"An Incoveniet Truth" about Al Gore's Energy Use

While former VP Al Gore was out rubbing shoulders with Hollywood's elite and celebrating his documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth", apparently he was doing his part to contribute to the demise of our planet:

[F]ormer Vice President Al Gore was called a hypocrite by a Tennessee group that said his Belle Meade home is consuming too much energy.

The home’s average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.

“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.

NES joined the TVA program in 2000 to give power customers a way to support environmentally sound sources of electricity. The Tennessean could not determine when Gore signed up for green power.

NES gets its electricity from TVA. Most is produced from coal, which emits carbon, a greenhouse gas. A lesser amount comes from nuclear power and a small amount from hydroelectric.

Okay, they threw in something about "Green Power" and all that, but c'mon, $1200 is quite a hefty bill to pay to the power company.

I mean, I pay that for a year of power, not just a month, and I live in the highest taxed state in the Union.

Maybe I'll put up a windmill in my backyard. I bet the neighbors will love that...