Two Houses

*********UPDATE - June 17, 2008 - Mr. Gore wants you to know he's made some improvements to his home. So what's happened to his energy usage? Read Dusty's post at the Castle.************
I got this in an email from SB and I'm sure it's elsewhere in the blogosphere, but it amused me and I'm putting it up anyway.
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 guesthouse 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 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 67degrees 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% ofthe 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 ofthe President of the United States, George W. Bush. ******************
The email ends by pointing out:
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."

NO KIDDING!
*****************
Here is the Snopes link
Here is a link to a Boston Globe article on Gore's energy use.
Here is a link to an ABC news story on Gore's electric bill.
This is a link to the architect that designed Bush's house, David Heymann.
This is a link to an article about "The Western White House" by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin. H/T Basil's Blog