Please help me confirm/deny this

[WillParkinson]

I'm part of a message group in Bay View. The following message was posted there a few minutes ago and I want to rebut it if necessary or find out if it's true. DU'ers are usually up on these things and I'd appreciate it if you'd fill in some gaps for me.

----

President Bush's Crawford TX Home is Model of Environmentally Friendly
Living

February 27, 2007

Marc Morano - February 27, 2007

Former Vice President Al Gore has been criticized for his rather large
electric bills ($30,000 a year) at his home in Tennessee.

http://tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

What you might not have heard about is how environmentally friendly
President George Bush's home is in Crawford Texas. Below is a partial
reprint from the Chicago Tribune from April 29, 2001.

Chicago Tribune

Bush loves ecology --at home

April 29, 2001

By Rob Sullivan. Rob Sullivan is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water
through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature
is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and
cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly"
dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and
cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from
roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into
underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The
water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding
the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie
area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak
trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of
his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat
of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven
where tree-huggers plot political strategy.

This is President George W. Bush's "Texas White House" outside the
small town of Crawford

eco-friendly.]

According to David Heymann, the house's architect and associate dean
of the University of Texas architecture department, Heymann designed
the house so that "every room has a relationship with something in the
landscape that's different from the room next door. Each of the rooms
feels like a slightly different place."

In a USA Today interview, Heymann said, "There's a great grove of oak
trees to the west that protects it from the late afternoon sun. Then
there is a view out to the north looking at hills, and to the east out
over a lake, and the view to the south . . . out to beautiful hills."

green way of life.]





And John Edward's 28,000 + square foot home:
http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848

[Buck Laser]

1. The part about Bush's home may be true, but...

I have real doubts about the veracity of the stories about the Gore and Edwards homes. I have read, however, about some of the environmentally friendly things about the Crawford home. It would be even better for everyone if he were confined there.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. The local power company says they never gave out Gore's info.

And that tennesseepolicy.org is a rightwing propaganda outfit.

[Buzz Clik]

3. It's a very eco friendly, energy efficient home.

Don't know about the rest of the happy crap described.

[Bitwit1234]

4. He doesn't need a heating element

His and Laura's hot air would run everything.

[babylonsister]

5. An older article:

"Off the grid," for our curious readers, is not a reference to pancake cookery but rather a jargon-ish term used by energy wonks to indicate the ultimate in enviro chic: a building that generates its own electricity using onsite energy sources, and thus does not need to be connected to a regional power source -- i.e., the grid. More generally, "off the grid" refers to a home that doesn't rely on regional services for other basic life necessities either: water supply, waste disposal, etc. It's good to differentiate this ultra-cool, eco-friendly type of "off the grid" from the involuntary, poverty-induced type of "off the grid."

A divinely hip eco-home would liberate itself from the grid using a combination of, say, solar power systems, efficient wood-burning stoves, water cisterns and wells, wastewater recycling, composting, and other sensible technologies.

Is Bush's Crawford ranch off the grid? No.

To use cheesy magazine speak, the ranch was designed "in harmony with the landscape." To reduce heating and cooling needs, prevailing winds and temperatures were taken into account in situating the building. The house also uses two lesser-known environmentally friendly technologies: geothermal heating and wastewater recycling.

Inside a closet at Bush's special vacation compound, a collection of pipes is thrust deep into the earth, down where the sun don't shine and the temperature is perpetually 67 degrees. Water circulates through this zone and then back up into house pipes to heat or cool the building. The system uses less electricity than conventional heating and cooling installations, but that electricity does come from the Crawford electric grid. The ranch also has a well and recycles its water. Water that flows out a tub drain is known as "gray water"; water from the toilet is "black water." Our fearless leader's holiday home recycles both types via subterranean filtration tanks and uses the resultant cleaner water in the garden.

All in all, the house sounds pretty nice. (For a rich person's vacation home, it's kinda small, and it sure is quiet and remote.) Still, off-grid or not, it's an utter mystery: How can this man, whose administration has gutted environmental protection as though it were a trout, care enough to recycle toilet water in his home? Who knows -- but let's hope that when Bush arrives at his little Texas paradise in January of 2005, it won't be for a vacation, but with a moving van.

Homily,
Umbra

http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2003/10/15/umbra-ranch/