An Inconvenient Truth: A Tale of Two Houses

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 this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a  year.  The average bill for electricity and natural gas  runs over $2,400.  In natural gas alone, this property consumes  more  than 20 times the national average for an American home.  This house is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. 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 is 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and  is nestled on a 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 the winter and cools it in the summer.  The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas and it consumes one-quarter 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.  Surrounding flowers and shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the  surrounding rural landscape.  

HOUSE #1 is outside of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of 
the "environmentalist," Al Gore.   

HOUSE #2 is on  a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.   

An "inconvenient truth."