Collegiate Times

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote to Americans, "United States! Go put creed into your deed." Roughly 150 years later, we have plenty of creed in our deed; it seems the problem now is the creed without the deed. After all, anyone can believe in something, but action speaks louder than words. In between the pulpit and the practice, the mighty hypocrite is born. Noble a creature is he or she whose strength of belief is matched only by his or her inability to practice said belief.

While hypocrites appear in all shapes and sizes, in no other habitat are they bred more commonly than in the two mile radius between the White House and the Capitol. While there are certainly numerous politicians from across the political spectrum worthy of the Hypocrite of the Year Award, my envelope says the winner is former Vice President Al Gore.

Gore is the first vice president, and hopefully the last prominent politician to march himself down Hollywood Boulevard in a last ditch effort to make Americans think he is still relevant — although I hear Dick Cheney's new movie, "American Rifleman" is in post-production. While the vice president's quest to save our environment is a noble one, I believe you have to walk the walk if you're going to talk the talk. Gore's new documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," has made him the new messenger of conservation, but forbear to judge, Gore, for we are all sinners.

"An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for Best Documentary, but Gore seems to have an inconvenient truth of his own: his mansion uses twenty times the American kilowatt average. The Department of Energy reports that the average American household uses 10,656 kWh per year. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research — an independent and nonpartisan organization — reported that Gore's home in Belle Meade, Tenn., used almost 221,000 kWh in 2006. The organization also reported that Gore's consumption actually went up after the release of "An Inconvenient Truth" by roughly 2,100 kWh per month.

Let me break this down for you: while Uncle Al was busy telling Joe and Jane Average that their hot showers and burning light bulbs were killing their grandchildren's future, he was using 221,000 kWh to heat and light his twenty-room, eight bath mansion. Hey Gore, you're a real testament to conservation. When you downsize your house to about 6,000 square feet, we can have a sit-down about conservation. Maybe you should get on the internet — you invented it, right? — and research how regular Americans live, then you can tell me about how I'm drowning polar bears.

Why are we supporting and awarding a film about conservation narrated by a man who travels in entourages of Chevrolet Suburbans and uses enough energy to fuel 20 houses? Watching Gore preach about conservation would be like listening to David Duke preach about racial harmony; it's simply absurd. What ever happened to authenticity? Gore can talk about conservation and global warming all he wants, but until he turns his roof into a massive solar panel, trades in his Suburban for a bullet-proof Civic and reduces his consumption of resources to a modest ten times that of the average American, I'm not interested in any "inconvenient truth," because it's clearly not inconvenient or urgent enough for its own messenger to heed the call.

I am all about Americans treating the planet with more respect. I'm not outside starting tire fires and emptying aerosol cans into bird nests, but I'm not about to take this movie or its message seriously when it's endorsed and narrated by someone who uses an absurd amount of resources. Anyone can talk about global warming and the environment, but I don't want to hear about what a wasteful person I am from someone who is in the top one percent of wasting.

Mark Twain wrote in jest that "nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." Perhaps Gore should heed Twain's commentary and be more conscious of his own trespasses before making any more documentaries.