by GOPMOM

Created on: March 01, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

I am a conservative and an environmentalist!

Well, not in the radical sense of the word. I'm just your everyday energy saving, garbage recycling, reusable shopping bag toting, organic gardening & composting, farmer's market cruising, organic food eating environmentalist. I drive an SUV, so they won't officially let me join the club. But since my monthly electric bill averages $104, gas $14 and heating oil $250, I do beat Al Gore in the ratings. Who da' thunk it?

Not since my daze as a pseudo-liberal in college, who collected trash in the local parks on weekends, have I felt so self-satisfied. You see, I'm just like everyone else in that I love to watch when the high and mighty fall.

What? You mean Al Gore is still your hero, simply because he can read from a teleprompter and he has a coveted golden statuette. (BTW, he didn't actually win he wasn't a producer of the film, he was an actor in it.) But he has come to represent the Global Warming movement, apparently because most of the American public is still able to recognize his face when they see it on TV. Poor Ed Begley, Jr. If only he had run for President, he could be the poster celebrity.

Anyway, we have all by now seen the reports regarding utility usage at the Gore's Nashville mansion. It is this double-standard that makes the whole movement so ridiculous. Gore attempts to excuse himself by reporting that he purchases "green energy" and "energy credits", to offset his home's "carbon footprint". Now, I sort of understand what all that scientific double speak means, but does everybody? And what average citizen can afford to purchase energy credits on top of paying their heating bills?

I can't, which is why I just turn the heat down and wear a sweater. But because I happen to be a registered Republican, I cannot call myself an environmentalist. And I don't. I call myself a cash conservationist. You see, it's all in the motivation and the message. If you just quietly live an environmentally responsible life and don't expect everyone else to follow along, you're average. If you live this way because it happens to be cheaper, healthier and better tasting, you are selfish. But, if you drop your Fiji water bottle in a recycling bin in front of a few AP reporters, are chauffeured to an internationally broadcast awards show in a Prius and then publicly decry the government-sponsored, Corporate America collective rape of the planet, you are an environmentalist. Food for thought.

This is why I'm a little bit afraid of Al Gore. He's a bit like Nancy Pelosi. All that power and hypocrisy, wrapped up in a neat, photogenic package. But there is no substance. And no apology for not following the rules he seems so intent on making the rest of us adhere to.

For those leftist liberals out there who just might be wondering, I don't believe the hype. I will concede the industrialization of the west contributes to the overall warming of the planet. I will not concede that this is the only reason. I will not concede that the ultimate destruction of the planet is at hand.

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