Facts are secondary at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
Nicole Williams wrote an unresearched attack on Al Gore because he uses electricity -- without bothering to mention the higher fees he pays are due to the fact he purchases "green power", electricity created by methods other than coal burning.
More complete info was offered via The Tennessean:
"Electric bills obtained by The Tennessean, however, showed that Gore is paying a premium on his bills to be part of the “green power” program. Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.
That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program - is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.
The green power purchased by Gore in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans, or recycling 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the utility's Web site.
Gore’s movie details how greenhouse gases are trapping heat next to the earth, causing a changing climate with melting ice caps and more violent storms.
“Every family has a different carbon footprint,” said Kalee Krider, a spokeswoman for Gore.
The Green Power Switch program, however, isn’t all he and his wife, Tipper, are doing, Krider said.
They use compact fluourescent lights and are in the midst of a renovation project that includes having solar panels installed on their home to reduce fossil fuel consumption more, she said.
Their car? A Lexus hybrid SUV."
William's bio page notes she "Nicole writes and presents business and cultural seminars for international corporations such as DaimlerChrysler".
And the current president of the TCPR used to work for the Exxon-Mobile funded American Enterprise Institute, which donated over $1.6 million to the group since 1998.
TCPR claims to be:
".. an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to providing concerned citizens, the media and public leaders with expert research and timely free market policy solutions to public policy issues in Tennessee."
Expert research? Non-partisan? Then where are their policy statements calling for expanded support for Green Power sources? Seems that's counter to their agenda. But once the report was issued, it was presented to national outlets as fact. And it isn't the first time oil execs have sought to discredit Gore:
"The press release from Johnson's group, an obscure conservative think tank founded by Johnson in 2004 when he was 24, was given splashy attention on the highly-trafficked Drudge Report Monday evening, and former Gore aides saw it as part of a piece, along with an Fox News Channel investigation from earlier this month of Gore's use of private planes in 2000. Last year, a seemingly amateurish Youtube video mocking the "An Inconvenient Truth" turned out to have been produced by slick Republican public relations firm called DCI, which just happens to have oil giant Exxon as a client.
Considering that he spends an overwhelming majority of his time advocating on behalf of and trying to affect change on this issue, it's not surprising that people who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo would go after him."
Yeah, I read that too. I felt it was nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot wealthier people doing much less than Mr. Gore toward green energy. If everyone in the top 5% were to do what Gore does by buying green energy, setting up solar and wind plants and advocating the like we would see a positive impact sooner than later. The nature of the rich is to pay the lowest possible rate for everything, including people and keep their money for themselves that is how they get and stay rich.
ReplyDeleteMe, my rented crap-hole of a house leaks energy like mad, but I won't be buying one block of green energy. It takes all my funds to keep the rent current, food in the frige and health care for my loved ones. So I am the one to blame, if they want to start blaming.