An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore's Powerpoint slideshow on global warming won the Oscar for Best Documentary over the weekend. I sure hope he got the most out of celebrating the win.

Al been taking some heat over his energy usage. Read either article if you want the details. In short, Gore's Nashville home uses roughly 18 times the electricity of the average American home. Now I know that residential use is a small part of the overall amount of electricity used, and that it gets much smaller when natural gas and petroleum are added in. And Gore's spokesman said his energy usage was okay because he invests in enough renewable energy to make up for the home's power consumption. So practically speaking, it really doesn't matter.

But the environmental movement has never been about practicality. It's an ideology that has always stressed the significance of small changes, and how they can add up to make a huge difference. Why else would a California lawmaker consider outlawing incandescent light bulbs? So it is fair to call Al Gore a hypocrite. I don't expect him to live like Ed Begley Jr, but I'm sure Al can stand to inconvenience himself just a little.