The Story of Two Houses!

@estherlou (5015)
United States
March 28, 2007 9:37pm CST
I got this in an email and thought I'd share it. It is very interesting! The Story of Two Houses LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST. 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 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 (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern "snow belt," either. 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 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. HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore. HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as "the Texas White House," it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush. So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it's truly "an inconvenient truth." NO KIDDING --
11 people like this
16 responses
@villageanne (8553)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Wow That is really interesting. I had no idea but they are so very different. I personally am not surprised that Al Gore has a large fancy home. He just stikes me as that kind of person.
5 people like this
@Mickie30 (2626)
29 Mar 07
Thanks for sharing this it was very interesting.
2 people like this
@thyst07 (2079)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Inconvenient for Gore, maybe. But all things considered, the fact that George W. Bush's house is environmentally friendly doesn't make up for everything else he's done to hurt this country and the world at large. It's a good step, yes. It's an example that more people should follow, yes. But it doesn't redeem him even one tiny bit in my eyes.
5 people like this
@loved1 (5328)
• United States
29 Mar 07
That is really interesting! You are absolutely right about not hearing about that in the media. Sometimes I think they are all forbidden to say anything nice about the president or the war in Iraq. It is frustrating because some people rely on the media as their only source of information.
4 people like this
@2timothy (794)
• Philippines
29 Mar 07
The info in www.snopes.com was indeed helpful, and I came to learn something more from www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp on how the Gore family responded to this misleading news with something about their house as being not "an average house" but functions both as their home and business office and about carbon footprints.
@byfaithonly (10698)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Wow, I never would have guessed that but it's funny because I just responded to another friend's discussion about actions speaking louder than words - it seems to fit very much here, one says he's an enviromentalist but the other acts on it.
4 people like this
• India
29 Mar 07
Going by public pronouncements and image, I never thought Bush would be such an active practitioner of Environmental concerns.In fact, its the other way round. I always thought Al Gore was a genuine environmentalist and thought of him in high esteem. This sure is news to me.I guess, these days , you never know.
@GardenGerty (157545)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Hubby says he heard about Al Gore's house on the news, but not Bush's house. I would love to have one that environmentally responsible. It does go to show about dirty little secrets.
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
29 Mar 07
LOL -- Honestly I'm not even remotely surprised. For more fun, check out the house John Edwards recently built... http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848
3 people like this
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Sorry for the double posting... no idea why it did that! Meanwhile, I just wanted to add that this has been verified as true by snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
2 people like this
@byfaithonly (10698)
• United States
29 Mar 07
LOL I love Snopes they really do have a lot of helpful information there.
3 people like this
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
29 Mar 07
LOL -- Honestly I'm not even remotely surprised. For more fun, check out the house John Edwards recently built... http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848
3 people like this
@estherlou (5015)
• United States
29 Mar 07
That is just incredible! It has always been one of my pet peeves, that the only men/women who can hold high offices are the wealthy. It is now commonplace, but they are so removed from how most of us live, that how can they even understand us? Hmmm...topic for another discussion! LOL
4 people like this
• United States
29 Mar 07
Wow, that is shocking. Never trusted Mr. Gore, but to see his hypocrisy played out like this is disgusting.
4 people like this
@blackbriar (9076)
• United States
30 Mar 07
And Al Gore is soooooo concerned about global warming. NOT!! He should of thought it out more b4 making the movie. -rolls eyes- Wish I could have a 'green' house. Didn't even think about it till last year...3 yrs after we built our current house.
2 people like this
• United States
30 Mar 07
Wow, that second one sounds like my dream house!! It's sad how wasteful people can be just because they have money. He should use that money to give to charity, or to the poor. If I was rich, I should wouldn't waste it on gas bills. I wouldn't want to have a house so huge that it felt like I lived in a museum. How can a house that big feel homey? I'd rent out the rooms or something... to homesless cats!! Hee hee Also... if I had a place that big, I'd LOVE to have those wind mill looking things that aren't really called that anymore, but you know what I mean. Heck, I'd love to have one right now! I hear they generate lots of electricity, and you aren't wasting any natural fuels. It's sad that the good things are left out of the news, because they would get in to way of all the Bush bashing.
2 people like this
• United States
29 Mar 07
I had heard about Al Gore's house, and it does not matter what he uses it for in my opinion it is a monumental act of hipocracy. I admit I had not idea Bush had an environmentally compatible house because as you said it will never make the news. I think he most likely had a very different agenda when he first took office, but things changed when 911 happened. On another note about something you will never see in the news: San Antonio, Texas is one of the largest military processing points in the country and it is sadly short on housing for the soldiers that stay there. Denzel Washington was touring the facility and asked the guide how much it costs to build one of the barracks buildings, the guide told him and he on the spot wrote out a check for the entire sum. The story made it on a back page of the newspaper, got two paragraphs think.
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Just so you know, that's not exactly what happened when Denzel visited the Fisher House... http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/denzel.asp
2 people like this
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
2 Apr 07
No worries. Stuff like this gets passed around a lot, and with each new printing, the facts are skewed just a bit more. I just like to set the record straight on this kind of thing.
• United States
30 Mar 07
Thanks, I read the small newspaper article but apparently it was not totally correct.
1 person likes this
• Canada
29 Mar 07
well it's obvious gore pays his bills, and doesn't mind paying big bucks for what he gets, the difference is obvious. gore pays his bills and bush has everyone else pay for him, with their lives
3 people like this
@BunGirl (2638)
• United States
29 Mar 07
That's quite a spin you've put on this... In the meantime, the point had nothing to do with money. It's about environmental impact. The fact is that Gore is making the big bucks to pay for this monstrosity by pushing a film having to do with the environmental impact of people who wastefully use fossil fuels! If you can't see the hypocrisy here, you're really trying hard to miss it.
6 people like this
• United States
29 Mar 07
Well said Bungirl!!!
3 people like this
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
29 Mar 07
Yep, heard that about Mr. Gore's house.. but didn't know about President Bush's.. Very interesting!!
• United States
29 Mar 07
Wow that is a shocker...who'd a thunk it!
1 person likes this