RE: Apples and oranges

I'd almost say this is an aside to the Global Warming debate, which is another topic in and of itself. This is about the character of a professional politician who has taken it upon himself to become the central figure in the Global Warming debate and expects the rest of us to give him deference in the matter, apparently because he was the VP for eight years. On the one hand we have President Bush, whom (or who--stupid grammar) gets no credit from the media for doing anything at all for the environment, yet has a very Eco-friendly house. Your argument that it isn't comparable to Gore's is weak, at best. Bush spends a lot of time at Crawford, and after his term is up, will probably live there full time. Also, Bush isn't running around flailing his arms screaming about the coming environmental Apocalypse. On the other hand, Gore is running around flailing his arms screaming about the coming environmental Apocalypse, telling the American people that they have to do something!! But all Gore does is pay someone else to do something, very much akin to Medieval Royalty who wanted to go to heaven but didn't actually want to stop sinning, so they paid for indulgences from the church.

As I said in a previous post, if Gore has the money to both run an obscenely high electric and natural gas bill and pay for someone else to plant trees or whatever, than he surely has the money to make his mansion energy efficient. How can he tell us to care and do something yet do nothing himself? I could understand buying carbon offsets to cover pollution that is all but unavoidable-- jetting across the country in his private jet, for example-- but he does nothing. I'm just Joe Schmoe of the Unwashed Masses, yet I probably do more actively than Gore-- we use a wood pellet stove for our primary heat, thus barely using our oil furnace, we separate our garbage, I drive a Honda Civic and keep it maintained, and I conserve electricity. Had I the money to make substantial infrastructure changes to my home, such as solar panels and whatnot, I would. I also don't have the money to pay someone else to do something for me.