Gore Is Still a Hypocrite

Last week, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research discovered that Al Gore’s estate in Tennessee consumed large amounts of energy in 2006—more than 20 times the national household average of that year. Last August, Gore used 22,619 kW h of electricity—more than twice the annual national average.

Gore responded by saying that his family uses “green power” by signing up through Green Power Switch and using energy-efficient technologies in their home, and that his family purchases “carbon offsets” to bring their “carbon footprint” very near to zero.

Even though the Gore family does all of this, they are still hypocrites. To understand why, we must first understand the concept of the carbon offset.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates certain pollution limits on producers, like factories, power plants, and so forth. Producers whose pollution exceeds these limits are fined and expected to comply with the limits. (The economic impact of that policy will not be discussed here; neither shall we here address the complete arbitrariness of these limits.) But some producers are able to keep their pollution considerably below the levels mandated by the EPA. Others who, for various reasons, cannot get their pollution levels beneath the EPA’s limits, can buy carbon offsets or carbon credits from these over-complying producers. These credits are essentially permission slips that allow the possessor to produce a certain amount of pollution over the mandated limits, on the assumption that somewhere else there is a producer that is coming in below the mandated pollution limit, so that the total pollution produced by the possessor of the credit and the seller of the credit is less than or equal to the sum of their allowed limits. Indeed, this is an elegant market-based distribution of resources.

So, Al Gore’s family purchases a number of carbon credits that “allow” his household to produce (directly or indirectly) pollution that is offset by some other entity that has kept its pollution levels some amount below the mandated limits.

Now we need to take a detour of sorts and discuss an apparently unrelated concept in philosophy, called the categorical imperative, and then we will return to environmental issues. The categorical imperative is the fundamental principle of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and it is best summed up as follows:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Or, in other words, the categorical imperative requires that any action one takes should be generalizable and universalizable to everyone.

There are many theories of ethics; why should we pay attention to the categorical imperative? Because Al Gore’s insistence, based on his notions of global warming and environmentalism in general, require that every human being take certain ameliorative actions. These actions invariably reduce to the reduction of consumption. Therefore, Gore’s actions with respect to environmental issues should be universalizable.

But are they? The purchase of carbon credits is essentially the purchase of the permission to pollute above the mandatory limits. But this requires that there be carbon credits to purchase in the first place, and that requires that there are at least some producers who come in below their mandated limits, so that others can remain above them. Gore’s behavior relies on the “good graces,” so to speak, of certain producers so that he can maintain his high consumption. But if everyone were to try to buy carbon credits from everyone else, there could be no carbon credits to purchase. Therefore, Gore’s actions cannot be universalized.

Who, then, is allowed to purchase carbon offsets, and who may not? Invariably, the wealthy will largely be able to do so, and the middle and lower classes will not. If this does not smack of elitism on Gore’s part, I don’t know what would. Gore claims to have “taken initiative in creating the Internet”; why won’t he take initiative to lead the way with “bold leadership” and renounce a lifestyle that Thorstein Veblen would have had a field day with? Why doesn’t he sell his Tennessee estate and move into a hovel made of rubber tires and glass bottles, powered entirely by solar energy? Why won’t he sell his cars and use electric ones, or bicycles? Why doesn’t he give up the home theater, the two ovens, and the other energy drains that his estate surely has? Could it be that he is a fraud and a demagogue?

Back in the 2000 election cycle, I once heard Gore on 20/20, I believe, or one of the news shows, describing his life and ambitions. He once attended Harvard Divinity School, but found it to be unfulfilling and not for him. Eventually, after working in journalism, he turned to politics and found his true calling. After the 2000 election, it would appear that the political avenue toward changing the world has failed. Now, it seems, he has turned to global climate change as a means to “make a difference,” by which is usually meant “to influence people.” But suppose I don’t want to be influenced?