The inconvenient truth about Al Gore's "carbon footprint".

Former Vice President Al Gore's high-octane PowerPoint presentation on the dangers of global warming, recast as the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, took home an Oscar for best documentary at the 79th annual Academy Awards presentation on February 25. Another Oscar for the film, this one for best original song, was given to singer Melissa Etheridge for her climate-change warning song, "I Need to Wake Up."

In winning the Oscar, Gore urged the assembled Hollywood elite to act. "My fellow Americans" he said, "people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."

Though Gore's message got a warm reception at the Oscars, his efforts to save the planet have a "do as I say, not as I do" ring to them. An Inconvenient Truth urges viewers, especially at its conclusion, to adopt eco-friendly lifestyles as a way to head off climate change. But Gore himself has a far larger "carbon footprint" than the average American. According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, Gore's mansion in Nashville is an energy hog. The group, which studied the former vice president's electric and gas usage, reports that the mansion "consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year."

Apart from Gore's obvious hypocrisy, An Inconvenient Truth falls short in its examination of the known facts on climate change, preferring to dwell on lurid worst-case scenarios, such as warning that sea levels will rise by more than 20 feet as a result of melting in Greenland. How accurate is the science in An Inconvenient Truth? Find out in an exclusive TNA Online story at: www.jbs.org/node/2879.