The Economist on Gore’s response to his massive monthly energy bill critics.
The electricity usage is what Mr Gore consumes after things like solar panels and CFLs are taken into account; it’s hardly comforting that he could be emitting even more carbon, since that is true of almost all of us, yet has not stopped Mr Gore from hectoring us to reduce our carbon output still further.
On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest. Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power.
Not So Fast 