A Tale of Two Houses - Gore vs. Bush

Email flier compares the eco-friendliness of Al Gore's Nashville, Tennessee mansion to that of President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Description: Email flier
Circulating since: March 2007
Status: Mostly true

Email example contributed by Jesse F., Aug. 20, 2007:

Subject: FW: A tale of two houses House #1 A 20 room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than ! the ave rage American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. It's in the South. House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds ; geothermal heat-pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer! The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape. ~~~~~ HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville , Tennessee ; it is the abode of the "environmentalist" Al Gore; HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas ; it is the residence the of the President of the United States , George W. Bush. An "inconvenient truth".

Comments: Apart from the fact that the photograph of the residence labeled "House #1" does NOT depict Al Gore's Nashville mansion -- that's actually his farm outside Carthage, Tennessee -- this widely forwarded message challenging the environmental crusader's green credibility is accurate as far as it goes.

A few pertinent details have been left out, of course, such as the fact that one reason the Gore family's utility bills run so high is that they pay premium prices to get 100 percent of their power from Tennessee's Green Power Switch program, which draws from renewable resources such as wind, solar, and methane gas; such as the fact that the Gore family invests in "carbon offsets" to allay the environmental impact of their power usage; and such as the fact that the 10,000-square-foot mansion serves not only as their residence, but also as a workspace for both Al and Tipper Gore.

That said, in terms of eco-friendly design the Gore mansion doesn't hold a candle to President Bush's 4,000-square-foot Crawford, Texas ranch, which relies on recycled water and a geothermal heating/cooling system that consumes 1/4 the amount of electricity a traditional system would use. According to the architect of the ranch, David Heymann of the University of Texas School of Architecture, these features were chosen more for their practical and economic advantages than for their environmental benefits, but that doesn't negate the fact that the "Texas White House," as it is called, stands as a model of environmentally-sound construction.

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Sources and further reading:

President Bush's Crawford, Texas Ranch
About.com: Austin, Texas

'Texas White House' a Refuge from Stress
USA Today, 13 April 2001

Gore Defends His Carbon Credentials
Associated Press, 28 February 2007

Al Gore Controversies
Wikipedia (visited 20 August 2007)

Is Al Gore an Environmental Hypocrite?
"Companion piece" to this forwarded email makes similar charges regarding Al Gore's higher-than-average energy bills vs. his credibility as an environmental crusader

Last updated: 08/21/07

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