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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10086)	3/1/2007 1:20:05 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Lifestyles Of The Rich, Famous investors.com Leadership: If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences or the Nobel Committee handed out prizes for demonstrating unsurpassed hypocrisy, Al Gore and John Edwards should be among the first recipients. Gore, driven by a narcissistic compulsion to save the planet, has been nagging Americans about energy conservation for years. Drive a smaller car or, even better, buy a hybrid. Live in a more modest house. Put on a sweater, as Jimmy Carter suggested, and keep that home cooler in the winter. Don't turn the air conditioner up so high in the summer. Replace those incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. Go green even if it hurts. These aren't so much tokens of good advice as they are commandments from on high. So how does Gore live? Like the privileged leaders of the Soviet ruling party who led lives that were far more comfortable than those of the peasants they ruled. When he isn't hectoring Americans about their lifestyles or basking in the praise of Hollywood stars who burn large quantities of fossil fuel to preach energy use in all corners of the world, Gore luxuriates in a grand dacha that has 20 rooms and a pool house. And it's an energy vacuum. Last year, according to utility bills obtained by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, Gore Manor in suburban Nashville feasted on nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. To understand just how exhorbitant that is, the national average in 2006 was just 10,656 kilowatt-hours. Gore's people dismiss the extravagance, claiming he offsets his emissions with energy-saving practices. That will tickle the ears of the environmental crowd, but there are two problems with this rationalization. First, only the faithful are going to believe that Gore can offset his carbon footprint to any significant degree. Second, the average American family is going to feel financial pain Gore won't if it were to buy the same offsets. To the east, another Democrat lives in the sort of opulence that the merely rich can only dream about. Uber-wealthy trial lawyer and presidential candidate John Edwards and wife Elizabeth live a 10,778-square-foot main home near Chapel Hill, N.C., that sprawls across a spread that would take up several blocks in an East Coast city. Connected to Edwards' not-so-humble abode are 15,600 square feet of outbuildings that house a gym, a pool, a raquetball court, two stages, a four-story tower and a room set aside as John's Lounge. Maybe it's where he rests as he rambles from one end of this great expanse to another. Not that there's anything wrong with Edwards and his family living in a large house. If they can buy it with money earned honestly, then good for them. And good for the economy, because in building the house, the family created wealth and provided jobs. But this home belongs to the John Edwards who said during the 2004 campaign that there are "two Americas," one "that is struggling to get by," another "that can buy anything it wants." Count the former North Carolina senator and Sen. John Kerry's vice presidential running mate as part of that second America ?and ponder the thought that his house doesn't leave much room for anything else in that country. Then there's the Clinton house in Chappaqua, N.Y. It's a mere 11 rooms, but it's larger than the average American home and needs more energy. Again, nothing wrong here ?unless hypocrisy means something. Remember, Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto pact, which, if it were federal policy, would cut deeply into our energy use. Democrats don't have a monopoly on hypocrisy, but they own a big share. They like to tell Americans to do what they say, hoping all the while that the public doesn't watch what they do.