TRUTH BITES

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU  CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.HOUSE # 1:
A 10,000-square-foot, 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) 
heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a 
separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this 
mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in 
an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs 
over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which is a fossil 
fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average 
for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern 
“snow belt” — it’s in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national 
university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current 
home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square 
feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American 
southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps 
drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The 
water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it 
in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural 
gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a 
conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is 
collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. 
Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground 
purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then 
irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native 
to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, 
Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and 
filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, 
Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private 
residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you 
WON’T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York 
Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it’s truly “an 
inconvenient truth.”

TRUTH BITES

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