Me and Al Gore Totally Have So Much in Common

I rushed to pay a ConEd bill this morning before the bastards decided to stop by and turn my electricity off. They send me weekly shut-off bills, threatening to leave me in the dark. You can tell the difference between these and a regular bill because they have a thick red line across them with the crimson warning, "Important: Dated Notification."
It's not that I don't want to pay; it would be easy if the bill were $25 or $50 or even $100. I live in a small studio apartment. I barely cook, I often turn the heat off, and it's not as if the TV were on all day. So I can't figure out why, today, when I called to pay my bill, my previous balance of $477 is now more than $600. In a matter of two weeks. For a studio apartment.
But I felt not so alone when I read that none other than the Goracle is having trouble keeping his bills down, too. Al Gore, who was the belle of the ball at this year's Oscars and basked in the light of environmental do-goodery, is being criticized by a small research group who discovered that his Nashville home's energy consumption was twenty times the national average.
Well, he's rich. He has a large house. He's a busy guy. It kind of makes sense that his consumption would be greater than the average American's. Just because he got all Ed Begley Jr. on our asses doesn't mean we should expect him to sit around in the dark. Besides, a member of Gore's team explained:

All the energy used for the Nashville home came from a green power provider to the Tennessee Valley that draws its energy from solar, wind-powered and methane gas supplies, among other sources. The Gores were installing solar panels on the roof of their home, Ms. Kreider added, and making efforts to reduce their energy needs. Besides, Mr. Gore had adopted a "carbon neutral" life whereby any emissions for which he was personally responsible were offset by buying green credits such as parcels of forests.

Yes, he's clearly a hypocrite. A solar-loving, panel-installing, wind-powered hypocrite.

An Inconvenient Truth: Eco-Warrior Al Gore's Bloated Gas and Electricity Bills