It's Earth Day today...

...and The Daily Beast has a piece entitled, "Earth Day Poseurs," about six celebrities that have some explaining to do. The worst of these in my mind is Al Gore.

I first suspected Al Gore was a hypocrite back in 1988 when he very conveniently became a huge champion of Israel right before the New York Democratic primary. He won the endorsement of Mayor Ed Koch (surprised?), but lost the primary anyway.

Needing a new issue for the next election, Gore soon discovered environmentalism and published the book Earth in the Balance in 1992, which was the basis for the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." Personally, I'm agnostic on all this Green stuff, but people who's opinions I respect tell me the science in the movie is suspect, at best. Whatever.

(Like a lot of other Democrats that year, Gore took a pass on challenging the first President Bush after his approval ratings soared during the Gulf War. Better to wait for '96, instead. As a result, a lesser-known governor from Arkansas had a more open field. Oh well.)

When I went to buy a car a few years ago I settled on a Honda Civic Hybrid, because of the gas mileage. Readers of this blog know how much I love to save money. What they might not know is that I'm also the kind of guy who does the research after he buys the car. And what I found out was that not only is a hybrid not necessarily the most economical way to go, but that not all hybrids get great gas mileage. Lexus SUV hybrids, for example, aren't like Civics or Priuses at all. In fact, they're not much better than standard SUVs. Again, whatever. But then I came across an interview with Al Gore where he was asked about how he was putting his environmental convictions into practice. And guess what kind of car he drives. A Civic? A Prius? Hah! Try a Lexus SUV hybrid. And he was taking bows for it.

Now I read in The Daily Beast that

his 10,000-square foot carbon-neutral mansion used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research said that energy use at his home actually increased 10 percent and became the equivalent to 232 homes once the greening was done.

I don't know what all of that really means but would a sincere environmentalist, who preaches to the rest of us through books and movies to live "greener," live in a mansion like that and drive a car that doesn't get good gas mileage? I'd love to ask him.