In response to a Drudge Report item about Al Gore’s energy usage, Gore’s office noted that he often purchases carbon offsets, and he requested that the public do the same:

What Mr. Gore has asked is that every family calculate their carbon footprint and try to reduce it as much as possible. Once they have done so, he then advocates that they purchase offsets, as the Gore’s do, to bring their footprint down to zero.

So let’s just be clear here. What Gore is saying that 1) people should restrict their energy usage and 2) pay significantly more for the energy they do use. In other words, he thinks you should use far less energy and that it should cost you far more for what you do use. To be totally blunt: He wants your energy use to be expensive and rare.

This is, incidentally, exactly what climate policy skeptics say will happen if we end up with emissions caps. Yet Gore and many of his ilk consistently make light of the matter, often refusing to acknowledge that the policies they favor would have any significant impacts on our day to day lives. And yet Gore’s own statement acknowledges it: He wants to restrict people’s energy use and drive up energy prices. That may be fine for folks on a budget the size of Gore’s, but somehow I suspect that most of America prefers, contra Gore, to be able to use more energy and use it more cheaply.