heard this before, but the other day the Rev. Al Gore declared that "climate change" was "the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced.'' Ever. I believe that was the same day it was revealed that George W. Bush's ranch in Texas is more environmentally friendly than the Gore mansion in Tennessee. According to the Nashville Electric Service, the Eco-Messiah's house uses 20 times more electricity than the average American home. The average household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours. In 2006, the Gores wolfed down nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours.

Two hundred twenty-one thousand kilowatt-hours? What's he doing in there? Clamping Tipper to the electrodes and zapping her across the rec room every night? No, no, don't worry. Al's massive energy consumption is due entirely to his concern about the way we're depleting the Earth's resources. When I say "we," I don't mean Al, of course. I mean you -- yes, you, Earl Schlub, in the basement apartment at 29 Elm St. You're irresponsibly depleting the Earth's resources by using that electric washer when you could be down by the river with the native women beating your loin cloth dry on the rock while singing traditional village work chants all morning long. But up at the Gore mansion -- the Nashville Electric Service's own personal gold mine, the shining Cathedral of St. Al, Tennessee's very own Palace of Versal -- the Reverend Al is being far more environmentally responsible. As his spokesperson attempted to argue, his high energy usage derives from his brave calls for low energy usage. He's burning up all that electricity by sending out faxes every couple of minutes urging you to use less electricity.

Also he buys -- and if you're a practicing Ecopalyptic please prostrate yourself before the Recycling Bin and make the sign of the HDPE -- Al buys "carbon offsets," or "carbon credits." Or, as his spokesperson Kalee Kreider put it (and, incidentally, speaking through a spokesperson is another way Al dramatically reduces his own emissions), the Gores "also do the carbon emissions offset."

They do the Carbon Emissions Offset? What is that -- a '60s dance craze? No, it's way hotter. I mean, cooler. All the movie stars are doing it. In fact, this year's Oscar goodie-bag that all the nominees get included a year's worth of carbon offsets. Totally free. So even the stars' offsets are offset. No wonder that, when they're off the set, they all do the offset. Look at Leonardo DiCaprio: He's loaded with 'em, and the chicks think he's totally eco-cool. Tall and tan and young and lovely, the boy with carbon offsets goes walking and when he passes each one he passes goes aaaiiieeeeeeeee!

How do "carbon offsets" work? Well, let's say you're a former vice president and you want to reduce your "carbon footprint," but the gorgeous go-go Gore gals are using the hair dryer every night. So you go to a carbon-credits firm and pay some money and they'll find a way of getting somebody on the other side of the planet to reduce his emissions and the net result will be "carbon neutral." It's like in Henry VIII's day. He'd be planning a big ox roast and piling on the calories but he'd give a groat to a starving peasant to carry on starving for another day and the result would be calorie-neutral.

So in the Reverend Al's case it doesn't matter that he's lit up like Times Square on V-E Day. Because he's paid for his extravagant emissions. He has a carbon-offset trader in an environmentally friendly carbon-credits office suite who buys "carbon offsets" for Al from, say, a terrorist mastermind in a cave in the Pakistani tribal lands who's dramatically reduced his energy usage mainly because every time he powers up his cell phone or laptop a light goes on in Washington and an unmanned drone starts heading his way. So, aside from a basic cable subscription to cheer himself up watching U.S. senators talking about "exit strategies" on CNN 24/7, the terrorist mastermind doesn't deplete a lot of resources. Which means Tipper can watch Al give a speech on a widescreen plasma TV, where Al looks almost as wide as in life, and she doesn't have to feel guilty because it all comes out . . . carbon-neutral!

And, in fact, in the Reverend Al's case it's even better than that. Al buys his carbon offsets from Generation Investment Management LLP, which is "an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 and with offices in London and Washington, D.C.," that, for a fee, will invest your money in "high-quality companies at attractive prices that will deliver superior long-term investment returns." Generation is a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3. And who's the chairman and founding partner? Al Gore.

So Al can buy his carbon offsets from himself. Better yet, he can buy them with the money he gets from his long-time relationship with Occidental Petroleum. See how easy it is to be carbon-neutral? All you have do is own a gazillion stocks in Big Oil, start an eco-stockbroking firm to make eco-friendly investments, use a small portion of your oil company's profits to buy some tax-deductible carbon offsets from your own investment firm, and you too can save the planet while making money and leaving a carbon footprint roughly the size of Godzilla's at the start of the movie when they're all standing around in the little toe wondering what the strange depression in the landscape is.

A couple of days before the Oscars, the Reverend Al gave a sell-out performance at the University of Toronto. "From my perspective, it is a form of religion," said Bruce Crofts of the East Toronto Climate Action Group, who compared the former vice president to Jesus Christ, both men being (as the Globe And Mail put it) "great leaders who stepped forward when called upon by circumstance." Unlike Christ, the Eco-Messiah cannot yet walk on water, but then, neither can the polar bears. However, only Al can survey the melting ice caps and turn water into whine. One lady unable to land a ticket frantically begged the university for an audience with His Goriness. As the National Post reported, "Her daughter hadn't been able to sleep since seeing ''An Inconvenient Truth.'' She claimed that seeing Mr. Gore in person might make her daughter feel better." Well, it worked for Leonardo DiCaprio.

Are eco-celebrities buying ridiculousness-emissions credits from exhausted run-of-the-mill celebrities like Paris, Britney and Anna Nicole? Ah, well. The Eco-Messiah sternly talks up the old Nazi comparisons: What we're facing is an "ecological Holocaust, and "the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin." That 221,000 kilowatt-hours might suggest that, if this is the ecological Holocaust, Gore's pad is Auschwitz. But, as his spokesperson would no doubt argue, when you're faced with ecological Holocausts and ecological Kristallnachts, sometimes the only way to bring it to an end is with an ecological Hiroshima. The Gore electric bill is the eco-atom bomb: You have to light up the world in order to save it.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ecophobia; energy; gore
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-33 next last
Steyn touches on Gore's Carbon Credit Con Game.
1 posted on 03/04/2007 10:10:32 AM PST by etradervic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: etradervic
How Gore's Massive Energy Consumption Saves the World
2 posted on 03/04/2007 10:12:15 AM PST by Steely Tom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic; neverdem; Uncledave
I mean you -- yes, you, Earl Schlub, in the basement apartment at 29 Elm St. You're irresponsibly depleting the Earth's resources by using that electric washer when you could be down by the river with the native women beating your loin cloth dry on the rock while singing traditional village work chants all morning long. But up at the Gore mansion -- the Nashville Electric Service's own personal gold mine, the shining Cathedral of St. Al, Tennessee's very own Palace of Versal -- the Reverend Al is being far more environmentally responsible.

ROTFLMAO

3 posted on 03/04/2007 10:15:34 AM PST by GOPJ (If the United States gave California to Mexico, Mexicans would start sneaking into Nevada.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

If it were not for gullible, ignorant people, Gore would be doing something else for a living....in the mean time, his scam and fraud lives on. Along with all of his buddies in academia, the junk science community and the socialist politicians who see a new "cause" to suck money out of the public.


4 posted on 03/04/2007 10:15:48 AM PST by EagleUSA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

I would love to know what the nancy boy from NC's monthly electric bill is. 28,000 square feet? Judas f'n Priest.


5 posted on 03/04/2007 10:16:07 AM PST by stm (Believe 1% of what you hear in the drive-by media and take half of that with a grain of salt)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic
Stop me if you've heard this before

Stop!

See: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794928/posts. (Search on "consumption" by date finds this.)

ML/NJ

6 posted on 03/04/2007 10:16:37 AM PST by ml/nj
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

Excellent reading! As I was reading, I was thinking, who is this author. Of course... Steyn! He rules!


7 posted on 03/04/2007 10:18:32 AM PST by XEHRpa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

Let's get a petition going to Roger Ailes that he give Steyn his own show--


8 posted on 03/04/2007 10:19:34 AM PST by the Real fifi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

Steyn bump.


9 posted on 03/04/2007 10:20:34 AM PST by Plutarch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

There's a William Shatner joke in there somewhere...;-)


10 posted on 03/04/2007 10:23:31 AM PST by pillut48 (CJ in TX (Bible Thumper and Proud!))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: the Real fifi

Only if it includes a guarantee that he'll continue writing his columns! ;)


11 posted on 03/04/2007 10:28:09 AM PST by MizSterious (Anonymous sources often means "the voices in my head told me.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: etradervic
"...the Eco-Messiah cannot yet walk on water, but then, neither can the polar bears. However, only Al can survey the melting ice caps and turn water into whine."

Priceless.

12 posted on 03/04/2007 10:28:41 AM PST by Zuben Elgenubi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic
"See how easy it is to be carbon-neutral? All you have do is own a gazillion stocks in Big Oil, start an eco-stockbroking firm to make eco-friendly investments, use a small portion of your oil company's profits to buy some tax-deductible carbon offsets from your own investment firm, and you too can save the planet while making money and leaving a carbon footprint roughly the size of Godzilla's at the start of the movie when they're all standing around in the little toe wondering what the strange depression in the landscape is."

The Goricle has learned well from his mentors- Maurice Strong and the Rockefellers.

13 posted on 03/04/2007 10:30:20 AM PST by Nathan Zachary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

Do you realize how much energy your duplicate post is wasting? You are hereby required to contact AlGore Energy Waste Forgiveness Corp. and purchase 25,000 credits. :)


14 posted on 03/04/2007 10:32:22 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Prevent Glo-Ball Warming ... turn out the sun when not in use)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NonValueAdded
"Do you realize how much energy your duplicate post is wasting? "

No, how much? It might be wasting a few kb of disc space somewhere, depending on how big it gets. Other than that, how much energy is it wasting? If I wasn't looking at this link, I'd be looking at another, so it's neutral in that respect.

15 posted on 03/04/2007 10:46:08 AM PST by Nathan Zachary
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: etradervic
"... doesn't have to feel guilty because it all comes out . . . carbon-neutral!"

And yet Gore has claimed ad nauseum that simply maintaining current levels of carbon emission is insufficient to save the planet and that we must drastically reduce emissions. It's not the first time or the last that Gore seeks to have it both ways.

16 posted on 03/04/2007 10:48:59 AM PST by Bonaparte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NonValueAdded
Do you realize how much energy your duplicate post is wasting? You are hereby required to contact AlGore Energy Waste Forgiveness Corp. and purchase 25,000 credits. :)

LOL. Sorry. I searched for GORE before posting. I guess it is not the same as searching for GORE'S. I'll gladly pay the carbon credit penalty for my waste of energy here. Just give me a month to setup a 501 Corp. ;
17 posted on 03/04/2007 10:49:57 AM PST by etradervic (Three great candidates for '08 - Newt, Hunter, Romney)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

And exactly who has control of that carbon credit money?
My guess is a not for profit 501-C set up by greenpeace or some other similar envirowacko. org.
And how much of that money is spent for administrative costs?

This whole concept is a lot of gobbldy gook substantiated by Gore-isms. Simply put.... Hot air with glitter on it.


18 posted on 03/04/2007 10:50:46 AM PST by o_zarkman44
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

"Two hundred twenty-one thousand kilowatt-hours? What's he doing in there?"



My suspicion is that he'll do a John Kerry and tell us that it's Tipper's house.


19 posted on 03/04/2007 11:02:41 AM PST by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: etradervic

I'm reducing my carbon footprint by not driving to the theater to see his dumb ass movie.


20 posted on 03/04/2007 11:03:32 AM PST by HenpeckedCon (Can I please freep just a little while longer Dear?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-33 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson