Al Gore nabbed in $30,000 electricity
shocker
That's an awful lot of energy-saving lightbulbs, Al
By Andrew Thomas: Wednesday 28 February 2007, 11:59
TREE HUGGING EX-VEEP Al Gore is under fire for apparently failing
to practise what he preaches, spending $30,000 on gas and
electricity at his Nashville estate last year 20 times the
national average.
As Gore's doom and gloom documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, picks
up the Best Documentary Oscar, an outfit called the Tennessee
Center for Policy Research has, rather inconveniently for the
born-again eco-mentalist, picked up the phone and discovered that
the man previously famous for being exceedingly dull used 221,000
kWh of electricity in 2006.
Thanks to that pesky Freedom of Information Act, we discover that,
last August alone, Gore used 22,619 kWh more than an average
American family uses in a year. Since the release of Gores
hand-wringing documentary, his personal energy consumption has
increased from an average of 16,200 kWh to 18,400 kWh a
month.
Gore supporters claim that the TCPR is operating a cynical smear
campaign against him, but the figures from the Nashville Electric
Service will need some serious explaining if Gore's credibility as
a green campaigner is to remain intact.
Accepting his Oscar last week, Gore said: "It's not as hard as you
might think. We have a long way to go but all of us can do
something in our own lives to make a difference."
Gore is reportedly installing solar panels on the roof of his
mansion. How much bloody electricity can one man use, for God's
sake? He may have invented the Internet, but it now looks as if
he's running the whole thing from his house.
