Home Architecture Talk

Can you guess which of these two house belong to the environmentalist?

HOUSE # 1: A 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 last time we checked was 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,” either. 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 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on an 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.

Public Comments

1. Uh... house # 1?
2. Having seen this exact same article posted multiple times, I think I can safely say yes, I can guess quite easily. A better question might be "why must I care which house belongs to Al Gore?" What he does or does not do has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the science behind AGW theory, and I therefore consider both him and his opinion on the subject irrelevant.
3. haha that is hilarious!!
4. No matter how many times you shoot the messenger ,the message still remains true. Attack the message, if that's your goal.
5. Neither.
6. there is no such thing as global warming
7. Too bad Bush cut the tax deductions for changing over to solar and wind power, then maybe we could all afford to be "green".
8. Gore is house #1, claims to be the environmentalist, and he is not. Bush is house #2, the real environmentalist. . Does not take a rocket scientist to see who is the real environmentalist.
9. Do as I say not as I do. It is the liberal way.
10. I think the point is that we are all supposed to live our lives a certain way when the messenger doesn't even believe in his message enough to drastically change his life. Kind of like Rush Limbaugh or Jimmy Swaggart (who the left never character assassinate, right?) I'm neither lefty nor righty (get rid of em all) but if I really thought driving my car and living in my 20 room mansion was going to kill the planet I'd find a way to live more frugally. But that's what the poor and middle class are for, right? There's plenty of ad homonym attacks to go around, but this one rings especially true.
11. The owner of house #1 CLAIMS to be an environmentalist. The owner of house #2 IS an environmentalist.