On Al Gore's Energy Consumption

I usually don't bother responding to the factually challenged letters I read in the local paper, it is like an infuriating game of whack a mole that you can never win. However, a recent letter about Al Gore's supposed extreme levels of energy consumption hit a nerve and I finally had to reply. So now I will post my response to that ill informed letter writer.

So you want to be like Vice President Gore and reduce greenhouse emissions? Fine, first add solar panels to your home like he did. This both allows you to capture free, clean energy from the sun, while at the same time reducing the amount of coal produced electricity you use.

Next, you can sign up for your local power company's renewable energy option. Al Gore participates in a similar program in Tennessee that requires all of the energy he uses to come from clean, renewable sources. Most local power companies offer this sort of program that allow you to pay a little more in order to increase the market demand for renewable energy that does not produce CO2 emissions.

Finally, you can purchase carbon offsets at CarbonFootprint.com to negate the carbon created when you drive your car or travel the world to educate people about climate change. Frankly, the clean vehicle options are minuscule at this point. Until we have a reasonable selection of low or no emission cars and trucks this is the best option for getting our carbon footprint down to zero.

Programs like these allow you to live a modern lifestyle while still helping to cut down on greenhouse emissions and isn't that what we all want? We do not have to live in underground bunkers, powering our computers by bicycle generator to reduce carbon emissions. If we all took just a few of these steps, greenhouse emissions would drop precipitously with little individual pain. It is this idea of small shared sacrifice that will help us beat global warming and incidentally wean us off of our addiction to foreign oil.

Of course if you do decide to take these steps, be ready for people to accuse you of being a hypocrite based on the flimsiest of partisan "evidence". This how they operate after all, Joseph Wilson turns up some embarrassing evidence contradicting our march to war with Iraq? No problem, leak that his wife is CIA and imply that his report is politically motivated without ever dealing with the substance of said report. Al Gore is waking the public at large up to the idea that climate change is real? Put out a poorly researched story claiming that Gore is a massive energy waster without ever contradicting the basic facts of global warming. After all, it is far easier to kill the messenger than to act on the message.