Goring Gore

Al Gore is under fire for apparently failing to practise what he preaches, spending $30,000 on gas and electricity at his Nashville estate last year – 20 times the national average.

Thanks to that pesky Freedom of Information Act, we discover that, last August alone, Gore used 22,619 kWh – more than an average American family uses in a year. Since the release of Gore’s hand-wringing documentary, his personal energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh to 18,400 kWh a month.

Gore is reportedly installing solar panels on the roof of his mansion. How much bloody electricity can one man use, for God's sake? He may have invented the Internet, but it now looks as if he's running the whole thing from his house.

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OK, that last comment about the Internet was hilarious. However, this story only gives part of the truth.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk [the] walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," Johnson said.

Gore's power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.

Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.

The green power Gore purchased is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the electric company's Web site.

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So, is Gore a hero of the environmental battle or a hypocrite? I think the answer to both questions is probably yes. Funny how that happens isn't it? What is even more ironic is that if we were honest we would admit that Gore is just like the rest of us. All of us are walking contradictions at the end of the day. It is like we have this battle going on inside us between the part of us that wants to save the world and the part of us that wants to call in sick to work and sit on the couch in our underwear eating chips and watching Girls Gone Wild.

We are all capable of great acts of love and terrible acts of violence. Sometimes we perform both within minutes of each other. I kiss my kids, pat my dog, and get in my car to drive to work. On the way someone cuts me off and I speed up beside them to give them "the look." What a slobbering mess I am. The only thing that I can try to do is balance it so that I do a little more good in my day than bad. This isn't done to earn salvation or curry God's favor, fortunately I don't have to do either of those things. The reason to try and do more good than harm is so that I leave behind more positive than negative in my time here.

Don't be too hard on our buddy Al. He needs us to be patient and understanding with his contradictions, just like we need the people around us to be patient with ours. I mean, aren't we all just a bunch of slobbering messes anyway?