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A 2007 report from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), claiming that Al Gore's Tennessee home uses over 20 times more energy than the average U.S. home, was released the day after the former vice-president's film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary: The specific numbers involved were disputable (the TCPR claimed Gore's home used electricity at a rate more than 20 times the national average, while the Associated Press reported that their own review of bills indicated that the Gores' Nashville household used more than 12 times the average for a typical household in that area), but the basic gist of the claim — that the Gores' Nashville residence consumed a larger proportion of energy than the average American home — was true. Some important points not covered in the report, however, included whether equating the Gores' home to the average American home was really a relevant comparison. A spokesperson for the Gore family responded by noting some mitigating factors, such as the fact that the Gores' Nashville residence isn't an average house: it's about four times larger than the average new American home built in 2006, and it essentially functions as both a residence and a business office since both Al and Tipper work out of their home. The Tennessean also noted that the Gores had been paying a $432 per month premium on their monthly electricity bills in order to obtain some of their electricity from green sources (i.e., solar or other renewable energy sources). Other factors (such as the climate in the area where the home is located and its size) made the Gore home's energy usage comparable to that of other homes in the same area. The former vice-president maintained that comparing raw energy-usage figures was misleading and that he leads what he advocates, a carbon-neutral lifestyle, by purchasing energy from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and methane gas to balance out the carbon emissions produced in generating the electricity his home used: Also, by the end of 2007 the Gores had completed renovations that made their home much more energy-efficient: Nearly identical claims were published in August 2017 — after the release of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, Gore's follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2006 documentary — this time under the misleading headline Al Gore’s Home Devours 34 Times More Electricity Than Average U.S. Household. Drew Johnson, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, wrote the August 2017 piece. (Johnson appears to have been behind the 2007 claims about Gore's energy use as well.) In that article, he cited his own report for National Center for Public Policy Research (without making it clear that he authored the report), in which he found that Gore’s electricity bill for September 2016 was 34 times more than the national average. However, Johnson, as well as other sources that replicated his claims — including the National Center for Public Policy Research’s own press release — implied in the headlines or bodies of their articles that Gore’s home consistently devoured 34 times more energy than the average home, which was not the case: that figure was based on estimates for a single month during the previous year, and that single month was August, a time of the year when energy usage typically spikes due high mid-summer temperatures. When we asked about the discrepancy in the headline of his article (Al Gore’s Home Devours 34 Times More Electricity Than Average U.S. Household), Johnson told us (emphasis ours): (We have reached out to Nashville Electric Service and Al Gore’s media team to confirm the numbers but have yet to receive a response.) If one were to compare electricity consumption in Al Gore's home in April (the month of lowest usage) to the national average, the multiplier drops from 34 to 10. Of course, comparing any single month to an annual average is problematic, as monthly electric use fluctuates throughout the year (and also in response to local conditions, such as weather and climate patterns).
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