[Updated title and added contact links as suggested in comments (Thanks!)]
I was listening to "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio yesterday on my way to picking up my son at school. They had a segment on the Gore utility bills pseudo-scandal.
What I heard made me so angry that I turned off the radio and sputtered with rage.
Here's how the thinly disguised hit-piece started:
On Sunday night, when the movie An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar, its star, Al Gore, took the stage with a message about global warming. He called for people the world over to change the way they live, so that they have less impact on the environment.
Not so fast, said a libertarian think tank called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. They called up the Nashville Electric Service and asked about the bills for the Gore's 10,000-square-foot home.
"The average American uses about 11,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, but Al Gore devoured 221,000 kilowatt hours," says Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
Of Gore, Johnson asked, "Is he doing the sorts of things that he's asking us to do?"
(The emphasis is mine.)
They then briefly mention that the Gore household uses green energy and buys carbon offsets, and then segue into a mealy-mouthed interview with an expert to discuss whether buyers of carbon offsets can be sure of what they are purchasing (long answer that boils down to: mostly yes but controls are catching up with a fast growing carbon offset industry.)
What got me riled up was that they made no attempt to identify the "Tennessee Center for Policy Research" for what it really is.
The Tennessee Tax Dept. does not consider the "Tennessee Center for Policy Research," which roughly no one had heard of before this, a legitimate group. It's run by a long-time right-wing attack hack, and its only registered address is a P.O. box.
They called it a "libertarian think-thank", left it at that and proceeded to uncritically pass along the smear. I mean, is NPR applying for card-carrying member status in the wingnut echo chamber alongside the"Dredge Report" and "Faux News" and an army of hate radio jockeys? Is this what's going on here? Do you like how NPR spent your tax money and your much solicited contributions?
A wee bit of research would have revealed that:
- The "average" home electricity use quoted by TCPR is a national average that includes apartments and mobile homes. In Gore's climatic zone, the East South Central (Dept. of Energy PDF), the average is much higher, thanks to hot, humid summers and cold winters. Within that zone, Gore's usage is three (not 20) times average, and his per-square-foot usage is squarely average.
- The Gores are not an average family. He's an ex-VP with special security arrangements, and has live-in security staff. He and his wife both work on their many business and charitable undertakings out of their house, so they have space for offices and office staff. All that would be tough to cram in an average size house.
This really pisses me off! I wonder what stupid, contrived smear from some "non-partisan" "Tennessee Institute for Global Research" they'll parrot two days after Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
Hey, let's spare them all a dumpster dive or two and come up with our own preemptive smears. I'll go first.
[NPR contact information]
[NPR - And how you fix it]