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Originally Posted by brianwspencer
Sham,
Do you really understand how carbon offsets work? I'm not trying to put up a blind ass-cover for Gore, sure he could use less energy. With a house that size, he will still of course, use more energy than most.
Think of it this way. His bill is 20x the average bill. Of course it is, he has a 20 room house. I'm sure that "non-partisan" group conveniently left out how they calculated their average, using every single energy user, including those in studio and one-bedroom apartments all over the country. I would fully expect that someone with a house 20x bigger than my apartment would use 20x more energy than me. That's not news to anyone.
Carbon offsets used to help decrease your carbon footprint are a great thing. It is always those who don't understand how they work, as if it is some fictitious way to just throw away money to make oneself feel good, who are quick to dismiss the idea.
It also states quite clearly that his energy is coming from green energy sources, which is exactly what he wants people to do -- cut down on their non-envirofriendly energy consumption.
I wouldn't call it a "smear," per se. I would just call it a non-issue because the whole stink is about the raw numbers of his energy use and not about the notions of where it is coming from, how it is being offset, etc etc. It's all sort of boring and convenient. Everyone's gotta have a rallying cry, I guess. Some of them just manage to make them over things that are actually important.
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Metaphorically, Big Al is buying and consuming someone's unused water rations instead of the water being poured back in the well. The feel good part is that he can assuage his conscience by believing that the money will be used to successfully find more water. The disingenuous part is that the guy drinking more than his share of the water is the very one going around telling everyone that they must conserve the scarce water supply.
As to Big Al's
choice to use renewable energy for his mansion, I'm betting that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provides his power. Hydroelectric power is their principal product and is really the only home energy option available in that part of the world. No "green" points there.
By the way, water is not nearly so scarce as Big Al would have you believe.