Who Woulda Thunk It?

George W Bushes house is the model of conservation, while Al Gore's mansion is extremely wasteful.

And to prove this isn't right wing propoganda, I bring you the mother of all Rumor Investigation sites:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp


I was actually shocked to find this out. I wouldn't have exprected it. It strikes me as odd that after all the hoopla, Al Gore continues to justify his home's wastefulness through Carbon Credit offsets he buys from himself (huh?), instead of actually taking steps to turn it into a model for environmental conservation.

Hey it's good to hear he has a house that is good for the environment, unfortunately it's his policy decisions that have decimated the environment at every turn. So although in the environmental threads we always have someone say "well I am just one person, what I do won't matter." in Bushs case this was jsut the opposite, he could've done something to help at a high policy level instead he completely made a mockery of the EPA and almost every other piece of environmental legislation.

As for Gore, you've got to practice what you preach. One would expect better.

Interesting note though Atomm.

I would guess part of the reason Gore hasn't done much with his house (not that it is a true excuse) is the age and historic nature of the building which make it tough to make it "green".

That being said, he should put his money where his mouth is.

What Bubba said is spot on. Bush makes his own home extremely energy efficient, and then screws the rest of us with atrocious national policies.

I find it impossible to say what I think without insulting half this group, but it deeply saddens me that Bush can't do one thing without taking jabs for everything else under the sun... wait, I'm sure he will get blamed if it turns red dwarf a billion years sooner because of global warming, or, ahem, cough, "global climate change".

Maybe there should be some rules here. If there is Bush bashing, perhaps a note on the message header, may be offensive to some conservatives. Maybe that would have saved the debacle with Paladin getting an unruly kick in the back side.

Maybe the real thing I was looking for is OMG, Gore could knock that piece of shit down and buy a German prefab to replace it with. This is being done all over Europe and Briton you know. Houses as new as 40 years old are being replaced with these zero impact prefabs. Gore could afford it, hell it would add millions of dollars to his credibility.

Until you guys take your elected leaders to task over these environmental and energy policies which democrats in the house/senate are totally controlling from PAC special interests, nothing will change. You can't blame Bush for everything forever... or can you?

Didn't mean to rant, and certainly do not want to upset anyone, but I guess I'll never understand the way you think politically. You two are polar opposite to the way I think, and I miss having Paladin around to aid my conservative and correct point of view 😉

I don't think we can take the democrats to task for what is happening now, I know its hard to understand that even though he is a lame duck of a president, George Bush is still in office. Unfortunately he still drives the decisions.

Regardless of his home, Bush still effectively dismantled the EPA. Bush has set every environmental movement in this country (possibly the world)back a dozen years. Bush has still pushed policies that are anti-environmental at every turn.

So I am glad he has a conscience on his own home, I wish he'd had the same conscience with our countries policy decisions.

Don't worry Lexx, soon enough Limbaugh will have something better to do with his time than kiss George Bush's ass and make half witted/ racist remarks about "halfrican americans". He can go back to his pompous liberal bashing, oxycotin addicted self.

Politics, blah. I just do not see this the same way you do. You totally skirted around what I said, made more jabs at Bush and did a driveby on Rush, lol. Really. How does that even touch on what I said. Bush does something good, but you all jab him with something else to skirt the issue.

It took until that Iraqi prison incident before the press could even get near Bush. NYT's railed it front page everyday for weeks. If Bush was raping the EPA, then where the hell is the reporting and the outcry from the press. I haven't seen any of this your talking about. I know he's rescinded a few of those executive orders Clinton made under the radar with environmental groups with PAC support and backing. I guess you think its ok for some fish to get all the scarce water in a drought instead of some starving dried out farmers.

Again, no insult, but I will never buy into this environmental bull. I can see ALOT of it, but there are so many instances where it has just went too damn far. You guys sit in your warm offices with nice college paychecks, perhaps in the public sector, and I have to tell you, you don't have a clue how tough it is out there fighting this hoax. Thank God neither of you lost your job to some environmentalists and you had to leave your home and life behind. This pie in the sky idealism is devastating to entire communities affected by environmental blocks. If this sounds harsh, sorry, but I've experienced this firsthand twice in my lifetime already.

Like it or not, Gore is your standard bearer. Why aren't you demanding he raze that house and replace it with a better one than Bush's??? Where's his hybrid parked. Why isn't his pool empty and covered up. Why would you follow this man ideals? If hes a hypocrite, then isn't most of 'his' movement a big fat lie. Isn't it something to question to its roots, or is it just easier to say "ah thats not good, but Bush sucks".

You say the press isn't biased. Then why the hell isn't this house subject plastered on every newscast and newspaper in the world? Why was one republican candidate raked over the coals for being Mormon, while its not fair to say a damn thing about Obama going to sermons for twenty years led by a racist white and American hating preacher.

Why, why, why? So many questions and the answers are always "Bush sux"


Lol, Celestia, I hope you got what you wanted here 🙂

So since we are dumb for trying to do better for the environment, and you think the environmental movement is bad, would GW Bush be stupid for investing in such green facilities for his home?

As for the press, I am sure you dug up this story by yourself. You went to Gores home and checked it out, then you went to Bush's home and check it out. Posted up what you found here at each. ATOMM this is a GRB EXCLUSIVE!!!! Get it on the front page... O wait did you read about it in the press??

Be nice Bubba....

Lexx has a real reason to be upset about this. It's affected his life drastically several times. We should put ourselves in his shoes.

I do agree with you Both Bubba and Sarge. Al has no excuse for his house. Sure it's old, but what better way to make a statement than to take an old house and make it energy efficient. I think it would be a great experiment and we could learn a lot in the process.

The one thing I would like to point out to Lexx is Energy Policy does not necessarily mean reacting to global warming. I think this was the point California was trying to make when they sued the EPA. They have a huge pollution issue and wanted to try to do something, but the EPA said no. On one hand, the EPA punishes states for their pollution problems and on the other they won't allow those states to take action to correct it. That is a bad energy policy at work.

Also, keep in mind that the President does set the Energy Policy, so he is the guy in the chair for it's effectiveness. Also keep in mind that Clinton did not submit the Kyoto treaty to congress for ratification, so both a democrat and a republican saw the flaw in a system that allows China to continue on their path without any limits while the US had strict limits in place.

Lexx I understand where you are coming from to some extent. While I didn't lose a livelihood to environmental concerns, my family lost their house when my Dad lost his job during the recession of 81-82. We were pretty much poor to start and it only got worse from there. So while I have a "warm office", I got here by my own hard work. The point is that a political decision impacted my life severely. They continue to impact people's lives but we often miss that on the national level because we see "the big picture" on the news, and the politicians tout the benefits while minimizing the importance of the costs.

We as a country seem to have lost the ability to meet in the middle and make rational decisions based on common interests. Everything is "Us vs Them" without anyone who is in charge noticing that we are us and them. Everything is bashing decisions without necessarily offering anything else. It just plain sucks and it is quickly dragging us down. The media perpetuates this with things like showing the red and blue states so we think we are more divided than we truly are - because controversy sells newspapers and gets eyeballs watching your show. The press's biggest fault isn't that they are liberal or conservative, it's that it has become more about making money (i.e. play up the sex and violence) than about reporting the issues of the day. Of course we feed into that completely eschewing an understanding of major national and global issues to follow Britney Spears latest crotch flash incident or to watch American Idol.

I applaud Bush for making his ranch "green" I just don't understand why he didn't think that the nation would benefit from that approach as well.

In the interest of fairness to Gore. He has addressed at least some of the concerns with the house. While it won't ever be as green as Bush's ranch, it is making significant progress, some of which was underway when he was called out for being so wasteful.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/13/gor...e.ap/index.html

The Liberal Press wrote:Electricity usage at the home remains well above regional averages, but Gore's power consumption decreased by 6,890 kilowatt hours, or 11 percent, between June and August, despite the heat wave.

Gore's electric use increased again after he had to take his solar panels off-line in August so his new geothermal system could be integrated into the system. But his natural gas use has dropped 93 percent in the three months since the geothermal pump was activated.

When the Gores' heated pool is hooked up to the system later this month, their energy use is expected to decline more, his spokeswoman said.

Gore has also said he invests in renewable energy such as solar and wind power to balance 100 percent of his electricity usage.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the size of Gore's house limits how much he can cut his energy consumption.

"We all need to evaluate what we legitimately need in square footage," he said.
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Still, another owner of the same house likely would not have been as dedicated as Gore to reducing energy consumption, said Smith, who also serves on the advisory committee for Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

"I promise you the energy use would be as high, if not higher," he said.

Sarge wrote:Lexx I understand where you are coming from to some extent. While I didn't lose a livelihood to environmental concerns, my family lost their house when my Dad lost his job during the recession of 81-82. We were pretty much poor to start and it only got worse from there. So while I have a "warm office", I got here by my own hard work. The point is that a political decision impacted my life severely. They continue to impact people's lives but we often miss that on the national level because we see "the big picture" on the news, and the politicians tout the benefits while minimizing the importance of the costs.

And I much the same grew up poor, raised rabbits and other animals for food. I have worked on a farm since before I can remember. My father lost his well paying job as a machinist for a defense contractor. I won't get nostalgic about the cold war and its policies though.

I put myself through school, payed the entire way myself through loans. Got myself a warm office on my own busting my ass to be here. I did not finish my degree and yet I got myself a job where 90% of the people in my field have a masters degree.

My environmentalism comes from being raised on a farm, being raised as a yankee. I learned to make do with what I had. I became a hunter and fisherman and learned my sports were declining due to poor environmental decisions made before I was born. I work now to protect that. Often I am the only environmentalist in the room who is a hunter.

I feel bad you have had troubles with losing job due to environmentalists. But I daresay I wonder how you will feel about the environmentalists when we realize we have polluted all of our water systems. When we realize we don't have any land left to build on.

That said things can change now fairly easily. Small choices over wide audiences have a large impact. If people would inflate their tires properly, drive the speed limit we would see huge savings of gas and money, but they are just too damned lazy.

Again why can't we do the easy things that have no cost and no downside? No we will throw that out the window too because you have environmentalism.

It's sad as Sarge has said there was once a day where there were two parties and the idea was to work it out and compromise. Now its a battle of who has the most power wins, no discussion about the ideas themselves. no creative solutions.

All I have to say is, a good role model in politics would be one that actually saw themselves through the peoples' eyes.

That's why I love hearing PINK's song ' Mr. President'.

Sarge, thanks for posting that info on Gore's house. That should have made bigger headlines and it is a huge step in the right direction.

I've already committed that when we are finally able to buy our own house, we are going to take steps to become more energy neutral ourselves. That is part of the reason I am discussing this stuff. I learn a lot this way and hope to put it into place someday.

I would do it where I am at, but it's money wasted on a house that I don't own and I have to weigh the cost to the benefit, while trying to be a better denizen of planet earth. At least, we have started doing a better job of breaking out recyclables from our garbage. We even got a recycling credit on our last bill. $1.29! Woohoo!

Nice! We've managed to cut our garbage in half between recycling and composting. It saves me about $1.50 a week in garbage (we pay by the bag) and gives me some compost for the flower beds a couple times per year. The next step for us is to get some worm bins for winter composting, but we haven't gone there yet.

I'd love to get a geothermal system like Bush and Gore have. I've got a 50 year old gas boiler right now which is working around 70% efficiency but with geothermal I can do heating and cooling as well as save $$$ on natural gas - especially if the numbers from Gores house (93% savings) come anywhere close to being true.

I've tried to figure out how I could do solar or wind collection at the house as well, but likely don't have enough of either sun or wind alone to supply the house and would need to do both. Not to mention the cost of getting them installed.

geothermal is nice. And its a great idea. I am a fan of Co-gen mini turbines, we had a planner (anyone remember 'drunk Dick Cheney' who played BF2 with us a few times?) introduce them to us about 2 years ago. He and I went on a tour of the Ingersoll Rand plant where they troubleshoot the mini turbines. As teh engineers led us through the process we were amazed... It's really cool. http://www.epa.gov/CHP/

The idea is you have a really small generator (They make some about the size of a person), the generator is about 80-90% effecient. It can runs on many fuel sources (propane, oil... even landfill gases (methane)). This miniturbine runs as it runs it create both heat and power. You can use the heat to either heat or cool a house. You use the power to power the house. The amount of energy used by the turbine is small, now coupel this with wind or solar and you can supply back to the grid. The best part about these is that they supply very clean power, think no more line conditoners at your computer.

As of now the technology is more for Industrial type applications, but the turbines are getting small, I saw a proposal from Honda to have residential units in the next few year. These would be the size of a generator.

One of the things I plan on doing right off the bat is a water collection system. We have a lot of dry spells where you can't water your lawn. If I was to collect rain water and other water from the house, I could use it in a sprinkler system. I love that idea.

I would also like to set up solar panels, but that is an interesting situation. I think the costs and size still need to come down to be worthwhile.

Another thing I plan on doing is to install motion sensors on lights in certain areas of the house. My wife is the worlds worst about leaving lights on in areas we are not in, on the off chance that she might walk back through that area. I am constantly turning lights off as she turns them back on.

I'd like to check into LED lightbulbs. Anyone know how that is going?

The one thing I haven't figured out is how to lower the computer power usage or at least offset it somehow with alternate energy solutions.

There are some really cool things happening in LED lightbulbs, but they are way out of price range for consumers yet, but I assume in a few years.

November 2007:

At the White LEDs-07 conference in Japan last week, Tony van de Ven of LED Lighting Fixtures, Inc. (LLF) announced a new performance milestone for a prototype LED luminaire, which smashes existing records. LLF built a prototype PAR 38 self-ballasted lamp, which was tested under steady-state conditions by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Washington, DC.

The LRP-38 lamp set a new standard for energy efficient lighting by producing 659 lumens at a mere 5.8 watts of wall-plug power, resulting in 113.6 delivered lumens per watt. The lamp emitted a warm incandescent-like color of 2760 Kelvin with a superb color rendering index (CRI) of 91.2.

http://www.llfinc.com/difference.htm

Didn't have time to get back to this. I'm swinging a hammer in the pits daily, don't have access to computers the way I work.

No, no, no. Your not getting my point. Its not how you grew up, I certainly didn't have anything growing up on a small farm in WV with dirt floors, an outhouse, and forget any utilities. I only used you two for an example. Your from a small state, yet your send two senators to congress to help bend these laws in your favor.

I didn't say it was all wacky, I said I agreed with ALOT of it, but you know damn well these go way overboard. Its a money making fun fest for all these lawyers more than anything. Climate is determined by the Sun's activity, not what humans have been doing. Factor in 11yr cycles the sun rotates its flareups in, the change of the earths orbit and axis, differences in distance every 400 years or so, and you have warming or freezing. There, hoax over, toss in a few volcano eruptions and an asteroid hit every few million years and you get a full history of climate conditions for the last 26 million years. I am so f'ing sick of this big ass'ed lie.

My point is your pie in the sky attitudes costs alot of people big money and grief. Little people without educations are the ones taking it the worse. I've seen an entire village of 15,000 people go jobless overnite because of tree huggers preventing roads from being carved up a mountain. In Seattle there were fleets of fishing company's either put out of business, or put on such a severe ration that they could no longer work, yet 1/2 a mile across the border in Russia they were going full steam with Japanese fishing factories scarfing up everything in sight. Don't suck the oil out of anwar, but a few miles away in Siberia, Russia will suck the oil dry there.

Do little things to make yourself feel better, but why force all this on me? When's the last time you had to pay $75 to have the freon sucked out of a bad refrigerator or window AC unit so you could throw it away? Probably never. I've had to do it 3x's already. When's the last time you had to pay $100 for an emission sticker to drive 5k a year? Probably never again. I've lost track of how many of those I've paid. How many of you pay extra for another car to balance out your expensive SUV or work truck. I'm a knee-jerk conservative, but I do have common sense in these matters.

Don't forget, I was a registered democrat for over 10 years despite some of the things I've seen in my lifetime, even after being run off a contract job by a union, but I matured some since then, and I just don't agree with your arguments very often. Maybe its our environment, I work for myself in the private sector taking risks everyday, I'm around millionaires alot and see what they have done to get there. I've seen and been involved with energy 'green' products and installations for years. We were not forced to do any of that 15 years ago, but now.., your guys are running the show, and they are all getting rich over it, and thats the part that really gets my goat.

I converted from liberalism, perhaps there is still hope for you, wink.

Just curious where do you think the freon from a refridgerator or AC unit that Sarge or I own goes... to the liberal freon farm upstate? We pay for it too.

If you think the sun is the only think playing into a climate, I can't begin to tell you just how wrong you are.

And yes I agree it sucks that we need to regulate a fishing fleet while japan doesn't but, well at some point someone has to stand up and say if we aren't careful we won't have fish. Look at georges bank. It used to be the best fishing in the world, now it's finally coming back from be nearly fished dead. I know plenty of people who lost fishing jobs because of it. But sometime you have to think about sustainability. Sometimes if you slow down your fishing a little bit it makes it so all the fishermen don't lose jobs.. Same thing with logging. In the 1800s we logged until stands were completly gone, now if you talk to a forester, they will tell you sustainability is the key to their career.

I'll be the first to tell you there are environmentalist who go too far... there are also conservatives who go way to far. I assure you though the way to make things work isn't by calling them assholes.

I did have to make a decision on whether it was time to go from my pickup truck that I loved to a honda that got great milage. I can't tell you how much I miss the truck, in fact I am off work today becuase I am paying to have a bed and a couch delivered. I could have done that myself. But the decsion was it was worth paying for delivery on days liek today and saving money on gas all year long. And this was a pickup that got 25MPG+, had nice horsepower and an 8' full sized bed.

I think we can agree on one thing at least Lexx. The system is f*cked. 😄

My point in bringing up my childhood experience was to say that just as many people have been effected by conservative political decisions as liberal ones. That is all. The environmental movement does not have to be a "loss" for the US. We need to see it as an opportunity to create new industries and jobs that can replace the ones that have been outsourced over the last couple of decades. It will involve some transitions, problems, and localized pain as our existing industries and communities shift to deal with this. My hope is that in the end, if (or when) the oil runs out, we can extend our middle finger to the middle east and say "thank you" and enjoy your trip back to the 15th century.

Things do go overboard a lot of times and often it is overboard in the completely wrong direction. Blaming it on the liberals doesn't really change it though other than to set it up as us vs. them. Conservatives have controlled the Presidency for 20 of the last 28 years, much of that same time they controlled the Senate as well so any blame should be shared equally amongst our politicians.

I will say that the most I ever really discuss climate change is here on these boards 😛 It almost never comes up as part of my work but I do deal a lot with the air quality impacts of transportation. For that at least the facts are clear. Air pollution is bad for people.

Sarge wrote:I think we can agree on one thing at least Lexx. The system is f*cked. 😄

I will say that the most I ever really discuss climate change is here on these boards 😛 It almost never comes up as part of my work but I do deal a lot with the air quality impacts of transportation. For that at least the facts are clear. Air pollution is bad for people.

Then your lucky. Apparently Paladin can't escape it where he works, too bad he can't articulate his feelings better. I'll give you two credit, you dont' lose your temper much. I try not to, but I really get sick of the way things are along party lines.

Freon 11/22 is ancient, yet we're forced to pay to remove basically an empty system. I have my doubts that they ever had any effect, but thats a draw. All its done is cause alot of these to be illegally dumped, causing twice as much to cleanup. This is a measure that goes to far.

Air pollution, sure regulate it proportionally. Pittsburgh used to be filthy, now of course there are no good paying jobs left for anyone without a college degree. Why is pubic transportation exempt from the emission laws? Stand at one bus stop and you can see more crap dumped out than I can put out in 5 years of driving. Clean air acts, while a good thing, are causing industrial meltdowns, killing America's work force, and forcing thousands into poverty, where they just buy the party line and still keep supporting democrats and liberal unions. I swear the democrat party loves misery. I can't remember one thing in 20 years they have passed that I've believed to be truly a good thing. Republicans when they had precious power to fix things, either did nothing, or bowed to the threat of a stalemate.

We allow other countries to take resources, yet we point fingers and blame NAFTA for every lost job in Cleveland as a reason to vote democrat. Forget the fact that Carter or Clinton have signed numerous executive orders written by pac groups that killed those jobs to begin with. To stop logging one region alone, Carter signed an order prohibiting any logging roads to be cut until the courts could get around to deciding environmental impacts being waged at the time. Courts were stacked with democrat appointments, and we know how that turned out. You say it is good, good for sustainability, I say those people got a raw deal. Your position is one thats been hammered to death via the party line. Mine comes from seeing it. Oregon and Washington are blessed with perhaps the best tree growing conditions in the world, yet its being held back and kept in check by transplanted liberals that have escaped California. Seattle is now just a bed of liberals and the loggers who used to live there are trying to scrounge up a living anywhere else in the state.

Too bad the Indian nation can't get it stuff together. They are exempt to just about any of your new environmental laws. They could clearcut every mountain in their path and suffer nothing. The second summer I was there, there was a limit on red samon. Only 1 per license. Upstream from us were Indians with a net across the entire river. Gotta love the bullshit in America.

The other problem I think people get into...the president does not make laws. I have heard no hoopla over the democratic congress not passing any ecofriendly enforcment laws. The president has not to my knowledge vetoed anything beyond the kyoto bs that has been an ongoing eyesore since it was designed. On top of that, while the President may set policies with appointments and such, he is not a subject matter expert and it looks very bad when he steps on his choices of the heads of departments for all of thier decisions, should he take some blame...sure. Did he create this problem? No he did not, and on top of handling a war and a flagging economy that is feeling the burn of 8 years of Clintonism now...I think it would be mighty hard to change or even enforce green standards.

OM, I found a show on the History Channel called Ax Men. Its a reality lineup of four logging crews. Watch a couple of these. It may give you a better idea of where I'm coming from. I worked a couple of jobs like these when I was trying to fund my way back to school. One in a thousand loggers die each year, or about 100 per year, deadest job in America.

ax.men.s01e01.ws.dsr.xvid-omicron.avi usenet and probably bittorrent.

I saw the ads for that but haven't seen the show. Add it to the list of jobs my kids won't be allowed to do along with crab fisherman and ice road trucker 😀

Bah logging isnt the deadliest job in America if only 100 die a year. 100 American Firefighters or more have died every year for the last 30 years...it was much much higher before that.

I believe the job of "old dynamite juggler" is the deadliest occupation.

"Dude, you got some Arnst on you." - Hurley

Not a lot of call for it these days, but by percentage, still deadliest.

DocJon wrote:I believe the job of "old dynamite juggler" is the deadliest occupation.

"Dude, you got some Arnst on you." - Hurley

Not a lot of call for it these days, but by percentage, still deadliest.

🤣

The Merch Mart was the largest building in the world when it was built. 20,000 people work there and it has it's own zip code. They just completed renovations to make it the largest "green" building in the world. It cost a lot, but the savings will be significant.

Transforming the Merch Mart

Very cool article Sarge.... It's amazing how they pulled that off....