Al Gore nabbed in $30,000 electricity shocker

TREE HUGGING EX-VEEP Al Gore is under fire for apparently failing to practise what he preaches, spending $30,000 on gas and electricity at his Nashville estate last year - 20 times the national average.

As Gore's doom and gloom documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, picks up the Best Documentary Oscar, an outfit called the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has, rather inconveniently for the born-again eco-mentalist, picked up the phone and discovered that the man previously famous for being exceedingly dull used 221,000 kWh of electricity in 2006.

Thanks to that pesky Freedom of Information Act, we discover that, last August alone, Gore used 22,619 kWh - more than an average American family uses in a year. Since the release of Gore's hand-wringing documentary, his personal energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh to 18,400 kWh a month.

Gore supporters claim that the TCPR is operating a cynical smear campaign against him, but the figures from the Nashville Electric Service will need some serious explaining if Gore's credibility as a green campaigner is to remain intact.

Accepting his Oscar last week, Gore said: "It's not as hard as you might think. We have a long way to go but all of us can do something in our own lives to make a difference."

Gore is reportedly installing solar panels on the roof of his mansion. How much bloody electricity can one man use, for God's sake? He may have invented the Internet, but it now looks as if he's running the whole thing from his house. µ

L'INQ
Tennessee Center for Policy Research