Did anyone see Al Gore on the Today Show this morning?  You can watch the video by clicking the video link on this webpage.  They were calling him the "Environmental Evangelist" and Today Show host Lisa Wilkinson looked like she had just witnessed Jesus in the flesh.  I was left wondering if she was expecting him to give her a blessing on her head before he left. 

Karl Stefanovic wasn’t as worshipful of Gore and actually asked him one tough question.  He did let Gore ramble about a lot of things and wouldn’t challenge him further on, but at least he asked one tough question which is something very few people do to Gore.  What he challenged Gore on was the reports that he was a hypocrite do to his home that was an energy hog.  Of course Gore denied it and blamed global warming denying groups for the report.  No it was not any global warming denying special interest groups but the USA Today newspaper that reported Gore’s energy consumption:

For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film’s distributor, pays this.)

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore’s office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.  [USA Today]

Than ABC News reported on Gore’s $30,000 electrical bills:

Armed with Gore’s utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president’s 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn’t care," says the Center’s 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he’s not following his own rules."

Scoffed a former Gore adviser in response: "I think what you’re seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics. They’ve completely lost the debate on the issue so now they’re just attacking their most effective opponent."

Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for the Gores, did not dispute the Center’s figures, taken as they were from public records. [ABC News]

Karl didn’t challenge him on this and let Gore off the hook by allowing him to claim he was attacked by global warming deniers and has since installed solar panels.  During the rest of the interview Gore went on about the typical global warming religion talking points especially the newest one that the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate.  I would have loved someone to ask him why Antarctica has the highest amount of ice levels in recorded history?  Better yet I would love someone to ask him to explain why now the United States has been cooling since 1998?  These are just a few of the many questions such as these I would love someone to ask him.  However, everyone is scared to because any debate about global warming is considered blasphemy. 

So what is Gore doing in Australia you may ask?  Well looking for more disciples to spread his faith:

"Colonial First State has signed an exclusive retail distribution agreement with long term and sustainable investment specialists Generation Investment Management," he says.

"While I’m in Melbourne I will be contributing to a training program that will train 170 new climate change campaigners, through the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Climate Project," he says.

"Anyone can be a climate change ambassador/campaigner,’ he says.

Television gardening guru Jamie Durie will be in the training program to become a climate change ambassador. He will spend three days this month learning from Mr Gore in Australia about how to spread the message to curb global warming. [NineMSN]

And like any good television evangelist he is also looking to make a lot of money as well:

AL GORE has a story he wants to tell the world. But it will cost you a thousand dollars to hear it.

In a passionate attack on the climate policies of Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush, the former US vice-president, addressing a very expensive lunch in Sydney yesterday, called Australia and the US "the Bonnie and Clyde" outlaws of the global environment for their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Mr Gore called on Australia to change course on Kyoto and its climate policies, saying if it did "it would be impossible for the United States to withstand the pressure" to join the rest of the world in ratifying Kyoto.

Labor under Kevin Rudd has promised to ratify the protocol while Mr Howard is adamantly opposed to it and is backing Mr Bush’s efforts to find a "post-Kyoto accord".

Mr Gore made his comments after reporters were asked to leave the lunch venue. Despite the cost, lunch in the 700-seat room at the Sydney Convention Centre was a sell-out, as is tomorrow’s event in Melbourne. VIP packages, which included a spot close to Mr Gore and a meet-and-greet with him, cost $25,000. [The Age]

With the prices Gore is charging he easily made a million bucks tonight in Melbourne and you add that to whatever he made in Sydney the before and you can say the "Environmental Evangelist" is actually quite a good "Environmental Capitalist".  If this dinner was supposed to be about global warming than why were all these people in an auditorium using up all the energy in there?  Why wasn’t this dinner held in one of the outdoor amphitheaters in Melbourne?  That would have saved energy and made a physical example of how committed they are to saving energy.  However, that would have made the dinner inconvenient for them.  The burden of cutting back on energy is not for the rich at this dinner tonight, but for the regular folks who can’t afford a $1,000 dinner to listen to Al Gore and are reading this instead. 

One of my favorite Gore and rich people in general excuses for their energy consumption and private jet plane rides is that they buy carbon offsets and thus live a carbon neutral life.  This reminds me of when the old Catholic Church used to allow the rich to pay the church large amounts of money to forgive their sins.  However, it just so happens that Al Gore is the president of his own carbon trading company that he stands to make millions from. 

So once again I ask the question, is Al Gore an "Environmental Evangelist" or an "Environmental Capitalist"?