Al Gore bought another house - 6 fireplaces and 9 bathrooms. Hypocrisy at its finest
 

6 fireplaces, 5 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and he will arrive by private jet

Laureate Al Gore purchased a $9 million mansion in the luxurious hills of Montecito, California, recently, and with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and Fox News, America's media couldn't care less.

You think it might be because the Gore-loving press wouldn't want people to consider the possibility that all of his global warming hysteria was really about lining his wallet and not saving the planet?

Formulate a response to that question as you look at what all that money the former Vice President is making off of spreading this myth can buy (h/t Doug Ross):

Sweet, wouldn't you say? (Readers are encouraged to view more pictures of this fabulous estate here.)

Certainly not bad for a guy who supposedly was worth between one and two million dollars in 2000.

Were the "Always Fascinated by the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" press interested?


Read more: Stunning Pictures of Al Gore's New $9 Million Mansion Media Totally Ignored | NewsBusters.org


Without a doubt - Hypocrite of the year. What a complete and utter phoney.

oh, canada...

These arguments are a bit like 'evolution is false because Darwin did X'. A vocal proponent who suffers from the human condition does not undermine the theory. I have mixed feelings about Gore himself, but there is no question that global warming is anthropogenic. Well, no question for most. Him making money on it really doesn't have any relevance. I thought that was the goal of capitalism, anyway?

Al Gore lost any credibility with me when it made the news a few years ago that his monthly electric bill for his home in Tennessee was over $10K per month. This is just another case of the liberal attitude of listen to what I say, don't look at what I do.

Al Gore and the global warming crowd didn't do themselves any favors with their climate summit in Copenhagen with so many private jets that they had problems parking them, and so many limos that there was a limo shortage in Europe.

I may not be a liberal, but I at least try to help the environment by driving a 15 year old Geo Prism that gets 40MPG, keeping lights off when I don't need them, keep my heat between 60 and 65 in the winter, recycling, etc.

Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen. We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource.

-Al Gore, concluding remarks, An Inconvenient Truth

He might be a hypocrite, but does that invalidate his fundamental message?

Where's Stretch Armstrong when you need him?

I consider myself a liberal but Gore can go fuck himself. I'm not even convinced he would have been a better president than Bush had he won that last state simply because he's got such a crooked hypocrisy that he's obviously just a politician.

while he preaches the liberal agenda, he lives a selfish one i'd expect from the fat cat right wingers who love money more than people.

He's a fucking politician - they aren't required to stand behind what they say. If he bought the line he's been mouthing he wouldn't have bought another house.

Whatever Gore's character flaws are, it really isn't relevant to the global warming debate. If every time someone exploited a theory, idea or cause for personal gain we discredited the idea, we'd have nothing left.

This is the message that you all need to take away from this thread.

There's no "might be" in there. He IS a hypocrite of the worst kind.

In my opinion he should walk the walk. Frankly he is a very poor spokesman for his fundamental message and though his hypocrisy does not invalidate the message - it certainly invalidates him. I'm all for success and reaping the rewards of your hard work, but does one really need a house with 9 bathrooms? For that matter, I believe this is Gore's 3'rd house. I seem to recall he had a 14,000 ft2 mansion in Tennessee and a house in NY somewhere that was about half the size. Now this makes 3 houses at virtually the 3 corners of the United States. I somehow doubt he rides a bicycle to commute between his palaces.

The cynic in me would say that Al is just an opportunist like so many other sleazeballs, whoops, I mean Politicians. He simply figured out a way to become a spokesman for an industry and make a shit load of money for himself in the process. In the end, that's what it comes down to with Gore - money and lots of it.

I don't have to change, YOU have to change.

I really don't understand the fascination with mansions. Does he really do that much entertaining? I hope he realizes the damage this does to his credibility.

I have no problem with someone profiting from the green movement. The whole point is that there is a business model to be exploited. Remember that he has also invested time and money into Current TV and other enterprises beyond just his speaking.

That said, it's disappointing that he can't practice what he preaches. As a spokesperson for a movement, you really need to set an example.

He could have at least brought over a bunch of German architects and contractors and built a zero-emissions/carbon neutral mansion.

Then he could say: "See! It is possible!"

i really don't see the point of this thread. i don't see the logic behind the op. you imagine that democrats are not representatives of a faction of the dominant financial oligarchy because they speak a different rhetoric than do the republicans? if you think that then you don't know the first thing about us politics. and if you don't know the first thing about us politics, it really is of no consequence what you think of al gore.

personally i see him as having done some useful work in raising awareness about climate change. past that baraka guru and charlatan have summarized what i think a reasonable position is.

rb... Al Gore matters beyond the US borders. His message is a global one. He was just here giving a speech that received a lot of local press. What he says and what he does is important in that he is seen as the figurehead of a movement.

I am not surprised that he continues to live a lavish life. I'm just disappointed that he isn't showing good leadership.

Gore should have built a house like David Shepler's of IBM Research:

Being a hypocrite absolutely and completely destroys his message. He's asking us to change how we live our lives for the greater good of the planet and yet he himself either can't or wont make those same changes? His inability to lead by example is really telling us that while his message is important, living a green lifestyle is too difficult, inconvenient and hard to put into practice, so give it a shot but when it proves to be to hard you can just give up or make excuses. In other words "Meh, saving the planet isn't all that important after all".

I don't know maybe I'm being to harsh perhaps I'm missing Al Gores point, its been awhile since I've seen his movie. Maybe he's telling us that saving the planet is great but private jets, gas guzzling limos, and houses that consume more energy then some small countries are even better! After all the important people can't be expected to be inconvenienced by saving the world...but if you aren't a jet setting, international global warming superstar then you should do the right thing and buy that electric car. Al Gore is super cereal about saving the environment as long as it doesn't make his life any more difficult. Excelsior!

In all seriousness I actually like Al Gore but failing to set an example really castrates his message to the point of near absurdity. People just aren't going to take him or his crusade seriously until he walks the walk and shows the world that it really works, is possible and everyone can do it.



.

First, it isn't "his message." He didn't invent environmentalism, the idea of global warming, or any sort of "living green" philosophy.

Second, is one hypocrite enough to destroy any message?

If Al Gore says that the environment is being damaged, that global warming is a problem, and that we need to cut back on energy usage, then proceeds to buy another huge home which uses lots of energy, why would I believe a word that he has to say about the subject. He has absolutely no credibility on the subject.

Now, since there are other people making the case for global warming, Al Gore alone does not destroy the credibility of the warnings about global warming. However, get enough hypocrites like him speaking out and the message might be distorted or diluted.

all of which presupposes that this "hypocrisy" nonsense has some meaning.
gee, a national level politician in the united states is wealthy. what a fucking shock. and he disposes of his wealth in a way that were gore a conservative rightwingers would defend.

it's funny that this non-story is floating about now and apparently getting some traction in the rightwing press. it's certainly easier to froth about on this vital matter of infotainment---the Important Question about climate change of course being how al gore lives his personal life----given the disaster that's unfolding in the gulf of mexico, which seems to maybe---just maybe---have punched some holes in conservative anti-green posturing.

folk need to learn to recognize triage memes when they see em. this is about giving conservatives something to feel put upon about concerning "the environment" at a moment when their message, such as it is, has been atomized by reality again.

You know what happens if you go out on the street to notice red cars? Even if you just say "red" to yourself before you leave the house. It's absolutely shocking how many red cars you see. It's like every red car in town lines up to drive past you that very day!

Let's pretend Al Gore had a similar message but a number of decades ago. Let's pretend he had all this evidence that smoking was bad for you, and until then people didn't really know otherwise. Let's pretend he made a sensational film about it in an attempt to mobilize the world against the dangers of smoking. Let's also pretend that not only does Gore chain smoke but that he recently bought shares in Philip Morris.

Would that change the fact that we should probably quit smoking, that we should quit smoking around our children, that pregnant women probably shouldn't smoke?

Okay, he's a fucking hypocrite. But does that mean we should let him ruin a movement toward more sustainable global lifestyles?

I mean, should we let ourselves be bratty about it?

Are we just jealous of his wealth?

Okay, so Gore has failed to live up to his own words. He doesn't practice what he preaches. So tell him to fuck off. He failed to get his own message. Maybe his wealth was like a drug and he couldn't resist. So be it.

As for me, I'm going to continue to be concerned about out little biosphere. I don't know about you, but Gore's actions are of little consequence to my own thoughts on the issue.

I don't know about "one hypocrite" being able to destroy a message, but one individual can convince individuals to change, can also lose that ability for one reason or another.

See Tiger Woods for examples.

Actually, it does. I've had discussions with people about low gas mileage cars and SUVs. Their comments to me were that as long as limousine liberals like Al Gore insisted on flying around in private jets and owned multiple large homes with huge energy budgets, they saw no reason to give up their cars or otherwise try to conserve energy.

Al Gore can spend his money however he likes. However, by doing things like this, he loses any credibility that he has. He's no different than any other shyster who tries to separate people from their money. In the interests of full disclosure, maybe Al should disclose how much money he's made off investments in energy conservation. Because, as far as I am concerned with Al, he's in a position to get publicity for his statements, and can steer people into whatever direction suits his interests.

For me, Al Gore has had nothing to say of value about the environment for several years, since it was disclosed a few years ago about his home in Tennessee with a $10K/month + utility bill. This isn't new news.

Maybe we would have a few less oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico if Al Gore and his peers weren't flying around in private jets and otherwise wasting energy instead of conserving it.

right. because al gore is personally responsible for the kind of levels of petroleum consumption that is built into the economic model that conservatives are cheerleader for the waste built into which props up an oil industry that is amongst the republicans bigger backers at whose beck and call the right has been ideologically on environmental questions for many years.

and because in the la-la land of the right, it is the democrats who are some Persecuting Elite. i forget about that particular aspect of rightwing paranoia in the fabrication of al gore as Persecuting Other. a bad bad man who is associated with the bad bad man bill clinton. bad bad bad.

if you want to play this game, i suppose we could also talk about people like koch industries and the other deep pockets whose money explains the continued presence of conservative-specific anti-climate change nonsense and whose infrastructure explains the circulation of this particularly pathetic bit of conservative meme triage.

how is it that we are not being treated to stories about how the koch brothers dispose of their massive incomes in their private lives. o wait: the koch brothers and their ilk have no political interest in exposing themselves to scrutiny. they just want to buy the capacity to direct it at others when it serves some political advantage. no problem with that. there can't be a problem with that. the koch brothers are conservatives.

Guys, it doesn't change the overall message that global warming is a man made catastrophe and we need to take steps to fix it. It does by proxy of Al Gore being a poster boy for global warming severely weaken the message when its de facto spokesman not only doesn't live by his own word but also apparently goes out of his way to leave a larger carbon footprint then he really needs too. He's begun sending the message that global warming just isn't worth the effort to fix, and if something isn't worth the effort then how important can it really be? It provides fodder for global warming detractors and makes people on the fence about issue continue to question their position. If he's not destroying his own message he's certainly severely hobbling it.

To a lot of people Al Gore has become another greedy politician/businessman exploiting a tragedy for his own personal gain and until he starts to live by his own words people just aren't going to take HIS global warming message that seriously. If he really wants to help he either needs to change how he lives or step down and let somebody else move into the limelight. Personally I think global warming is a man made catastrophe and I try to do everything I can to help. I think Al Gore did a lot with his movie, his books, his lectures and he should be commended but at this point he's starting to cross the line into hurting his own cause and quite frankly becoming a bit of a joke.

rb, this is how I see it. This isn't anything more than the conservatives saying anti-gay things and finding them with men. It's not much different than that.

cyn---i'm not sure i understand your point.

i should say as an aside that i don't particularly care for al gore. i find him astonishingly wooden. one of those folk that makes me cringe just a little that he's on my side. or i am on his. whatever. on this issue anyway. what i'm reacting to in this thread really is the ad hominem character of this whole thing. and it's timing, which seems more than passing strange. but mostly the former. and there's little comparison between the tactics used by the american right insofar as sustained personal attack as a way of trying to delegitimate a political message is concerned.

I just realized that Gore has nearly twice as many bathrooms than I do rooms.

For the record, I've been listening to the messages of David Suzuki long before I even knew who Al Gore really was.

I agree and at that point whatever message the homophobic congressmen had built a career spewing out is pretty much moot when it comes from him. Are his followers really going to continue taking his anti gay message seriously when he makes a speech about it in the future?

This is pretty much what I mean:
How about the preacher/politician saying family values only to be caught with a mistress?

rb is this something that you don't see the hypocrisy? It's schadenfreude at minimum, hypocrisy at maximum.

Yup same idea Cynthetiq, did anyone take Jimmy Swaggart seriously after he was caught in a hotel with a prostitute? That level of hypocrisy is hard to recover from.

A big plus one Cynthetiq.:thumbsup:

Al Gore to earthlings: Follow my instructions, not my example.:shakehead:
If everyone else would change, I could be an even bigger hog.:sad:

And speaking of ad hominem:
Maybe we all need to pass some kind of examination before our opinions matter.:yawn:

Lindy

how is this the same?

the guy bought a house. a house is not a belief that is at cross purposes with stated positions.
for all you know it's the greenest of green houses with swedish toilets that use no water and passive solar heating.

what you're reacting to is the number of bedrooms. and the price. what allows you to connect that to climage change is some notion that dealing with climate change will involve renunciation as if the current petroleum-crazed was of doing things is absolutely necessary and no alternatives are imaginable so if that way of doing things is creating problems the response is necessarily to subtract elements so make do with less not develop alternatives (think o i dunno the idea that youd have to do without cars as opposed to the idea that a system-level response to climate change might be to underwrite the development of solar-powered cars or something)
so the idea is that you cannot imagine an alternative set of consumer lifestyle possibilities to what exists now. and you imagine that sustainable practices involve sleeping on planks and wearing a hair frock while you eke out some miserable existence.
i have no idea at all where that stereotype---if it's even that--comes from.
but it's clear that it's a conservative mythology that functions to delegitimate concern for the environment by setting it up as a way of being that wants to take something away from righteous amuricans.

from there the link is in your head to al gore buying a house. but unless you accept the implicit characterization, the connection is arbitrary.

so this is nothing like the attitudes of a homophobic conservative congressman or the special problems created by jimmy swaggart employing hookers.
unless you assume that conservative packaging of "environmentalists" as persecuting Others represents some kind of fact about the world.
which i think ludicrous.
and so's this "controversy"

Sure. And all the trees used to build this house were cut down by had so no hydrocarbons were consumed, that all the trees that were cut down to build this mansion were replaced with equal or better quality trees. All mining of concrete and steel was done with carbon-neutral technology. He's flying around on a solar powered private jet Right.

The amount of resources consumed in this mansion are far beyond what most people use.

If Al wants to be an environmentalist, let him live the lifestyle to the hilt. If he wants to be a wealthy hypocritical limousine liberal then let him live that lifestyle.

He can't be both.

dogzilla proves my point, in case there was any doubt.
thanks for that.

I don't know rb, Ed Begley Jr. seems to do just fine walking the talk. He's a point of view that I can respect and understand. He's not just talking it, he's living it.

you know what i think is hypocritical?

conservatives whose political machine carries shit for agribusiness and petrochemical concerns acting as though green politics are something inflicted on them by some "liberal elite."
so money is somehow associated with greens and not with the conservative political machinery that's been paid for by agricorporations and petrochemical concerns.

well, that's a kind of structural hypocrisy really.
i don't see individual conservatives as hypocrites on this.
i see them as chumps.
that's different.

to be clear, i don't care about al gore one way or another. he has not been constructed for me as a boogeyman by some combine that fabricates political viewpoints so you don't have to take the trouble to think things out for yourselves. what i object to is the logic that underpins this entire thread.

If there was a political conservative who gave a damn about the environment, enough so to speak fervently for defending the planet, who also lived an entirely carbon neutral lifestyle, I could see an actual argument for 'the better of two norms'. But as is, no conservative politician would be caught dead admitting that we affect climate, so their opinions of an advocate and their questions about his personal life are really moot.

EDIT: It's a bit like discussions we've had on TFP about people who have never had or cared for children advising parents on how to be parents.

So... anybody have any pictures of these 9 bathrooms? I'm interested.

I'm sorry I don't understand the first paragraph.

Gore's actions show that
1. he does not believe in anthropomorphic climate change and the dire consequences predicted; and/or
2. he is truly evil; and/or
3. he wants to view the rising ocean from his seafront mansion.

See I don't see this as a liberal vs conservative issue, and I'm really not sure why it needs to be. Nor is it just about this new 9 bathroom mansion, thats just icing on the cake. This about questioning why a man who is seemingly very passionate about a certain issue yet either can't or wont live by his own words, the ones he's asking us to follow. No matter what the issue or political stance that is hypocritical and there is no reason why, weather you believe in global warming or are a fan of Al Gore, he can't be called out and questioned over his actions.

Al Gore as a very visible and famous member of the global warming movement could be setting an example of how to live an efficient green lifestyle and yet he wont. Why not? I don't think that's an unreasonable question to ask a person who is telling the world that we need to change how we live NOW or face the dire consequences. Does he not really believe what he says? If not, should we? (no I'm not denying global warming but I'm sure a lot of people are starting to look at it that way)

A hypocrite is a hypocrite, it doesn't matter how "pure" or "right" is intentions are, he shouldn't get a pass for saying one thing and doing another.

I'd hardly consider a report (and I'm using the word report loosely) written by an individual who refers to global warming as a scam as fair enough grounds from which this discussion can properly be had. Anyone else notice that the original article cites and links to a second article (again, loosely) about the carbon footprint of Gore's new digs where the author refers to proponents of living green as "Climatards."

This is dumb and owning a mansion, even your fourth, doesn't automatically disqualify you from living a green lifestyle. Dumb.

As a climatard with a very small footprint, I think we should stop wasting electricity wondering about Gore's relationship with himselves.:confused:

Really? You don't think it's more than a little hypocritical that Al Gore flies around the world telling people like me that we should be buying electric cars, spending more for energy to cover the cost of green energy production, using those new fluorescent lights that actually help pollute the environment and then he buys a 2nd or 3rd mansion which has energy consumption that far exceeds what I use? I looked at the pictures of his new mansion and there's not a solar cell or a windmill in any of those pictures.

And for the record, this has nothing to do with Al's association with Bill Clinton. Al has managed to provide more than enough ammunition to blow both his feet off and then some just with his being a spokesman for global warming.

It also has nothing to do with people like Jimmy Swaggart, 'homopbobe' Congressmen that might be doing what those they represent want or Koch industries, all of whom I pay no attention to.

What it has to do with is people like Al that tell me that I need to reduce energy usage and be prepared to pay more for what energy that I do you and then turn around and squander energy. In other words, hypocrites,.

Can anyone who's throwing a shit fit about what a hypocrite Gore is for buying a second house show me the carbon footprint? He bought it, big fucking deal. For all we know he already has appointments to put wind turbines in the back yard, cover the roof in solar panels, cover the rest with renewable energy purchased from local utilities, and keep everything shut off when he's not there. You don't have the whole story, maybe you should try to get it before you ramble about it.
What portion of t0hat electric bill was from coal/oil generation and what was from renewable sources? What about the fact that after that became "news," he installed solar panels, a geothermal heat exchanger for water and heating/cooling, and doesn't have a single incandescent bulb installed in the house? What about the fact that he and his wife not only live there, but run their business out of their home and have racks of servers and associated cooling equipment in the basement? What about the cut to emissions since they don't commute to work? Who says they aren't going to make these improvements to the new home?

Sure, he's made considerable improvements to the other home, I guess he'll do the same here.

Gore gets green kudos for home renovation - Environment- msnbc.com
I live in just under 800sq ft with my wife and 2 cats.

I don't see how ANYONE can legitimately need such large square footage.

So he fixed the problem after he got caught. That sounds more like trying to cover up his problem than doing it right in the first place
What about his flying around in a private jet? What about the additional heat generated by his high electrical usage. That heat doesn't just disappear. Why does the fact that he has extraordinarily high energy usage get excused by using 'green' energy? If I managed to install solar panels capable of generating 50KW of energy and used it to shine searchlights into the sky day and night, that's environmentally acceptable since I'm not burning carbon to do that? How much of that green energy is accounted for by the cap and trade and carbon credits charades?

I don't know, maybe its just me but the major renovations to his house here in Tennessee didn't actually start until he got called out by the media, I hardly find that commendable. If nobody had noticed would he have done anything at all? He's been talking about global warming for decades, but only does something about his home 3 or 4 years ago after his integrity is called into question?

And lets not forget not only does Al own a house in California (need those fountains and heated pool Mr Gore?) he also owns one here in Nashville, one in Carthage, TN (family farm and home to the zinc mine) and another in Arlington VA, and I beleive a condo at one point..all for him and Tipper...four homes. Hardly a shining example of the necessary consumption he ask out of all of us, but I'm sure he's working hard on making them all green before the media discovers anything.

But that's just the surface of the ice burg for old Al. Couple the houses with his zinc mine which was responsible for polluting the Canary Fork River (sited as late as 2000 by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for violations, closed in 2003 again after winding up in the media). Of course right along side this zinc mine was the "Gore Dump" which Al himself denied existing until the local news shot footage showing dripping oil filters, aerosol cans, unrecycled aluminum and old tires (also leaking into the Canary Fork)...but we'll forgive that one since it was in the early 90's. Gore is now allowing Dow Chemical (yeah really) to sponsor Life Earth in an attempt to paint itself as a green company, pissing off environmentalists everywhere. He's notorious for flying around in a private jet and traveling in a limo (hardly necessary or easy on the environment), he "forgot" to turn off the floodlights around his Nashville home during Earth Hour last year, wont stop eating meat despite calling out the farm and meat industry for their impact on the environment...

...This is just the stuff off the top of my head, if I got my facts wrong I'll stand corrected. Al's done a lot to turn people on to the problems we face today with global warming but if the above isn't glaring hypocrisy I don't know what is. He could own a modest, yet comfortable home as a model of green efficiency...he doesn't need three mansions and a heavily polluted farm. He could be setting an example by making appearances via satellite instead of jetting around the world for every appearance but chooses not to. He seems to have no problem consuming all the energy and resources he needs to live his life the way he wants to yet asks us to do the exact opposite. Dire situations call for drastic measures, or at least according to Al Gore and drastic measures take effort, lots of it. Not leaving a carbon footprint the size of Cleveland, off setting it with carbon credits (from a company he chairs none the less), only making changes when called out by the media and then going right back to life as normal. That's not setting an example, that's not leadership, that's not the actions of a man who believes we are an eyelash away from an environmental catastrophe.

That is my only problem with it. If it had geo-thermal cooling, solar water heating, solar panels, wind power generators, and some Bloom energy fuel cells, and a few electric cars, well, I could care less about how big of a house he has.

And, I thought his electric bill was that much at his TN house because he bought renewable energy to power it.... :confused:

---------- Post added at 08:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:10 AM ----------

Actually the heat does disapate at night time, at least it is supposed to. If you have ever been in the desert, it gets very hot during the day, but since there isn't much H20 and CO2, at night it radiates back into space. But, in Phoenix, with all the concrete, CO2 brown cloud, and people flooding their lawns to water them, it can still be extremely hot in the middle of the night.

While searching for something else, I ran across this quotation from two time Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson (lost in 1952 and 1956 to Eisenhower).

"A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation."
Adlai E. Stevenson

It just seemed apropos this thread.

Lindy

It bears mention that everyone is a hypocrite, and that hypocrisy, being a common denominator amongst us all, isn't all that interesting.

I'd rather hear what Gore tells himself to justify his excesses.