Reading about Al Gore’s house clicked something into perspective for me.
The basic facts are simple; Gore uses a lot of energy in his 10,000 sf residence. He’s invested in energy-efficiency, but his lifestyle is still energy-lavish.
He’s not alone; many of the leading advocates of environmental propriety have both a Prius and an Escalade, to make an automotive metaphor. The Prius makes them feel good about themselves, while the Escalade is both roomy, comfortable, powerful, and enough of a status object that it meets the intangible needs that cars also seem to have to meet.
Gore’s response is that a) he’s done everything he reasonably can to mitigate his energy use, by
1) Gore’s family has taken numerous steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their private residence, including signing up for 100 percent green power through Green Power Switch, installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology.
2) Gore has had a consistent position of purchasing carbon offsets to offset the family’s carbon footprint … a concept the right-wing fails to understand. Gore’s office explains:
What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.
With due respect, as someone who’s read Amory Lovins for quite some time (‘Soft Energy Paths’ is a favorite book), if you can afford a private jet and a 10,000 foot house, you can afford to do a lot more than just “installing solar panels, and using compact fluorescent bulbs and other energy saving technology” (and yes, I know about Bush’s house in Crawford – that’s not the point here).
First, I’ll ignore the notion that the very wealthy can afford – among other things – the moral righteousness of buying indulgences for their profligate ways – without actually, you know, doing anything that actually pinches to make them less profligate. Things like this lead to guys nailing things to doors, and we all know where that ends up.
Second, I’ll suggest that what it suggests is that to many, environmental righteousness can best be compared to something from the past…
Created in 1783, the Petit Hameau was a mock farm area, complete with farmhouse, dairy, and poultry yard … all areas traditionally associated with women.
When visiting this ersatz farm, Marie Antoinette and her attendants would dress as shepherdesses, and play at milking the cows and tending other docile animals. The farmhouse interior was more opulent, featuring all of the luxuries expected by the Queen and her ladies.
The Petit Hameau was part of the landscape of the “natural” English garden, but it was also a reflection of France’s cultural values on the eve of the Revolution. This artificial nature retreat mirrored the moral values associated with natural simplicity and virtue.
Novelists, playwrights, and moralists encouraged the aristocracy to act their part by giving a helping hand to the deserving poor in well-staged events that would reflect well on them. The poor had a tendency to take the aristocrats to court if they failed in their traditional duties, and they often won their cases.
Sadly, we can’t do that to our current aristocracy…
Look, we own a hybrid (even if the license plate announces that it’s an ‘eco fraud’). We bought it, nakedly, for the convenience of access to HOV lanes (which in crowded Los Angeles is a convenience indeed), as well as because we no longer needed the larger Honda minivan that we’d driven for seven years. If not for the HOV stickers, we probably would have bought a conventional Civic, rather than a hybrid one….but we probably would have bought something like a Civic regardless.
We could afford a lot of cars. But the reality is that I’ve BTDT with automotive ‘prestige’ (impressing the parking valets, as I once said…), and that I genuinely believe that we do all need to reduce our energy footprint in ways that doesn’t imply that we’ll live in fairy-tale rural communities.
Collapsing that make-believe is an important part of dealing with these issues; I’ll give Gore credit for hammering home the point that these issues are serious. Now if we could only get him out of the milking shed long enough to start talking about what we need to do about them.
“Those much smarter than I”:http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/07/Carbonemissions.shtml have pointed out that all of the carbon-fueled energy which goes into making all those photovoltaic cells (and other green gadgets) effectively exceeds the amount of energy they’ll produce over their lifespan.
Purchasing carbon “offsets” seems a little like a practice that a certain religious group used during the late Middle Ages, which was the purchase of indulgences to “offset” pre planned sins. So, let’s call offsets what they really are “indulgences” for the wealthy and elite. It did not offset sins then and does not offset carbon whatever now.
Has anyone else seen that show about Ed Begley, Jr.? That is how I think the carbon offsets are supposed to work.
He lives in a small house covered in solar panels, he has an exercise bike hooked up to the toaster, his yard is for growing produce, and the whole thing is full of recycled products like milk carton fences.
On the one hand, Ed comes across as very earnest, with a number of interesting technological observations, and a passionate drive to do more. On the other hand, he also exhibits the crazed demeanor of a religious zealot. As much as he tries, he can’t do enough to make himself pure. He forms a competitive bond with Bill Nye, the science guy, down the street that he hopes will reveal new insights to improve his lifestyle. He is obsessed. Almost every moment of his daily life he is doing something in praise of his environment. He is not someone that you would want to be friends with, but interesting to observe. Homo environmentalus.
I’m glad Ed can buy some peace of mind. It will not stop him from trying to be better, but it might just stop him from flipping out and killing somebody.
I’d be a lot more impressed with the piety of purchasing those credits if Gore didn’t in fact own big piece of the firm that sells the credits….
Now don’t get me wrong, creating an investment firm that focuses on nurturing companies that actively improve the environment is not a bad thing. But all things considered, it’s hard to miss the fact that Gore himself hasn’t done a damn thing that would, in fact, inconvenience Gore.
Up to and including buying carbon offsets from himself, and getting some free advertising out of it in the processes.
Tres cute.
I would forgive Al Gore his large energy consumption and take him at his word that he is doing something about his carbon emissions, but it is the tone he takes. It is not “here is a serious social problem, here are social as well as technological responses to a shared fix we are in.” No, it is that sighing, head-wagging tone of his that anyone who disagrees with any part of the 1) utter alarm of which he discusses the problem, and 2) utter contempt he has for anyone who doesn’t share his world view.
Yes it is like the preacher who takes the moralistic tone with everyone and then is the biggest wife-cheater and money-cheater. No, it doesn’t give me license to wife-cheating if the preacher is a phony, but it kind of makes you tune out everything else the guy is saying.
I mean look, the liberal-left is the first to say, “oh, yeah, Ford and GM blame all their trouble on the UAW, the little guy in the factory, and look at all of those big execs getting big bonuses?” I am sure there is some rational free-market reason to pay those execs big bucks for their expertise trying to save a sinking market share, and I am sure Mr. Gore has good reason for his comsumptive life style in terms of his work habits and all of the good he is trying to accomplish. But when you take the tone he does, and when you associate yourself with the liberal-left where these kind of comparisons get made, Al Gore comes across as a big (weight-enhanced) phony.
Rather than comparing the purchase of carbon credits to indulgences I think a more apt comparison is to the odious Civil War practice of the rich avoiding military service by paying for exemption.
The purchase of indulgences was a fraud (selling nothing for something) but the buyers of exemption from service were getting something real in return.
So it is with the carbon credit nonsense: People who wastefully use energy can buy off criticism by writing a check.
For a bitingly sarcastic look at how the latte-sipping bien pensants of Manhattan’s Upper West Side view the former V.P., here’s staff writer David Remnick in the “New Yorker:”:http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/070305ta_talk_remnick
At least, I think it’s meant as parody…
Gore is ucky he can afford to “buy” his greenenss, but most people cannot. So, once again, liberal hypocrisy rears its ugly head in a “do as I say” situation.
If Gore lived as Ed Begley, Jr, is reported to do and ‘walked the talk,’ he woud certainly be more credible. But as another reader pointed out (paraphrasing) “Gore does nothing that would inconvenience Gore.”
We should all be so lucky.
Along these lines (liberal hypocrisy) is Kennedy, Kerry, Mike Wallace, and other liberals with homes on Nantucket Island opposing the proposed ‘wind farm’ in Nantucket Sound. Heaven forbid a few wind turbines would mar their pristine view of the ocean they proffess to want to save (but only if it does not inconvenience them and only if it punishes evil corporations and rich executives).
The fact that a bunch of you on the right side of the aisle get irritated by the habits and pronouncements of a prominent person on the left side of the aisle is not exactly a big shock.
It would take you about two clicks to find out how irritating and hypocritical people on the left side consider Bush and Cheney. With at least as much justification.
I am totally scornful of people with SUVs who have never driven outside the suburbs and the Interstates. But friends who have farms have Suburbans and the like because they are tools for the work they do. If someone needs a truck as a tool, by all means they should have one.
Similarly for a 10,000 sf house. It would be silly for me to have one. Likewise for lots of people who have a party for three dozen people maybe once a year. I don’t know how Al Gore’s social life works, but a professional politician undoubtedly has large “social” gatherings once a week or more, since that is where the work gets done. For all I know, a 10,000 sf house is a necessary tool.
How about carbon credits? Today, carbon credits are nothing but symbolism. They show that you recognize that you’re using a share of a limited resource, and you’re willing to pay for it. But there could be a global market for carbon credits, or for pollution of various kinds. With a finite total number of available credits, market forces determine their cost and value, and they encourage people to install new technology that puts a load on the climate, without making life impossible for people who want to wait. It becomes an economic decision rather than a mandate. Even better, as we understand the climate-change phenomenon better, we can shrink the total number of available credits on a specified schedule, designed to reach some target, even if it will take 100 years or more.
The point is that this is a tunable system that can be adjusted smoothly as our understanding evolves. The point of buying individual carbon credits today is just to make a symbolic statement: “I believe in that sort of carbon market, and I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Yes, Gore is something of a preacher. He would undoubtedly be less fun to have a beer with than George Bush. But look where using that as a criterion for electing the President has gotten us!
_”I don’t know how Al Gore’s social life works, but a professional politician undoubtedly has large “social” gatherings once a week or more, since that is where the work gets done. For all I know, a 10,000 sf house is a necessary tool. “_
Wow. And we’ve reached a new low. If Al Gore spends one day a week _in Tennessee_ I’ll eat my fist. Give me a freakin break. Ever hear of a hotel, conference room, banquet hall? Office building?
And by the way- I need my gas guzzling Wrangler Unlimited for business as well. Nobody respects some dweeb in wind up Alero that runs on Smug- and hence my stature is much increased for my work.3
It’s a necessary tool- kinda like Al Gore is to the left.
Beard,
The problem here is that nobody likes a hypocrite. Gore’s combination of sanctimony, wealth, and hypocrisy is particularly grating.
For contrast, consider the Chickenhawk argument. There is something honorable about war supporters being in theater or worrying about their kids there, compared to fighting keyboardists like me. I reject Chickenhawkism on other grounds–that it’s terrible public policy in that it precludes civilian control over the military, over the long run.
You don’t have to agree with me on that; the point is that seeming hypocrisy annoys, and (also) that it’s not the only consideration.
So, back to Preacher Al and and his carbon-wasteful Celebrity Lifestyle. Why is it important that the Gore family ignore his calls for treading lightly on Gaia–other than that he likes it that way, because the Luxe Life is fun? Since his platform is that middle-class and poor people must make meaningful sacrifices, why should the extent of his own penance be the purchase of a few cut-rate Indulgences?
I guess some animals are more equal than others.
Interesting article in “Wired”:http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/play.html?pg=9 this month about a Pfizer exec who has a solar-powered hydrogen-generator that powers a fuel cell for his off-grid house. Built for $50,000, pretty slick.
I would take Al Gore’s berating much more pleasantly if he was the one building a system like this. I mean, it seems like he would have bumped into the kind of people that can make this happen, and it’s not as if he’s a pauper. My house is 40% the size of his, all-electric, and last year I used about 16% of his kilowatt hours, not to mention the natural gas the Gore compound also consumed on top of the electrical use. I bought a hybrid last year as well, not because it makes the bunnies and squirrels smile but because I don’t like paying for gasoline that much.
Since my family is apparently walking the walk, at least by comparison, does this buy me face time for him to hear *my* views about the environment?
On the upside, only Al Gore can save us from Manbearpig.
*Do as I say not as I do!*
Excuse me, Beard, but Gore is one of the liberals berating the system of pollution credit trading in general and the specific program Bush promoted in an agreement with China, India and Australia (the latter hardly being the biggest polluter on the planet). Seems grossly hypocritical to then pin your ‘green’ credentials on a similar system.
Further, only a few countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol are meeting their commitments (England being one, I read), while most are falling woefully short. As Bush argued from the beginning, the commitments in Kyoto were impossible for (most) coutries to meet without adverse economic results. Therefore, many signers of Kyoto are simply not complying.
In addition, it excluded India and China, the two fastest growing economies in the world with both now in the top 10, if not top 5, of polluters.
Oh, before blaming Bush that the Kyoto Protocol was not signed by the US, ask Gore why he could not convince Clinton to sign it and send it to the Senate for ratification. It sat on Clinton’s desk for close to two years, but he punted. At least Bush had the guts to take a stand on it, whether you agree with that stand or not.
To Beard – A further response to your comment (#9) on those of us to the right of center. Apologies for the length:
[begin article]
LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.
HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.
HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating & cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.
HOUSE #1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, TN. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.
HOUSE #2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, TX. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.
So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON’T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post.
Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it’s truly “an inconvenient truth.”
[end article]
Bush’s house has been lauded by environmentalists as examplifying what should be done.
Ain’t that a hoot!