The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.
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% 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.
No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.
This is President George W. Bush’s “Texas White House” outside the small town of Crawford.
Originally published April 29, 2001, Chicago Tribune.
A few candid shots of Al Gore’s “carbon neutral” home in Nashville. (He owns three others.)
Mark Steyn has the punchline;
Al buys his carbon offsets from Generation Investment Management LLP, which is “an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 and with offices in London and Washington, D.C.,” that, for a fee, will invest your money in “high-quality companies at attractive prices that will deliver superior long-term investment returns.” Generation is a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3. And who’s the chairman and founding partner? Al Gore.
So Al can buy his carbon offsets from himself. Better yet, he can buy them with the money he gets from his long-time relationship with Occidental Petroleum. See how easy it is to be carbon-neutral? All you have do is own a gazillion stocks in Big Oil, start an eco-stockbroking firm to make eco-friendly investments, use a small portion of your oil company’s profits to buy some tax-deductible carbon offsets from your own investment firm, and you too can save the planet while making money and leaving a carbon footprint roughly the size of Godzilla’s at the start of the movie when they’re all standing around in the little toe wondering what the strange depression in the landscape is.
Carbon footprint , meet carbon crater .
dis al gore , he be the man what spen his mon knee on de tour ofthe you knighted states and tell piples the way save mo knee. dis george buss he spen mon knee on his same self to save mon knee for his self has no care for the grin ouse gizzes for udder piples , if oui sen mon knee to mr . stong in the china we get credit and so save world for future piples and for piples like scott brison who like udder things backward to our selfs . much that we like things the papers and the radios not talk what I say and many other izzy things do for yourself what governmnent can do for you as no nothink dummy citezen dummy western izzy fast money bad voter .
Borat Dion – in Joe Batts Butt, Nfld.
I can’t believe the left gobble up Gore’s crap. Do you know what was said to me after his electrical bill was revealed?
“Well, he lives like a rich person, so what? What do you have against rich people??”
The logic of the tree-huggers…
Come on cal2. What did Joe Batt’s Arm do to deserve to be the spawning point for the likes of Celine?
I just finished building a new home in Mobile, Nfld. A warm December while still in construction, heated with electricity. $500.
A cooler January heated with 1/2 the capacity of the geothermal unit, rest electricity, still in construction, $400.
February, much colder then both, full geothermal heat, finished home, $275.
It was a huge upfront investment but lack of combustion in my basement and huge energy savings (you don’t want to know what my parents in the same town pay to heat with oil spend on a house half the size of this one) makes it seem worthwhile and it is ‘a very comfortable heat’.
If only I could find some way to make it spew CO2 I would be a lot happier. I’m sure some lefty dogooder will find some way to show how my heating system is killing the environment but until then I’ll continue to make up my share of mother earth distruction getting 7 mpg in my 100 mph snowmobile tearing up the local winderness area.
Just imagine all the trash, real and metaphorical, that gets strewn around Crawford each time Cindy She-Hag and her band of burned out pot smokin Marxist bootlicks sets up camp.
Where’s Manbearpig then?
Great post. Who would have thought George Bush’s place was better for the enviroment than Al Gore’s ???
http://jimcotton.blogspot.com
now i’m wondering about yoko suzuki…
surely super dave has a no footprint enviro gaia
friendly model home..cause we all know he practices what he preaches..
Let me see if I’ve got this right: Al Gore’s personal eco-pod / mansion consumes twenty times the Tennessee average in kilowatt hours of electricity, so to offset his own profligacy and meet his own self-imposed energy consumption standards he’s buying eco-friendly carbon offset credits from…himself? And they’re tax deductible? Perfect. Also a fine primer for anyone who’s stumped about the wacky world of Kyoto Accord logic. Probably a great premise for a South Park episode, too.
Al Gore, like all liberals that I’ve ever met, is a magical thinker: “If I think it and say it, then that’s the way it is,” nevermind reality. Reality never comes into it: What liberals want to believe is the only thing that’s important.
For example: See that wall over there? It’s actually beige, but if Al THINKS it’s orange and WANTS it to be orange, he’ll SAY it’s orange and the rest of us are supposed to agree.
Al wants to believe that he’s an Eco-warrior, even though he’s an energy guzzler and uses far more energy than most of us plebs–or George Bush–whom he keeps reaming out.
But, hey: Al THINKS he’s a great guy, has the good of the planet at heart, and doesn’t talk about the many properties he owns and the first-class air travel he enjoys. More magical thinking: If I don’t think about it or talk about it, EVEN THOUGH IT EXISTS, voila!! Gone.
This guy and his eco-twin Yoko Suzuki (LOL!) are dangerous because they’re delusional.
One other thing this Crawford TX palatial eco-correct property has that the neighbouring ranches and farms in Texas do not have….a 8 strand barb wire fence with a razor wire cap surround its perimeter…. as well, 150 armed guards at any given time patrol its perimeter. USAF apache helecopters patrol the air space above it and the CSA satellite monitor the ranch and surrounding area checking out every anomoly through links to ground security. This ranch has more secuiry that the border Texas shares with Mexico.
This keeps the resident free of the inconvenience of having his home looted for food/beer/valuables and his bedrooms or living room used as a toilet…or his dog killed and eaten or his well poisoned with urine from the hordes of transiant illegal aliens passing through the area from Mexico. Something many of his neighbors and most ranches within walking distance of the border must put up with.
However if the security on this eco-friendly Crawford ranch were to break down some day to the level of the Mexican border and illegal transients did break in and violate the residence, I’m sure the owner would be happy in the knowledge that it was “guest workers” who raided his fridge and deficated on his wife’s bed….and NOT “illegal aliens”. 😉
godzilla?
mmmm, *gorezilla* !!!
Bolloks….Aaaaahhhhhaaaahhhhhaaaaa!
On the right side….I am so fucking sick of these smarmy priks claiming they “know” something…fuck that, anything. But
I digress.
Syncro
WL Mackenzie Redux: what kind of rambling bs is that. he is president of the united states for goosh sakes.
From Planet Gore the new NRO climate warming website….
Gore Story Just Gets Weirder [Iain Murray]
Al Gore does not pay himself to purchase carbon offsets, that’s official. But the real story is perhaps even more bizarre:
The confusion, Campbell said, arose because GIM pays to offset the energy use of its operations and the personal emissions of its 23 employees, including Gore.
So, the firm will cover the cost to offset the energy use at Gore’s home, or his global jet travel, as it would the offset cost of any other employee, Campbell said.
GIM, which Gore started with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood in 2004, uses the Chicago Climate Exchange and the British-based Carbon Neutral Company to cover the high energy use of GIM and its employees.
So he, himself, personally is not actually paying for any carbon offsets at all.
Un-frackin’-believable.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODRlNjU2MWY1YzhlMjVkNTIwMjE0OTZlZGEyNjdjMGY=
“what kind of rambling bs is that. he is president of the united states for goosh sakes”
He’s also the ex govenor of Texas and President who sold out his neightbours to the swarming illegal invaders to the south…under his govenorship the Texas border patrol was cut back and as President he cut fed funding to border patrol…meanwhile 3 million ill3gals a year swarm over the Texas border and destroy the property and lifestlyes of Texans…when the problem got too big to hide he declared amnesty on them declaring them “guest workers”.
That’s what all that “BS” is about…Bush has spent enough time in Texas to know what threatens Texans but he ignores them and insulates himself from the problems he has created….like a typical elitist….this guy is about as “down home” populist as David Rockefeller.
So the the movie Al Gore did really was a promotional video for his business. I guess the real lesson in all this is to look into who is backing these ECO warriors. In Al’s case its BIG CARBON.
The scammers can form a line on the Left, Gore,Suzuki,Moe Strong et al. They are on the verge of being exposed as the true Charlatans of our time.
We’ll watch while the Lefties follow them like Lemmings over the cliff.
We have Dion still stuck on Kyoto as well.
If he thinks he can sell that bill of goods to
Canadians and get elected he’s sadly off the mark.
He has a better chance of smuggling dawn past a rooster.
Big Carbon. Good one Geoff. ~:D
What a scam, eh? Pass a law requiring carbon offsets, then start a company that sells them. Then rake in the dough for doing exactly nothing.
Redux: texas must be a great place to live if 3 million people want to get in there every year.lol you talk about elitist’s what do you think about suzuki and dion , the kyoto crew.
Syncro – did the rules here change while I was away?
Clean up the language.
My father use to say: “There’s nothing wrong with the scriptures of the Bible, it’s what men do to other men with it that’s the problem”
Metalguru
So Gore finally gets to live in a White House . . . thank gawd it wasn’t the real one.
“Well, he lives like a rich person, so what? What do you have against rich people??”
Well, they ARE a visible minority. Ooops. Forgot that the U.N. said I’m not supposed to call them that any more.
I tried looking for these a while back and all my searches came up with nothing.
Tnx Kate.
I’m not sure it’s a punch line as much as freddy comming back to kill one more time.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Syncro – did the rules here change while I was away?
Clean up the language.
18-1 ratio foul mouthed lefties vs righties.
Language is a dead give away.
: )
http://no-libs.com/?p=1478
Redux, you are way off today. Having an eco-friendly home has nothing to do with the security of the president of a country and partisan politics aside most citizens would prefer their leader to be protected. Just try and wander into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue some time without an invite.
In Gore’s case guess we could apply the adage, “he who lives in a glass house…….”.
Anyway, hypocrisy reigns supreme.
George Bush has more credibility than the Gore-bot.
The original article about Bush’s Crawford house is unbelieveable vindictive (and poorly written). The “misunderestimating” reference, thrown in for good insulting measure, doesn’t even make sense.
Yes, going back the the original article about Bush’s house … very vindictive indeed, ignoring that basic fact that true ecologically sound living requires money and lots of it.
Who among us is really willing to invest 10 grand on better windows, and 10 Grand for a new furnace in a 1100 Sq.Ft house. Those investments will never pay for themselves … and most of us are not that noble or that rich to make the sacrifice “just because”. I’ll turn my thermostat down, use curly light bulbs, get better appliances and a get a better car WHEN THEY NEED REPLACING. But ask anyone on the street what they are willing to do and as the cost goes up the willingness to comply drops dramatically.
I’ve just recently completed an Angus Reid poll about global warming that I didn’t like–far too many assumptions and not enough choice re answers.
However, the poll seemed pretty clear on the HUGE changes that would be needed to even begin–well, the poll didn’t quite say that–to honour Kyoto. E.g., Would one give up using one’s car for a day a week? . . . I’m afraid I can’t remember the other choices but they were pretty brutal. I said NO to all the radical choices: as Sheila has noted, the price of such things as buying an energy-efficient car (I think something like that was in the poll) are beyond the pocketbook of most of us, unless we need a new car anyway. (My little VW’s pretty energy efficient as it is and I don’t drive many clicks.)
I just remembered another question! Would one be willing to cut one’s air travel by 50% next year? Right! I don’t travel by air on any kind of a regular basis. (Question quite inapplicable to me.) I said NO anyway. The elite’s livelihoods rely on air travel. Are THEY willing to do this? (Of course, not, they chortle. We’ll just pay some carbon credits. We won’t tell the great unwashed, whom we chastise for CO2 emissions, that we have no intention of changing the way we operate. We’re just going to throw a few bucks at the scam artists who are collecting the carbon credits $$ and carry on as usual.)
I hope the elites have finally outed themselves on the Kyoto issue. They seem to believe that the rest of us–whose carbon footprints are of Lillipution size compared to the Brobdinagian proportions of theirs–are interested in or can afford the steep price they all seem (un)willing to pay in order to prop up the Kyoto scam. Bloody hypocrites!
Kate
My bad… CR and a side shot of bitter.
Syncro
Further down in the 4000 ft. house link:
“Perhaps sound ecological practices are only for those who can afford them: as a self-proclaimed strict constructionist of the U.S. Constitution, Bush must be aware that clean air and clean water are not guaranteed in that glorious document.”
Finally a leftist gets it! If American living standards were what they were in 1776 – does anybody honestly think we could afford to retrofit our homes or heat them with sophisticated solar power or geothermal technology?
In 1776, people were burning dirty coal and getting dysentery from contaminated water. You couldn’t GUARANTEE clean water or air. Now, the degree to which this is being achieved is largely thanks to investment, human ingenuity, and the technology provided by a prosperous free market economy and economic growth. Yet the Suzukites has repeatedly talked about limiting it!
By definition, rich people are better able to take care of their environment than poor people. Some, like Al-Bore the Eco-terrorist, just don’t give a stuff though. Shame on you Al-Bore.
What I would like to know is when will ALGORE, inventor of the internet, sainted leader of the greenies, victim of the hanging chads, use the opportunity of the next solar eclipse to attempt to convert all of us great unwashed/unconvinced?
🙂
Look how much more smaller GEORGE W. BUSHes ranch near CRAWFORD TEXAS compaired to AL GORES emence estate and with all those trees i,ll bet theres plenty of places where birds can nest where as his little wussieness AL GORE probibly drives them off afraid they will poop on his fancy sculpterued bushes