Footnote: A Tale of Two Houses
House #1: Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house
incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house has 4 bedrooms
and is nestled on a high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet holds geothermal heat-
pumps circulating water through pipes sunk 300 feet deep. The water (usually 67 degrees F) heats the
house in the winter and cools it in the summer. The system uses one-quarter of the electricity used by a
conventional system. Rainwater is collected in a 25,000-gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from
showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks, then into the cistern, from which the
garden is irrigated.
House #2: A 20-room mansion with 8 bathrooms, a pool and poolhouse, and a separate guest house, all
heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American
household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs to over $2,400. In natural
gas alone, this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.
This house is not in the Northern or Midwestern snow-belt. It's in the South.
House #1, near Crawford, Texas, belongs to President George Bush. House #2, near Nashville,
Tennessee, belongs to Gore.
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