AN INCONVENIENT FRAUD

by Michael Reagan

This whole thing with global warming and its leading apostle Al Gore is just more of the political left’s habit of talking the talk but never walking the walk.

Gore has proven time and again to be a complete hypocrite. He preaches the need to eliminate man-made pollution. On his Web site advising people to fight global warming by discovering what their so-called carbon footprint is, he says, “You may be surprised by how much CO2 you are emitting each year,” and advises that you should “calculate your personal impact and learn how you can take action to reduce or even eliminate your emissions of carbon dioxide.”

Mr. Gore, however, does not practice what he preaches. He wants you to curb your lifestyle drastically, but on the record he’s doing everything he doesn’t want you to do, and doing it extravagantly.

Consider his house in Tennessee. According to The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, Nashville Electric Services records obtained by the Center show the Gores in 2006 averaged a monthly electricity bill of $1,359 for using 18,414 kilowatt-hours, and $1,461 per month for using 16,200 kilowatt-hours in 2005.

Over the past two years, the gas and electric bills for his 20-room mansion and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

Nashville Gas Company billed the family during the same period an average of $536 a month for the main house and $544 for the pool house in 2006, and $640 for the main house and $525 for the pool house in 2005. That averages out to be $29,268 in gas and electric bills for the Gores in 2006, $31,512 in 2005.

"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says Drew Johnson, the Center's 27-year-old president. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."

Compare this with President Bush’s practices as a homeowner.

According to a story in the April 29, 2001, Chicago Tribune, “Bush loves ecology -- at home,” the President’s house is a model of ecological purity.

“The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude, wrote freelance reporter Rob Sullivan. “Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this ‘eco-friendly’ dwelling use about 25 percent of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

“A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.”

Gore talks the talk, the President walks the walk.

Gore and his leftist buddies pat themselves on the back and tell us what they think we ought to be doing, but they are not going to follow the rules they lay down for us.

Al Gore excuses his own excesses by saying he is buying "carbon credits," to offset his massive use of electric power and jet planes.

Buying "carbon credits" allows him to pollute to his heart’s content, because he’s adopted a "carbon neutral" life whereby any emissions for which he is personally responsible are allegedly offset by buying “green credits” such as parcels of forests that eat up CO2.

He doesn’t do solar, he doesn’t use wind power, he doesn’t change his lifestyle or go bio-diesel, he doesn’t do any of the things he insists the rest of us must do to save the planet from being barbecued -- he just buys carbon credits and goes on his merry way spewing pollution in all directions.

This is so outrageously asinine on its face; it alone should awaken the American people to the fact that they are being had by Mr. Gore and his fellow global warming fanatics. Instead of getting an Oscar Sunday night, he should have been laughed off the stage.

Mr. Reagan is a syndicated radio talk-show host, author of "Twice Adopted" (Broadman & Holman Publishers) and "The City on a Hill,"and the son of former President Ronald Reagan.