UPDATE:
Keith Olbermann's coverage last night:
Thanks, Keith.
youTube Link. Code for the video to post on blogs and websites can be found there. Please post it everywhere!.
Original diary and updates below the fold.
I noticed a comment posted by James Boyce in his diary regarding the latest round of rightwing attacks on Al Gore, wherein James mentions about an email he received from Al Gore's office. It contains what I think is important information explaining why their energy consumption should be expected to be significantly higher than that in regular homes.
Vice President Gore's office also wanted everyone to know:
100 percent of the power the Gores use in their home (and in all their homes though I wouldn't bring this up) is green power.
Both the Vice President and Mrs Gore have home offices and conduct business at the house so obviously they use more power than someone who is just a homeowner
The Gores drive a hybrid, use compact fluorescents, et cetera
And the Gores live a carbon neutral life which means that for every ton of carbon they emit, they also purchase offsets.
A note on update: The diary was written by Dave Johnson and James Boyce. I apologize for acknowledging only James when I first wrote this diary.
~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, James has not updated his diary to include this new information, and hence I am posting the current diary, and your recommendations of it will be much appreciated.
Here is the full comment posted by James:
JUST GOT THANK YOU EMAIL FROM GORE'S OFFICE! (18+ / 0-)
Morning everybody. Well, we're getting some traction and some real notice and Dave and I appreciate everyone's help.
I just received a very nice thank you email from Vice President Gore's office in Nashville. They have noticed all the good work and effort everyone is putting into this. I accepted on behalf of everyone who is helping - and trust me, Dave and I asked everyone we know to help last night and they did - special hat tip to Nate for giving us a better title. Keep fighting.
Vice President Gore's office also wanted everyone to know:
100 percent of the power the Gores use in their home (and in all their homes though I wouldn't bring this up) is green power.
Both the Vice President and Mrs Gore have home offices and conduct business at the house so obviously they use more power than someone who is just a homeowner
The Gores drive a hybrid, use compact fluorescents, et cetera
And the Gores live a carbon neutral life which means that for every ton of carbon they emit, they also purchase offsets.
James Cannon Boyce
by jamesboyce on Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 05:16:37 AM PST
which adds to the response that was given by Gore's offices when they were contacted by Think Progress yesterday:
Gore Responds To Drudge’s Latest Hysterics
Responding to Drudge’s attack, Vice President Gore’s office told ThinkProgress:
- 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.
- 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.
In an excellent comment in James' diary, StephenJoseph wrote (excerpted):
Now think about this. Al Gore probably has a security staff to maintain, plus gets lots of people visting him to talk about all sorts of issues. Plus he probably has regular gatherings about all sorts of issues. Do you think the average person could do that using the average amount of energy? How about 2 times the average?
by StevenJoseph on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 07:39:33 PM PST
Considering the factors:
- Gores have a relatively large 10K square foot 5 bedroom home (latts)
- have two home based offices
- likely have staff helping in various capacities
- likely have several visitors (family, friends, former and present coworkers, those working with Gore on global warming, and maybe a friendly politician or two visiting them once in a while)
- use green energy which apparently costs significantly more (30-40% higher according to illinifan7)
their energy bills do not seem unreasonable to me.
Thanks in advance for diary recomendations and input in the comments section.
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 1:
- Please see this thread below for some action items (I may post some action items up here in later updates) for fighting back. Don't forget to add your own action items and ideas!
- If you haven't done so already, please visit Al Gore's site AlGore.Com and sign the post card there for his letter writing campaign to the US congress (he will be making an appearance before the congress on March 21st). And, tell everyone on your personal and work email lists to do the same. H/T to luigi for a reminder. Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 2: (re) Breaking!
"Cheney's electric bill (paid by the US Navy) was $186,000 for the fiscal year 2001. Democratic lawmakers tried to get Cheney to pay his own damn bills, but Rethugs had a fit." H/T bronte17. Spread the word!
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 3: For supporters of a Gore candidacy for 2008, a latest Washington Post poll puts Gore at 14% for the nomination, which is not too bad for someone that has stated that he has no plans to run (currently?), but has not ruled out a run:
African American Voters Shift Support to Obama
By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The latest poll put Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 24 percent, Gore at 14 percent and Edwards at 12 percent. None of the other Democrats running received more than 3 percent. With Gore removed from the field, Clinton gained ground on Obama, leading the Illinois senator 43 percent to 27 percent. Edwards ran third at 14 percent. The poll was completed the night Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar.
It is good that Washignton post asked the poll question both with and without Al Gore. I'd like to recommend (and request) professional polling outfits reading this diary to follow this approach primarily because the race is still in its early stages and further, arguably, Gore is in a unique position to enter the race several months down the stretch and still be a serious contender for the nomination. Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 3. Part 2: Keep in touch with the latest developments on this and other stories and diaries by visiting the tag pages: Al Gore and Gore.
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 4: New Diary about UN's climate change roadmap:
UN Climate Change Roadmap (Released Today!!): Civilization must rise to the challenge, by jhritz, Tue Feb 27, 2007
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 5:
Information posted by elender (excerpted):
This comment explains the "green switch" used by Gores:
[They ((the Gores)) are getting "green power" from their utility
Check:
The Switch Is On
TVA and participating local public power companies, working with input from the environmental community, have created a program called Green Power Switch® to produce electricity from renewable sources and add it to the Tennessee Valley’s power mix
...
Why does green power cost more? Because although renewable resources like sunlight and wind are free, the technology for capturing their energy is still more expensive than traditional power generation methods. By choosing to pay a little more for Green Power Switch, you help advance the technology and increase the amount of electricity generated from cleaner sources. The dollars from every block of green power you buy go directly back into Green Power Switch.
...
http://www.tva.gov/...
They wouldn't have a utility bill of $30,000 if they didn't buy green power.
In this comment, elender reports about the utility company stating that they never received a request from the "policy" center that waged the attacks on Gore:
Please upgrade this diary!
This right wing group didn't get their data from NES. Then where from the hell did they get it from?
The think tank said that Gore used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours last year and that his average monthly electric bill was $1,359. Johnson said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service.
But electric company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never provided them with any information.
link
According to elender, the information is not online. There exists a possibility that the "policy" center people may have obtained the "information" by telephone. However, it isn't clear if the utility company entertains such requests.
If at this point the reader would like a pinch of humor, here is an excellent serving from vassmer from James' diary. Enjoy!
Gore could live in a tent in the woods.... (83+ / 0-)
and eat just wild berries and pick mushrooms. Yet, the right wing goons would try to smear him:
"Look at Al Gore! That mushroom is endangered in this area! I saw swat a fly! The killer..he doesn't care about the planet....."
by vassmer on Mon Feb 26, 2007 at 07:12:52 PM PST
(picture from: Mushroom and Berry Picking)
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 6: Important updates
DonBinTN has done fabulous work in tracking down the origin of the smear attacks. He finds that this was started by the Tennessean.
Who Really Launched the Gore Hit Piece? Time to Boycott...
by DonBinTN
Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 04:33:40 PM PST
The Tennessean, that's who--Nashville's daily. When I wrote local NPR radio to complain about the local news reading a wire version of the story, one of my main complaints was that they shouldn't be spreading the spin of the conservative nuts at the Tennessee Policy Research Center, who were widely credited with starting the story. The e-mail response (quoted below the fold) I got told the real story - that it was the Tennessean that requested the Gore energy numbers and were running with the story, and was responsible for involving the TPRC.
A follow up question could be why the Tennesean? Who did or may have prompted them to do it?
Here is the Tennesean article, which says some good things:
"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 Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, identified as a free-market think tank.
Gore's power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.
Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.
That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.
The green power Gore purchased in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on NES' Web site.
(H/T Ranting Roland as well). Please visit and recommend that diary.
Here is CNN's somewhat balanced reporting: Tuesday, February 27, 2007, Gore defends energy saving efforts
~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE 7: Some good/fun news and poll(!) for the Gore 2008 fans among us
(H/T bernardpliers)
AOL POLL: "Should Gore Run"
Should Gore run for the White House in 2008?
Yes 51%
No 49%
Total Votes: 262,048
Do you think Gore will run for the White House in 2008?
No 62%
Yes 38%
Total Votes: 258,016
Who would have a better chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination?
Al Gore 65%
Hillary Clinton 35%
Total Votes: 221,076
Who would have a better chance of defeating the Republican nominee?
Al Gore 74%
Hillary Clinton 26%
Total Votes: 218,390
Vote Now!, and post some comments here if you'd like.