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Great, the "eco-industrial complex" and "Big Green."

We thought the AGW Denialism Batshit Generator Engine was running at max power, but it was just warming up...

Yeah, like they invented this whole ad campaign which featured blowing up children in a classroom while their peers scream in terror. Oh wait, that was all us AGW realists. But we know we're morally superior because we bought carbon offsets, amiright? That's absolutely doing something, not just a scam that's a rewrite of the old Catholic practice of purchasing indulgences. Because AGW is definitely not a religion, and we're entirely justified in using the term AGW "deniers" to liken them to holocaust deniers, because we know they're all racists anyway.

The guy comments about environmental responsibility and you change the subject to $$?

Let me take a shot. A quick search says americans watch an average of 151 hours of TV/month: 1812 hrs/year, which is a penalty of (1812 hrTV/year * 0.177kWh/hrTV =~ ) 321 kWh / year.

A quick search says on average, 1kWh generated in america puts out 1.3lbs CO2.
So the average american would generate about (321KWh/year * 1.3lbsCO2/kWh =~) 417 lbs of CO2/year from using an Xbox 360 instead of an Apple TV.

By comparison, a gallon of gas has about 19.56 lbs of CO2 (citing same source).
So the average american's added CO2 from a year of Xbox-TV watching is equivalent to using about (417lbs CO2/yr / 19.56 lbsCo2/gallon =~) 21.3 gallons gas.

Upshot: Xbox vs. Apple TV is equivalent to about one tank of gas per year in extra CO2.

A 2007 study estimated that traffic congestion lead to a loss of 2.8 billion gallons of fuel = 182 kbarrels of oil per day - a large amount, to be sure, but remember that we still consume about 18.5 million barrels of oil per day in the US. Eliminating congestion would be helpful but not lead to quite the dramatic savings one might expect.

The six billion people on Earth are changing the biosphere so quickly that traditional ecological methods can't keep up.

The statement is an unwarranted assumption of allegations as fact, not corroborated by evidence of accepted facts.

They'll have you taxed to the gills, using 1,000 BTUs a month - While they dine on caviar, under the chandeliers!

When the most profitable corporation in the history of the world conducts an indoctrination campaign, which is trying to get you to "use less", something is rotten in Denmark. Wake up and smell the Matrix!

As a friend said about Carbon Cap and Trade Tax programmes in a post on another web-forum:

1) It's undecipherable,...tech-babble quants are essential to tax theft
2) It's pan-taxable,...everybody pays, even if it bears down 'regressively'
3) It's got no sunset clause,...we will always be carbon positive

http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/our_projects/category/Project%20Selection/

Carbon Offset Project Selection

Carbonfund.org is also involved in the growing carbon standard industry, working with the Center for Resource Solutions; Environmental Resources Trust; Chicago Climate Exchange; and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, each of which has or is developing its own carbon offset standards.

Check out our verification page for more information on establishing the carbon standards, and how Carbon Cap & Trade will tax Americans back to the Stone Age.

How about a carbon-free program to return our taxes and make Carbon Cap & Trade(TM)
a Pay As You Go(TM) by the industries which generate the carbon, not the consumers?
Because the producers will be wholesale tax-exempt, and that's the whole gimmick.

If you thought what could be done with Mortgage debt was a confusing mess, wait 'til they get you on carbon - the fundamental element for life, and the reason there is the term "organic" in the first place.

Consider two options: you spend about $7000 for a solar panel system putting out 2.1 kilowatt hours per day. Alternatively, you leave the money in the bank and use the interest to buy offsets. At, say, 5% interest, you can offset 63 tonnes annually. The solar panel system would offset well under a tonne.

I might be willing to buy the bit about recycling paper being bad for the environment with some evidence to back it up, but there are a couple of points you made that are invalid or misleading.

1. Gore was never "in power". Bill Clinton was President and he took more input from his wife than from Gore. You could criticize Gore for not asserting himself more, but very few VPs before Cheney have, that I am aware of (I'm young, Dan Quayle's my major point of reference here).

2. As far as the private jet goes, my understanding is that Gore calculates his entire carbon footprint (home, cars, jets, etc) and purchases offsets in renewable energy from sites like www.carbonfund.org to make his effective footprint zero. How much faith you have in carbon footprint calculations or the effectiveness of purchased offsets is another matter, but you can't call Gore a hypocrite if he believes in both of these things. Another way to look at it is that, if his efforts, wasteful as they may be, result in lots of people collectively reducing their CO2 output by more than Gore is expending, then it will be worthwhile. Either way, you can't seriously expect him to bike across the country or row across the sea to promote his movie.