Op-ed News.com is reporting on what it refers to as A Far Too Convenient $mear: Part One: namely, an item that appeared on the Drudge report and rapidly metastisized that Vice President Gore has an outsized carbon footprint.Responding to Drudge's attack, Vice President Gore's office told ThinkProgress: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.
The report comes from an organization that calls itself "The Tennessee Center For Policy Research."
As of Feb. 16, the Tennessee tax dept. considers them "not a legitimate organization" because of their misrepresenting themselves involving questions about the group's opposition to a state crackdown on drug dealers.
IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.
1 comment:
The fact remains that the Gore family uses 20X more energy than the average American family -- which is already the highest in the world. Carbon credits or not, this sets a horrible example. It basically says that you can go ahead and be as much of an energy glutton as you want as long as you are rich and can pay your way out.
Engineers can only do so much to reduce emission output through better efficiency and innovation. A very large component of the solution depends on social change -- a change which Mr. Gore and others should be encouraging by example. We need to stop equating "success" with "giant house and outdoor spa".
I have a tremendous amount of respect for what Mr. Gore's movie has done for global warming and I encourage everyone I possibly can to see that movie, regardless of political leanings. However, someone with as much insight into the issue as he does should be at the forefront of social change. You can't just ask everyone else to carry the burden.
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