A Very Inconvenient Truth-A Tale of Two Houses

The provenance of the following e-mail is unknown to me. It has been circulating on the internet almost since the release of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. One might accuse me of the sort of wanton publication of unsubstantiated rumor for which bloggers are frequently condemned, except Snopes.com rates this e-mail as "True."


Tale of Two Houses

House #1
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 this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400 per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern 'snow belt' area. It's in the South.



House #2
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university. This house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on a 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 the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter 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. Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the surrounding rural landscape.



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HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; It is the home of the 'Environmentalist' Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence of the Ex-President of the United States, George W. Bush.

THIS is the definition of an "inconvenient truth"!!

[HT: Michael Harris.]