Al Gore told a Senate committee last week that we're facing a planetary crisis because we're putting too much carbon into the atmosphere. Sen. James Inhofe responded by inviting Gore to pledge to use no more energy than the average American.

It's been reported the Gore family mansion uses more electricity in a month than the typical American family uses in a year. Furthermore, Gore often flies in a private jet, which any serious environmentalist must concede is one of the most inefficient uses of energy imaginable.

Gore refused Inhofe's invitation, and pointed out that he and his wife live what he calls a "carbon-neutral" lifestyle, by "purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere."

That Inhofe is an aggressively ignorant demagogue (he claims global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people") who was trying to embarrass Gore with a cheap publicity stunt shouldn't obscure the fact that the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma has a point.

Gore's response is, in a word, lame. If humanity faces a genuine crisis because we're emitting too much carbon, this is largely because people in developed economies use enormous amounts of energy (the average American uses 18 times as much energy as the average Indian).

And if the average American's energy use is extraordinarily high by cross-cultural standards, rich Americans live a lifestyle that is off the charts in terms of environmentally destructive self-indulgence. Buying "carbon offsets," as Gore does, is equivalent to paying a poor kid to take your place in the military when your nation faces a troop shortage in time of war.

Speaking of which, the parallels between Inhofe's criticism of Gore and the "chicken hawk" argument made by opponents of the Iraq war are striking. Consider the hypothetical case of an Iraq war supporter who we'll call "Jonah." Jonah posts lots of things on the Internet in which he argues that the Iraq war is the central front in the war on terror, and that the war on terror is a fight for America's survival.

When critics point out that our military has had to lower admission standards in order to meet recruiting quotas, and that Jonah himself is a healthy man of military age, Jonah replies that he's contributing to the global war on terror in his own fashion, by posting pro-war arguments on the Internet, attaching a yellow ribbon magnet to his car, and so forth.

This response is just as lame as Gore's, and in exactly the same way. If you claim we're facing a huge crisis that requires great personal sacrifice on everyone's part, but refuse to make any real sacrifice yourself, then your attempts to obscure the latter fact through empty symbolic gestures deserve to be mocked.

It's obvious what Al and Jonah should each do, given their respective beliefs: Al should radically simplify his lifestyle, and Jonah should join the military.

Yet each of them could also do something that would, in its own way, be almost as impressive: simply confess his hypocrisy and weakness, and implore others to behave differently.

Imagine if Gore were to say, "Yes, I live in a deeply self-indulgent, utterly wasteful fashion. People like me are a very big part of the problem. I'd like to change, but I'm weak. For the sake of our planet, you need to be a stronger person than I've been."

Imagine if Jonah were to say, "Yes, I'm a hypocritical coward, who values his own skin more than America's survival. And our nation won't survive if it's made up of people like me. For everyone's sake, you need to be more courageous than I've been."

Now those would be inconvenient truths.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.