I just love this one from The Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

The man winning Oscars for telling the “truth” can’t walk the walk.  He can’t even come close.  He’s adding greenhouse gases to the environment TWENTY TIMES FASTER than the average person.  But, wait, that’s not all.  While the average American travels in bulk on airplanes, Gore’s gotta have his own private jet.  Needless to say, that’s even worse than 20 times the national average.

Richard Branson is leading by example.  Al Gore is annoying by example.  He’s also leading by example as well.  As long as everyone else is inconvenienced by his truth, that’s fine.  When he walks the walk, then he’ll be as sincere about this issue as I am.  I’ve spent big bucks building a fuel efficient home.  The least he can do is spend some money fixing his.  I’m sick and tired of Al Gore destroying MY environment.

Now, where’s my Oscar?

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UPDATE WITHIN MINUTES OF THE ORIGINAL POST:

Al Gore has responded to the TCPR report by stating he does lots of things to minimize the fact he uses 20 times the national average in natural resources that are destroying our planet.  Primarily through the purshasing of “Carbon offsets”.  Now, I have been wondering exactly what carbon offsets do.  Here’s what Wiki has to say about “carbon offsets”:

The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

Now, surely someone flying a personal jet to and from the Oscars to accept an award for a documentary on man-made global warming would never misrepresent something?  I’m sure he’s driving a hybrid SUV as well.

This makes me wanna do another poll!
****** UNFORTUNATELY, the carbon offsets program eventually died a rather inglorious death. So, a different poll still applies:

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UPDATE: February 2, 2007: As soon as humanly possible, the media, who have MADE Al Gore their media darling, are doing everything they can dream of to chastise anyone who doesn’t tow their line.  Particularly, MSNBC’s Will Fernier takes bloggers to task for questioning Al Gore’s sincerity about the issue he’s shooting for Oscars and Nobels with:

For what it’s worth, Gore does have a response, the short version of which is that after employing a number of energy saving tactics (what would the energy draw be without those?) he buys carbon offsets to make up the rest.  In case you’re not familiar, buying carbon offsets is giving money to some kind of eco charity or technology company so that you’re advancing the green cause even if you’re not personally hitting all the green cylinders.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if Al Gore destroys the ozone and environment so long as he contributes to some eco-charity.  So, the point of my poll is dead-on, it’s a feel-good tool for rich people.  It would mean a lot more to people like me if Al Gore did as he demands everyone else do, AND contributes to eco-charities as well.  Then he would be setting a standard for the Bill Gates’, Warren Buffetts, and other rich people.  As it is, he’s told them all they have to do is donate to the eco-charity of their choice and they can continue destroying the planet at a much faster pace than the rest of the human population.

The unfortunate thing about having a prominent spokesperson for a cause is that the cause is so easily confused with the person.  Whether Gore (or Bush for that matter) recycles his empties has nothing to do with the state of the planet.  Hopefully this latest bit of drama stays contained in the pundit-sphere.

Fortunately, it won’t,  Al Gore took it upon himself to be the poster-boy of the global warming issue.  Which, wouldn’t be so bad, but so many pro-global warming people have insulted those with questions ( Al Gore included with his “Area 51″ comment. )  Those people don’t react kindly with being told to shut up by a hypocrite doing less than they are doing now to help the environment.  I don’t fly personal jets, I don’t use 20,000 kilowatts a month generated by coal, and I have more green in my house than he does.  However, I still have questions about the “truths” being advocated that could very likely, with it’s posse attitude, DO MORE HARM TO THE EARTH THAN WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW.

And, unfortunately, I am on the wrong side of the debate with NBC and ABC who are doing everything they can to convince us all that the debate is over, and questioning their global-warming-god-annointed is punishable by faux-French-taunting.