Since the release of Albert Gore Jr.’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, reliable conservative organizations like the American Enterprise Institute and Fox News Channel have been trying to paint Gore’s concern over global warming as hysteria. With the film’s recent Oscar wins (for both Best Song and Best Documentary), anti-environmentalists are on the march again.

Sean Hannity, in particular, has latched on to a report by a Tennessee conservative organization who have uncovered the massive energy bill incurred at one of the Gores’ houses in suburban Nashville. Tennessee’s NBC affiliate WBIR reported,

[F]ormer Vice President Al Gore was called a hypocrite by a Tennessee group that said his Belle Meade home is consuming too much energy.

The home’s average monthly electric bill last year was just under $1,200, according to bills that The Tennessean acquired from Nashville Electric Service.

“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,” said Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, identified as a free-market think tank.

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 in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on NES’ Web site.

NES joined the TVA program in 2000 to give power customers a way to support environmentally sound sources of electricity. The Tennessean could not determine when Gore signed up for green power.

NES gets its electricity from TVA. Most is produced from coal, which emits carbon, a greenhouse gas. A lesser amount comes from nuclear power and a small amount from hydroelectric.

Gore would say that his beyond-average energy consumption, which in the case of this particular Tennessee home is equivalent to about the consumption of twenty average American homes, is balanced by the Kyoto-style “carbon offsets” he and his family have purchased or built (with their above-average wealth). But as Hannity will likely repeat until the day he dies, Gore takes private jets. A former Vice-President’s security detail is formidable and it seems like flying on a commercial airliner might pose some security risks, but jet travel is extremely harmful to the environment all the same. It is possible, even probable that Gore offsets his jet fuel-related pollution with one of several carbon offset exchanges.

Sean Hannity, the Fox News anchor and whose growing concern about Gore’s energy usage is matched only his skepticism of the dangers of global warming, has been at this story for days. Witness the clip at left where he gathers noted scientists like Ann Coulter to talk about global warming (which she calls part of a “druidic” anti-human liberal conspiracy). Hannity will not let up until every liberal guest he bullies will admit that Al Gore is a hypocrite.

Lest Gore consume massive amounts of greenwashed energy undefended, Keith Olbermann rode in to the rescue last night, breaking down the math of Gore’s massive energy bill:

Meanwhile, last night, Hannity & Colmes invited a real walk-the-walk, talk-the-talk Hollywood environmentalist, Ed Begley Jr., to see if Hannity could harangue Begley into insulting a man who isn’t even a politician anymore. Sample transcript:

Ed Begley, Jr., you know, I was watching the Oscars the other day. And, by the way, I’ve read a lot about your lifestyle, and I actually find it fairly impressive. You don’t travel around in private jets, do you?

ED BEGLEY, JR., ACTOR AND ENVIRONMENTALIST: No, I do not. I mostly drive cross-country or wherever I need to go in a Prius. If I have to be Friday in L.A. and Saturday in New York, I get in a commercial jet like anybody, but I mostly drive my Prius for long distances.

HANNITY: And you live, for example, in a self-sufficient home powered by solar energy that I read, as well, right?

BEGLEY, JR.: Yes, I use $600 a year worth of green power. They have a “green power” program at the LADWP, and to supplement my solar with my new family, extra people in the house and two businesses running out of the house, I use $600 a year worth of “green power” from the city.

HANNITY: All right, now I have disagreements. We’ll get into that as the program unfolds here. But you’re not being — living a life of a hypocrite.

Now, for example, during the Oscars, when Melissa Etheridge was singing her song from Al Gore’s movie, you saw in the background, the signs that said, “Are you ready to change the way you live?” “The climate crisis can be solved.” “You can reduce your carbon emissions,” et cetera, “weatherize your house,” “recycle”, “walk”, “ride a bike”, “use mass transit,” et cetera, et cetera.

I think it’s important that we identify. If Al Gore is going to carry this message, doesn’t he need to walk the walk? And do you have the courage to say, when he travels around in private jets, when he’s using this type of energy 20 times the national average, that he’s a hypocrite?

BEGLEY, JR.: I think we all need to do more. I think the Gores…

HANNITY: That’s not the question.

BEGLEY, JR.: … need to do more. I think Rachelle and…

HANNITY: I’m asking if Al Gore, “Mr. GulfStream,” is he a hypocrite?

BEGLEY, JR.: No, he’s not a hypocrite. No! I don’t think he’s a hypocrite. He’s doing a great deal. He’s got an unusual life. I don’t have a life like Al Gore’s. I’m not making presentations all over.

HANNITY: Oh. Oh.

RACHELLE CARSON, “LIVING WITH ED”: And he’s not the ex-vice president of the United States.

HANNITY: So he’s above us, the regular, little people?

BEGLEY, JR.: No. Who’s talking about little people? I’m talking about any vice president, stack them up against any vice president, see how he does. He may do well; he may not do well. But let’s look at that. Let’s look at that.

HANNITY: He needs those three or four homes, the eight bathrooms, the 20-room mansion. He needs the GulfStream to live his life, because he’s Al Gore. But the rest of us, we’re going to get lectured by him about our SUV use? And you don’t see that hypocrisy? That is pure, Class A hypocritical living. Why can’t you just acknowledge that?

BEGLEY, JR.: I want to — I’d like to learn more about the multiple homes. I’d like to learn more about this. I’d like to hear his response to all this before I comment. But I can I tell you it’s possible to live very simply. I live on very little, and I take public transportation. I ride my…

HANNITY: I’m praising you. You’re not a hypocrite. And I read you ride your bike to different Hollywood events, I read recently.

BEGLEY, JR.: Right.

HANNITY: You know, but Al Gore, for example, the average American home consumes 10,656 kilowatt hours. In just the month of August alone, he used twice the national average, and that’s only one of his homes.

More ardent environmentalists than Al Gore take issue with the extent of his proposals, rather than the specifics of his own personal consumption. For example, this AlterNet article from January of this year by David Morris:

Indeed, the “take action” section of Al Gore’s website, www.climatecrisis.net recommends the following steps. Put on a sweater. Use more efficient light bulbs. Turn the thermostat down 2 degrees. Drive less.

I’m sure Al Gore knows that even if millions of individuals were to adopt such actions, the pace of ecological disaster would not slow one whit. I presume he views these actions as a way for us to demonstrate our willingness accept responsibility for our consumption habits. The next, and far more important, step is to persuade us to work collectively and aggressively for bold new policies. A recent letter from Al Gore, emailed from MoveOn.org asked us to do just that by signing a petition to push Congress to action.

Gore declared, “I’m ready to push for real solutions, but I need your help …” The email offered no policy solutions. Nor does Al Gore’s web site or speeches, except for his recommendation that America immediately freeze its greenhouse gas emissions and then reduce them.

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