"Oh, you're one of those d*@n environmentalists"

So, I've been directed to this website on more than one occasion which gives an outline of the homes and energy consumption of Mr. Gore & Prez Bush. (http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp), so here's my response.

Mostly I get it from right-wingers trying to debunk environmental ideas by pointing out the Gore hypocracy. Gore often makes a lot of good points about the environment and his rhetoric is usually thoughtful & intelligent. But I don’t find it too surprising that neither of their super-wealthy homes reflect their policies… just politics as usual. And SO WHAT? Bush's environmental policies have FAR outstripped whatever resources his home is supposedly conserving.

Which is to say, if I were looking for an environmental mentor, I probably wouldn’t look to anybody who is as power hungry as either of those two. It would be a rare politician who would rate highly on my list of heros.

Finally, if either of their homes were set as the bar for some environmentally friendly standard, we (and our planet) are in trouble. I would never consider even a 4000 sf home to be easy on the environment… I don’t care what the “average” in the area is.