How much CO2 does your state emit?
The U.S. Energy Information Administration just released rel="nofollow">http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/10/emi...
"The 10 cleanest states based on per capita emissions—in order, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Idaho, New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington—have aggressive renewable energy and/or efficiency programs."
For those who have claimed that California has "the most pollution", notice that it's got the fifth-lowest per capita CO2 emissions.
How does your state stack up?
Update:James - as usual, you could not be more wrong.
http://pge.com/about/environment/pge/cleanenergy/
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
yaay go plucky little vermont! and the winter weather is bitter there, too.
i have a mate there, if the gulf stream shuts down and our climates swap, she is going to tutor me in use of snow chains, heated gloves etc. and i am going to help her with bees and vegetable advice.
ooh! i just found another map that looks a bit like that one;
http://mattbrennan.ca/img/now_map_small.jpg
there's a supply and take of CO2 emittance and CO2 sinks it is extra or less equivalent. it is not significant how little CO2 is emitted with the aid of quite a few sources. What concerns is the quantity of CO2 left after that carbon sinks have taken up each and all of the carbon. 50% of human emitted CO2 is left after this technique.
It has mostly to do with the way people live in those states. The map makes sense: southern states which use a lot of air conditioning have high per capita emissions, as do rural states such as Montana, Alaska and New Mexico, since people often live very far apart and do a great deal of driving.
Remember that per capita is much different than total emissions.
As James E suggests..... if a state is the 'beneficiary' of CO2-producing products/services produced outside of its borders, then that CO2 should be added to its footprint. Doing that would dramatically change the per capita numbers.
Was this done in the study/compilation cited in your question?
Was District of Columbia one of the 57 states that Obama was counting? California should be the worst. Everything is far away. Public transportation is ridiculous and for the most part worthless. We have some nuclear and hydro, as well as other sources that probably help. I don't think they are green as much as they are economical and alternative, however.
Someone cares?
The earth is cooling, and CO2 is plant food.
California sucks up too much water, and LA is an atmospheric cesspool.
I'm going to throw another log on the fire and kill a tree tomorrow, but if someone would like to send me a couple of hundred bucks for carbon credits, I'll let it live.
California gets most of its power from other states over the grid. Have not checked recently but PG&E, SCE and SDG&E get more than 50% of their power out of state and DWP is probably close to that because both of their new plants are in Utah. So its impact is widely spread to a lot of other states lowering its visible if not actual footprint.
Not so ironically, these states are all high taxers that are in budgetary straits.
Except Idaho, which, if you read your article, is low-emission because of its reliance on hydro-electric dams.
And DC, of course, which isn't a state at all (but still would rank in the top ten on the tax list)...
the funny part is that my research has shown that states with very large recycling facilities produce vast amounts of co2.......recycling helps reduce needs and mining and helps reduce trash however comes at a high price......
Well Minnesota appears to be in the middle of the pack.