An inconvienent truth....

On Monday night the former Vice President accepted an award for his celluloid screed which argues that all of us should be more careful with our "Mother Earth" and should reduce our energy consumption from fossil fuels. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research thought it might be useful to look at the public records of the Nashville Electric Service to understand how this leader actually lives his life. The average American consumes 10,556 kilowatt hours per year. Mr. Gore uses a bit more - 22,619. To show you what a good leader he is he actually increased his consumption by more than 12% from 2005 to 2006. His natural gas bills were almost $1100 more a month.

In a small and well hidden story about the press release the Sacramento Bee pointed out that the Center "disputes whether global warming is a serious problem." (Page A7 no link) In the spirit of accuracy, the Tennessee Center lists as its main areas of research "Education, Healthcare,Tax and Budget(including reducing the regulatory burden), and Other (reflecting the Founding Father's vision of a free society)" as its key policy areas. Of all the current papers on the organization's site there is but one on anything relating to energy policy and none on global warming. But evidently the AP, who originally published the story, didn't bother to check that. They were more interested in "pish-poshing" a legitimate story about the hypocrisy of this supposed leader. A spokeswoman for Gore claimed that he "invests in enough renewable power to make up for the home's power consumption." If his earlier hectoring of all of us for the public schools (while his kids went to St. Alban's a private school in Washington was not enough) this is another example of Gore's constant "do as I say, not as I do" form of public policy.