There was a lot of talk this week about Al Gore’s utility bill. When a right wing smear machine released a statement that Gore’s utility bill was $30,000 last year, the typical vultures jumped on it. Their support of the claims was nothing more than a picture:

This picture was spread around the right wing blogs as “exposing Gore”. The only problem is that it did nothing to explain Gore’s bill. It was simply given a caption “Every family has a different carbon footprint”. That is very true. They failed to mention that Gore and his wife run their offices out of their home, plus have the security that accompanies a former vice-President at their home. These add up to the bill, but the most damming part for the smear machine comes from the TVA, Gore’s energy supplier. The TVA released a statement regarding the claims and said that the Gores do get their energy from renewable resources and they pay almost double for that. The TVA also said that Gore’s actual energy usage is less than a lot of smaller homes. Keith Olbermann gave a run down of this statement, and you can view it here.

But this smear attack against the world’s most famous global warming warrior is not stopping other countries from taking action. Last month Australia announced that all incandescent light bulbs will be banned in their country within 3 years. Now the European Union is following suit:

The world’s three largest light bulb makers said Thursday they will push European consumers to switch to energy-saving bulbs in a bid to cut carbon dioxide emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming.

The statement by the European Lamp Companies Federation, whose members include General Electric, Siemens and Royal Philips Electronics, did not give a concrete time frame or target. (GE is the parent of NBC/Universal, which is a partner in MSNBC.com.)

So what will the EU gain by this move? It looks like they will gain a lot:

They estimated that if all inefficient traditional incandescent bulbs sold in Europe were to be replaced with more efficient bulbs — such as compact fluorescent lamps or CFLs — the continent would need 27 fewer power plants.

I wonder how long before America can follow suit? I would love to see this happen here, but I got a funny feeling it won’t be anytime soon. We have the right wing idiots out there, like the ones going after Al Gore, that don’t think about the ramifications of their ignorance. These are the people who try to say that the climate is following it’s normal cyclical pattern. Now how do these people justify that claim when they are the same people who argue the world is only 5,000 years old? It makes no sense. They just want to oppose this issue because it seems like some “liberal” cause.

Saving the planet is not an issue of partisanship. The fact that last year we had no major hurricanes does not void the entire global warming argument. We are still seeing more massive storms, with more frequency (ahem – just yesterday). Every single life on this planet depends upon this very serious issue. An action as minor as the one taken in Australia and the EU can highly benefit the planet. What happened to America being the leader? We should have already adopted this policy.

Hopefully Gore’s presentation to Congress this month will spark some legislative action. We need more than just the Democrats to take action; the Republicans need to be involved also. We need to pass legislation with enough votes to get passed any Bush Veto. It is time to start calling you members of Congress and pushing them on legislation – something similar to what is being done in the EU and Australia. You can find your Representative here and your Senator here. Take a few minutes to contact them – your life and the lives of your children/grandchildren could actually depend on this!