Global Warming Hullabaloo

I was watching the Oscars with E and her roommate. We started joking around that it would be funny to see Al Gore waving from his SUV while talking about saving the earth from global warming.

It turns out that we weren't really that far off. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a libertarian think-tank cited Al Gore's electricity bill in this report.

Now, the debate has turned to carbon offsets and whether that makes up for Gore's $30,000 a year electricity bill. Now, those people at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research should like this kind of proposal, as carbon offsets are a "free-market" "solution" for global warming - so it shows you just how partisan the crazies are, and how out of touch limousine liberals can be.

While Al Gore continues to maintain that his lifestyle is not the issue and that his "net carbon footprint" is zero, the fact that he consumes FAR more his fair share of carbon emissions is exactly the problem. Technology is not going to save us or the earth; only changing our behaviors and consumption will really work in the end. While I don't think that Al Gore is a hypocrite, I do believe that he is being disingenuous. As long as he is taking up as much energy as he does, and as long as the Oscars continue to be the lavish affairs that they are (for example, how many people carpooled in their limos on the way to the Oscars?), neither is truly "green"; both are just "less bad" than they would have been otherwise and distract us from viable solutions.