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Huge Variation Between US Cities' Carbon Footprints »

Posted by: Neophile 3 months, 1 week ago

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The Brookings Institute has released a new 80-page report detailing the carbon footprints of the residents of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

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Comments So Far: 42

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Charlson3 months, 1 week ago

I'm from Georgia and I'm really surprised how well my state stacks up to others. Atlanta and Augusta which are the two largest cities are ranked 67 and 75 respectively. Not the worst but not great.
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  simonsez3 months, 1 week ago
  
  I'm in Georgia, also, and we have a few things going for us including vegetation to absorb.
  Also, the widening of 400 has made a significant difference in reducing traffic congestion on the north side (our biggest problem).
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    libsRfunny3 months, 1 week ago
    
    Ohhh .. don't worry. Al Gore will forgive you if you buy "carbon offsets" from his private business.
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    - HanymanComment removed: User banned.5 Replies
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        simonsez3 months, 1 week ago
        
        Only if it rewards Al Gore ...
        
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        injest3 months, 1 week ago
        
        "you gotta problem with capitalism?"
        Nope! Just Snake oil salesmen
        
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        Charlson3 months, 1 week ago
        
        You gotta problem with snake oil?
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        slate3 months, 1 week ago
        
        Capitalism usually denotes the sale of a product, not just payola without any net change as far as cleaner air. A 'credit' changes not on molecule of air, it's just paying a fine (to Al's company) to be allowed to pollute just as they were doing.
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        Jaydee403 months, 1 week ago
        
        "you gotta problem with capitalism?"
        I do, it is the prime supporter or even the driving force behind the use it then toss it life style we now have. What we need is a hybrid of a socialist and capitalist society with the good of all it's prime concern.
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      GLee3 months, 1 week ago
      
      Wander what kind of 'footprint' Al's 'compound' leaves??
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Natalie11833 months, 1 week ago

I think mass transportation plays a role in a city's carbon footprint. Does Lexington Kentucky have a subway? In cities like New York, most people live in apartments. You need less energy to heat and cool a smaller space.
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  johnnyt3 months, 1 week ago
  
  i live in louisville and have lived in lexington. neither have public transportation worth anything. they have bus systems but they are undermanned and antiquated. lexington is geograpically about the same size of NY but only about 1/10 the population. 98% drive to work, and most have a drive of 30 min or more. being a relatively newer "metro" they really started developing after the independence of the automobile so why have public transportation. bad thinking now, but hind sight is 20/20. i would love to have an light rail transportation system. i would definately use it, but the current bus system only has lines running every 30 min or so and takes about 3 times as long and that doesnt even take into account the extra walking time (not that walking is not good for me)
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    crghss3 months, 1 week ago
    
    This whole article is bull. Number one did it take into account whether mass transit buses used Propane or diesel? Did they look how much Taxi's make up the mass transit system? And last but not least just because energy is produced in a certain region doesn't mean it's consumed there.
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      Jaydee403 months, 1 week ago
      
      Those are valid facts that make a big difference, good points.
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  quackpot3 months, 1 week ago
  
  Ironically, it was a New Yorker, Robert Moses, who really got the car moving as a preferred means of transportation. He as a major urban developer who greatly favored highway construction (he called them "parkways") over mass transit construction.
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mackiemesser3 months, 1 week ago

Honolulu is the 'greenest' city. Doesn't surprise me.
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antibrainwasher3 months, 1 week ago

Wikipedia:
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.[1] One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development.[2] Their stated mission is to "provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans and; secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system."[1] Brookings states that its scholars "represent diverse points of view" and describes itself as non-partisan.

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  antibrainwasher3 months, 1 week ago
  
  Along with the more conservative American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation, Brookings is generally considered one of the three most influential policy institutes in the U.S.[14]
  
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    libsRfunny3 months, 1 week ago
    
    What?? No Iraeli tribal affiliations comments?
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    memestryker3 months, 1 week ago
    
    Interesting (if it's true), since Brookings is the only one that's truly mainstream and attempts to limit bias in its research. Both the AEI and Heritage are right-wing organizations that make no apology for their bias, since they "value" beliefs that conflict with facts.
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    miklkit3 months, 1 week ago
    
    That's a fact. That IS a fact.
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jumpmaster3 months, 1 week ago

Excellent report. Los Angeles No. 2? 50% of the electric power comes from coal fired plants and on any given day you can cut the air with a knife.
Yeah. Good report.
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- mishandledComment removed: User banned.9 Replies
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    johnnyt3 months, 1 week ago
    
    also it is based per capita. larger cities with good public transportation will have a good advantage.
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      nostalgia3 months, 1 week ago
      
      I wasn't aware that LA had a good transportation system
      All I hear about is how bad traffic is on the LA freeways
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        jumpmaster3 months, 1 week ago
        
        No, LA has no public transportation system to speak of. There is however about five miles of transit in downtown LA and they hope to expand that to about six miles in the next 100 years.
        Traffic is just horrible. It can take 45minutes to an hour to get on to the freeway once you are on the entrance ramp. The ramp is about 1/4 mile long. On one stretch of the 91 freeway, it usually takes about 30 minutes to go five miles.
        The only time you can get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time is 4:00 am on a Sunday morning and that window of opportunity lasts about two hours.
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        saintetienne3 months, 1 week ago
        
        With all due respect, I beg to differ.
        The subway system in Los Angeles is great. It's not extensive, but depending on the neighborhood you live in, it is all I need to get me to work every day - no bus transfers. That's right, I ride the subway every day to the office, and use the subways and express buses on weekends for jaunts to the beach, Hollywood, downtown, the Valley, etc.
        The Los Angeles Metro system won First place for efficiency and service from the National Transportation Authority, beating out such public transportation stalwarts as New York and Chicago. And they are currently tunneling a new subway line to East L.A., due to open in 2009, and a train from downtown to Culver City ready by 2011. New bus lines - particularly express lines - are being added all the time, and high-speed Metrolink trains handle thousands of passengers daily in far-flung areas like Valencia, the Inland Empire and Ventura.
        
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        saintetienne3 months, 1 week ago
        
        With all due respect, I beg to differ.
        The subway system in Los Angeles is great. It's not extensive, but depending on the neighborhood you live in, it is all I need to get me to work every day - no bus transfers. That's right, I ride the subway every day to the office, and use the subways and express buses on weekends for jaunts to the beach, Hollywood, downtown, the Valley, etc.
        The Los Angeles Metro system won First place for efficiency and service from the National Transportation Authority, beating out such public transportation stalwarts as New York and Chicago. And they are currently tunneling a new subway line to East L.A., due to open in 2009, and a train from downtown to Culver City ready by 2011. New bus lines - particularly express lines - are being added all the time, and high-speed Metrolink trains handle thousands of passengers daily in far-flung areas like Valencia, the Inland Empire and Ventura.
        
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        saintetienne3 months, 1 week ago
        
        With all due respect, I beg to differ.
        The subway system in Los Angeles is great. It's not extensive, but depending on the neighborhood you live in, it is all I need to get me to work every day - no bus transfers. That's right, I ride the subway every day to the office, and use the subways and express buses on weekends for jaunts to the beach, Hollywood, downtown, the Valley, etc.
        The Los Angeles Metro system won First place for efficiency and service from the National Transportation Authority, beating out such public transportation stalwarts as New York and Chicago. And they are currently tunneling a new subway line to East L.A., due to open in 2009, and a train from downtown to Culver City ready by 2011. New bus lines - particularly express lines - are being added all the time, and high-speed Metrolink trains handle thousands of passengers daily in far-flung areas like Valencia, the Inland Empire and Ventura.
        
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        saintetienne3 months, 1 week ago
        
        CONT.
        If you live in Los Angeles, I urge you to look into public transportation. I did 10 years ago, and it's been getting better ever since.
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        quackpot3 months, 1 week ago
        
        Good report Snt, thanks for the info.
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      nostalgia3 months, 1 week ago
      
      I wasn't aware that LA had a good transportation system
      All I hear about is traffic congestion on LA freeways
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- HanymanComment removed: User banned.1 Reply
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    IanFraigun3 months, 1 week ago
    
    You are right we had smog here when the total population was a band of about 100 indians in downtown. That issue is geography and weather.
    On the carbon footprint though there are things we do right here in Los Angeles. We do not use heating oil or coal for heating our homes, we use natural gas which generates less carbon residue. Though traffic is difficult we have a higher percentage of hybrid and other alternative fuels vehicles. Another issue is that we are heavily into recyling and by recyling plastics and cans and paper there is less cabon generated to create new products.
    It those crazy things we do out here like drive alternative fuel vehicles (not as much as we should though) and recylcle that helps keep our carbon footprint per person relatively small compared to other large cities. Of course the massive bans on smoking tobacco and special formulated gasoline also helps greatly.
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Cityslicker3 months, 1 week ago

Someone had some good stuff when they came up with this Gullible Warning scam and all this "carbon foot print" junk science .
How can Scientist figure a "carbon foot print" when local weather can't even be predicted with any certain accuracy , modeling software is flawed or not complete enough to even begin to touch on any kind of correct data , maybe years from now .

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KvilleTXComment removed: User banned.
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Truzseeker3 months, 1 week ago

sunk for propaganda..this is bs
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1-2-Oscar3 months, 1 week ago

he "study" certainly LOOKS as if it had been designed to produce a particular result, and to encourage certain "public" behaviors. It is presented as a study of the impact that individual behaviors have on consumption of energy and thus the production of carbon, yet it excludes industrial pollution, which would send cities like Houston, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans to the very top of the list. The carbon produced by people making a living apparently doesn't count. By the same token, rural areas and smaller cities, where public transportation is less practical, are punished for not having subways and light rail systems.
Brookings obviously wants to encourage public investment in mass transportation. That's probably not a bad idea, but I don't think that the more "progressive" areas are charged with all the carbon that was produced in making the steel rails, or the destruction of forests for crossties.
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  slate3 months, 1 week ago
  
  First of all, in Houston the 'rail' only runs about 10 miles in the Downtown area.
  Let me lay out Houston for those that don't know anything about it. Houston is actually about the size of the largest county in Texas (Harris). The estimated population is about 5million plus or minus.
  Houston is 4-5 cities in one, the actual city limits are 60 miles across and that is only a part of what is known as 'Houston'.
  You have not just one downtown but a few of them,, the 'proper downtown, on the east side of town close to the ship channel and the Chem plants, Greenway plaza and the Galleria areas to the west and the 'most congested' then you throw in the Woodlands to the north, Clear lake and NASA to the south and Katy farther to the west. Houston is massive in area, second to only LA.
  
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    slate3 months, 1 week ago
    
    We have no rail that goes anywhere worth while and subways are out, because you hit groundwater at about 10 feet here, plus no rock, just clay and silts, which makes tunneling impractical. The bus system is only in parts of the City and all mass transit lanes only go to down town and not the other major areas. Now that the entire freeway ROWs are full there are no practical choices left.
    I guess my point is that the notion that a City is A city is a city, that are in small areas and all solutions are easy and should be the same is wrong. LA isn't NY or Chicago or Dallas or little town USA. Why do these types of studies always think in a box on issues?
    
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newbie04203 months, 1 week ago

Oh man, this is bad, I better call Gore up and buy up as many carbon credits as I can....
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slate3 months, 1 week ago

Is this set up as 1 being the cleanest? If so, how the heck does LA rank 2? Have you ever seen pictures of their air on a summer day? It makes Houston look like mountian fresh air.
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