Gore faces up to inconvenient truth over his electricity bill

Al Gore - Oscar winner and the world's best-known anti-global warming warrior - has been accused of not living up to his lofty standards when it comes to his own opulent mansion in his home state, Tennessee.

According to the right-wing Tennessee Centrer for Policy Research, the former vice-president "deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy". Mr Gore's 20-room mansion in Nashville, it says, consumes more electricity in a month than the average American household in a whole year.

The attack comes amid fevered speculation about a possible Gore run for the White House next year, with even former President Jimmy Carter urging him to enter the race. As his supporters argue, Mr Gore has been emphatically "on the right side" of the two biggest issues of the day in the US, the war in Iraq and the climate change crisis. But his personal domestic environmental record leaves much to be desired, TCPR claims.

In his award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the Mr Gore calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home, it notes. But while the average US household consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy, the Gore home used nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20 times the national average.

Since the film's release, his home's energy consumption has increased from about 16,200 kWh per month in 2005 to 18,400 kWh per month last year.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk," Drew Johnson, the Centre's president, declared. Mr Gore paid almost $30,000 (£15,300) for gas and electricity at his Nashville home last year.