Two houses — two contrasting stories . . .
The first house:
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 ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American Home. This house is not in the northern or Midwestern ‘snow belt .’ It’s in the South.
The second house:
Designed by an architecture professor, this house incorporates every ‘green’ feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid-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 winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels – such as oil or natural gas – and it consumes 25% of the 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. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.
The Assessment:
By now, you probably have guessed that house number one is that of environmental activist, film maker and former Vice President Al Gore, located near Nashville, Tennessee. This house has been under siege in the news lately since Gore won the Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” — which has a few accuracy flaws, to say the least. Gore shrugs the excess off by purchasing “Carbon Offsets” — from himself, incidentally. The mainstream media give him a pass on it.
What surprised me about the second house is that it is the home of George W. and Laura Bush, located near Crawford, Texas. So, why isn’t this trumpeted in the Greenbat news, heralding the President as being an environmental icon? I think you can figure that out on your own.
Hat Tip to Global Warming Hoax — A Story of Two Houses