Al Gore should take his own Academy Award-winning advice and turn off the lights when he… Al Gore should take his own Academy Award-winning advice and turn off the lights when he leaves his 20-room Nashville, Tenn., home. Apparently, the global-minded activist has been racking up some seriously high utility bills over the past year.

According to an article from the BBC, a free market think-tank based in Tennessee said that Gore’s house uses 20 times more energy than the national average of 10,656 kWh in 2006. Clocking in at nearly 221,000 kWh, the Gore house features a heated pool, an electric gate and natural-gas lanterns. And this guy is crisscrossing the country, telling us that we need to investigate ways to cut down our energy use? You try it first, Mr. Gore, and then maybe we’ll give it a shot.

So why isn’t Gore heeding the warning of his award-winning argument? The Gores aren’t denying the think-tank’s findings, but they did say that they work from home a lot, which accounts for some of their huge consumption. Does it account for the fact that their consumption is 20 times the national average? They had better be coming up with a really good solution to global warming in their home office – or making one hell of a low-emissions DustBuster or pollution-fighting robot.

A spokeswoman for the family also said that the Gores have been getting their energy from a local company that utilizes renewable resources like solar and wind power, rather than fossil fuels. She also indicated that the Gores were installing low-energy light bulbs and solar panels to further reduce consumption.

Although Gore does have a house that is larger than average, his consumption is not proportionately more. His argument that he and his wife work at home doesn’t hold up much either – many people leave their computers on 24 hours a day.

We also have to question the timing of this news. It seems all too convenient for political adversaries that this information was released when it was. That doesn’t change the fact that Gore is a hypocrite and that he needs to set a sterling example for the rest of the country if he wants them to listen to his message. The changes we need to make in our lives to reverse the effects of global warming aren’t easy, but they are absolutely necessary for the health of our planet.

Whether or not Gore is listening to his own advice, the message of “An Inconvenient Truth” is valid, and we need to concentrate on utilizing renewable resources and finding alternatives to fossil fuels. Someone once said that ending global warming begins at home. Wait – that was Gore.