He's not an environmentalist - Why I can't trust Al Gore
I am an environmentalist, but not a hardcore environmentalist; however, I have known a lot of hardcore environmentalists. People whom never shower, hate to flush toilets, eat only natural foods, and drive bio-diesel cars with bio-diesel they made in the basement (but whom only drove if they absolutely have to drive) - people obsessively concerned not just with their carbon footprint, but their entire footprint upon the world.
Al Gore is not one of these people.
Consequently, when a friend of mine asked me to join an Al Gore campaign to make Congress act on global warming, I said no. When asked why, I told my friend that I just didn't trust Al Gore - I don't trust most politicians.
As a college student, I was very inspired by Mr. Gore when he penned Earth in the Balance, yet I was very surprised by how little the Clinton/Gore administration accomplished in terms of the environment during their term. Still, Clinton was the President, not Gore.
Consequently, I wasn't surprised that Al Gore took up the environmental cause again after leaving the White House. So An Inconvenient Truth didn't shock me.
What has shocked me, however, are the constant stories of how un-environmental Al Gore is, such as stories about Gore's private jets and his 20-times-the-average-person electricity consumption. How can Mr. Gore live this way if he truly believes the message he is sending?
Inevitably, I believe Al Gore is a still a politician - almost a paid spokesman for the environmental movement - but not an environmentalist. If Mr. Gore were an environmentalist, he wouldn't live in a mansion, he'd live in some kind of super eco-friendly house. Moreover, he should have been using solar and wind power for many years, as many environmentalists with the means have for many years.
But Mr. Gore is a politician, not an environmental activist like Ed Begley Jr., whom absolutely practices what he preaches. Mr. Gore, on the other hand, is an energy hog who talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
Yeah, but Mr. Gore uses terra passes!
Ultimately, I don't care about terra-passes if that's how you live like an environmentalist - buying your way out of real action. If Mr. Gore wants to be the leader of the new environmental movement, he should be a leading example of how to live like a true environmentalist.
Judging by his actions, Mr. Gore is a pathetic environmentalist at best. Environmentalism isn't something you buy with carbon credits, it's a way of life, a way of living. A true environmentalist doesn't need a terra pass. A true environmentalist buys a terra pass because he or she feels guilty about a flight they had to take to a funeral. A terra pass is not a way of offsetting the wrongs in your daily life because your daily life should be guided by your core principals, and apparently Gore's core principals have little to do with environmentalism.
Simply speaking about environmental issues can never make an environmentalist and Mr. Gore is no environmentalist. Quite frankly Mr. Gore's use of the environment to fulfill his political ego is nothing short of hypocritical and possibly even shameful.
