Living in the City is Greener
May 30th, 2008 | Posted in Energy, Government, Ideas, Local, Society
A new study has (re)confirmed what is obvious to most: city residents pollute less than their suburban counterparts. The study was completed by the Brookings Institute and released yesterday. The most basic conclusion from the report is that “each resident of the 100 largest metropolitan areas is responsible for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14 percent below the 2.87 ton U.S. average.”
Without diving into the report too deeply, I’m assuming that since approximately 50 percent of everyone in the U.S. lives in a “city”, the average for each non-city dweller is roughly 3.27 tons. My estimate is just a shot in the dark and could probably be confirmed or denied by reading the entire 66-page report; I just haven’t had the time to get through it yet.
The disappointing news for St. Louis is that it ranked seventh highest in per capita energy among the 100 cities, reaffirming that the area is a car-centric region. The silver lining in that storm cloud is that as a brand new scooter owner, I took my new ride to my softball game last night, averaging 90+ miles per gallon. And, on the way I saw at least a half dozen scooters parked outside coffee shops and restaurants or on the road with me. Hey, it’s a start.
The most surprising aspect of the report to me was that Los Angeles had the second smallest carbon footprint of the 100 largest metropolitan areas. The region has so many people that the per capita level is relatively small even though the absolute level of pollution generated by it is large. The worst area: Lexington, Kentucky, with 3.81 tons per person. Sorry guys. The second most surprising conclusion was that Houston, yes Houston, ranked first with an output of 1.5 tons per person. WTF?
The introduction of the report, published at the link provided above, says:
“America’s carbon footprint is expanding. With a growing population and an expanding economy, America’s settlement area is widening, and as it does, Americans are driving more, building more, consuming more energy, and emitting more carbon. Rising energy prices, growing dependence on imported fuels, and accelerating global climate change make the nation’s growth patterns unsustainable.”
If there ever was a good, short summary of what’s happening in this country from a development perspective, this is it. So what can be done about it? On a personal level, we should all include these factors in our decision-making process and make choices that, while sometimes inconvenient, will benefit everyone. The Brookings Institute recommends the following “New Federal Approach” from a policy standpoint:
Promote more transportation choices to expand transit and compact development options Introduce more energy-efficient freight operations with regional freight planning Require home energy cost disclosure when selling and “on-bill” financing to stimulate and scale up energy-efficient retrofitting of residential housing Use federal housing policy to create incentives for energy- and location-efficient decisions Issue a metropolitan challenge to develop innovative solutions that integrate multiple policy areas
Where do I sign up?
Update: An article published in the St. Louis Business Journal today provided a bit more detail on the report. A few points from the piece:
- Metropolitan St. Louis’ per capita footprint from transportation and residential energy use increased 5.02 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the study, released Thursday by the Brookings Institution. The average per capita footprint of the 100 largest metro areas and of the nation increased 1.1 percent and 2.2 percent during that time period, respectively.
- The transportation portion of St. Louis’ per capita footprint decreased 3.3 percent between 2000 and 2005, compared to an increase of 2.4 percent in the 100 largest metro areas, according to the study. The residential portion of St. Louis’ per capita footprint increased 16.4 percent between 2000 and 2005, compared to a decrease of 0.7 percent in the 100 largest metro areas.
- St. Louis ranks 94th among the markets studied based on metric tons of carbon emitted per capita. The average St. Louis resident emitted 3.217 tons of carbon from highway transportation and residential energy in 2005, compared with 2.24 tons from the average resident across the 100 markets studied. Honolulu came in No. 1 with just 1.3 metric tones of carbon per capita. Worst on the list was Lexington, Ky., with 3.5 tons. [I had said earlier that Houston ranked first with 1.5 tons of carbon per capita. Perhaps that was only domestically, as Honolulu is listed as first with 1.3 tons per capita.]
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