Al Gore and Green Home Choices
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has been a long time proponent of green living. He supports everyone’s efforts to become more environmentally friendly, and lives by example. From his home to this speeches, Al Gore focuses the majority of his energies on leading others to greener pastures. Here are some of the things that Al Gore has done to make his own home more environmentally friendly, or green.
Gore has installed solar panels on the roof his families home. This will let the Gores collect sunlight and make their own energy; thus powering their home with natural resources as opposed to man made electrical funds. This should make significant inroads into cutting the amount of electricity that they use from other sources. This is something that everyone can do. Solar panels help the environment and save money on electricity when installed in a home and maintained for a minimum of 5 to 10 years.
Al Gore and his family have also changed their lighting to become more energy efficient by using compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL). These bulbs last up to 10 times longer than standard light bulbs and best of all, they use less than half of the energy than a standard bulb requires.
The Gore’s have also upgraded their windows. Every citizen can save money, and benefit the environment, by installing windows that retain heat in the winter and help keep their home cool in the summer.
Their home in Nashville, Tennessee also has a pool. To make their pool more energy efficient, they have installed a geothermal system. This system takes heat from the ground and transfers it to the pool, thus keeping the pool water at the same temperature all of the time without using more energy and a pool heating system to accomplish the same task.
Al Gore is clearly one of the most influential, environmentally sound advocate of our day. By following the examples of both Al Gore and his family, we all can live a little greener.
Ed Norton Green Living
There are times in a celebrities life that the glitz and the glamour offer less and less comfort. It is during these times that the celebrities return to their roots and try to make life better for those that are less fortunate than themselves. Celebrity actor, Ed Norton, has done just that with a company his grandfather started.
As the trustee of Enterprise Foundation, the nations number one non-profit builder of low income housing, Ed Norton has found his roots in charity work. The key to this organization is offering reliable housing for the less fortunate. This housing, unlike the low income housing of the past, is built with renewable energy and the Earth in mind.
Unlike the home and car choices of celebrities like Ed Norton, American’s who are forced into low income housing do not have a choice of green and eco-friendly housing plans. There has never before been a government subsidized home building project that even took living life cheaper and more Earth friendly into consideration. While celebrities like Ed Norton have the option to drive renewable energy cars and build homes with solar panels and other sources of renewable energy, low income families do not have these home choices.
The result of building low income housing with renewable energy in mind, is home maintenance and utility costs that are three times lower than other low income housing choices. Ed Norton has solar panels for his home and he believes that low income families should have that same choice.
For celebrities like Ed Norton, the idea of charity often refers to giving money to some organization and then dropping off the map. But, with a trustee position on a ground breaking company like Enterprise Foundation, Ed Norton is upping the stakes and saving lower income families some money in the process.