What's wrong with this carbon footprint?
It was, the Brookings Institution admitted, a flawed study. But it's the best data we have on the impact of urban areas on climate. This business of quantifying carbon emissions is as complicated as technological urban life itself.
Like other papers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a story on the Brookings Institution's new study ranking the carbon footprints of 100 major cities [392K PDF] in America. Northwest cities do rather well. Portland ranks third, Boise fifth, and Seattle sixth for lowest carbon emissions per resident. But the study's rankings also suggest that some of our most cherished notions about how to live "green" aren't borne out. Also ranking in the top 10 are sprawling car-centric cities like Los Angeles (2) and San Diego (10). L.A. has a better carbon footprint than Portland? What gives?
That same question baffled the Los Angeles Times, but they found further explanation in the report's caveats, which are significant:
The calculations did not account for the fact that half the [L.A.'s] electricity comes from coal-fired power plants. Instead, Brookings used a state-wide average that included the hydroelectric and nuclear plants in Northern California.
Omitted from the data are emissions from industries and commercial buildings, and from local roads apart from federal highways.
The researchers also chose metropolitan statistical areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Those areas may allow for a uniform geographical comparison, but in the case of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area, that omitted commutes from as far as Ventura, San Bernardino or Riverside counties.
"The data is fuzzy," said Andrea Sarzynski, a senior research analyst at Brookings. "We do the best we can."
The New York Times reports that "the calculations do not include industrial emissions, those from commercial or government structures and those from air, rail or sea transportation."
Those seems like pretty major omissions.
The P-I reports that one problem with such studies is that there is no agreement on how to measure carbon emissions:
Another problem with these assessments, according to a local energy policy expert not involved in the project, is that nobody really agrees on how to measure a carbon footprint.
"There is no one perfect method for these calculations," said Anne Steinemann, a University of Washington professor of civil and environmental engineering. Steinemann and colleagues at Vanderbilt University recently analyzed carbon footprint methods and found them highly inconsistent.
One thing the study suggests is that cities are difficult to measure and quantify consistently, that they're complicated entities, and that factors other than sprawl and density and mass transit play a role in just how "green" a city is. A city with significant sprawl might still be greener than an older industrial city, for example. Or a car-centric place like Los Angeles might look better because, despite sprawl, it is also very dense.
Inconsistencies, caveats, and omissions aside, Brookings defends the analysis as a first cut at doing such rankings, but the study fulfills a larger Brookings goal, which is to focus on the urbanization of America and help steer federal policy toward our cities.
More than 800 cities have signed on to commit to carbon emission reduction goals set by the Kyoto agreement. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has made a name for himself helping to lead that effort. The challenge is a big one, since the country overall has been losing ground in the first half of this decade as our carbon footprint is expanding, not declining. The Los Angeles Times reports: "Emissions from residential, commercial and transportation sectors each increased by more than 25% over the last 25 years, the report notes, while industrial emissions declined as manufacturing dwindled."
Increases are happening even in some of the top-ranked cities. For example, Seattle's carbon footprint from transportation and residential use has dropped, while Portland's has actually increased, according to Brookings.
Flawed and limited as it is, the Brookings report is politically timed:
Next week, the U.S. Senate is expected to take up legislation to limit carbon emissions nationwide. Its provisions, which include a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, are highly controversial, and Brookings wants aggressive measures to encourage climate-friendly cities.
The task of defining them is still a work in progress.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, May 30, 9:11 a.m. inappropriate
Seeing is Believing: Sounds like the maps are undershooting the actual pollution. But the patterns look troublesome enough already for many of us to prompt interest and action.
Posted Fri, May 30, 11:33 a.m. inappropriate
Forget footprints and focus on specific actions: As the study indicates, measuring carbon footprints is a problematic exercise. Too many assumptions and approximations are required, just to give a few cities questionable bragging rights.
The real challenge is to measure the atmospheric carbon impacts of on-going urban development, including projects and other actions that ostensibly are intended to reduce fossil-fuel use. And also to put these into an analytical framework that compares cost-effectiveness (e.g. reduction in tons of carbon emitted per dollar invested) across a set of alternatives over time.
When this is done, and it can be done with some precision, the results can be quite instructive. For example, building the LINK light rail system that is supposed to reduce greenhouse gases by getting people out of their gas guzzlers actually creates a large carbon footprint -- all those gas hungry dump trucks that burn carbon fuels to haul in tons of building materials and haul away mountains of dirt. More than fifty years will be needed to recoup the invested carbon energy cost of LINK before it starts to return reductions in carbon per person mile of travel.
Unfortunately this is after 2050, the year scientists say is the time that we must have halved our carbon emissions to avoid reaching a global climate change tipping point.
Posted Fri, May 30, 11:40 a.m. inappropriate
Prevaricator Alert!: You may be due for some re-education, Herr Mossback. Global warming is our enemy. Fierce battles against it are being waged, on several fronts, even as you read this.
Pacifists in time of war give aid and comfort to the enemy. We MUST reduce our carbon footprint. Sound Transit has a plan for this, and the broad masses of the people support it. Say it now - with feeling: "Sound Transit Forever!"
This is not on-message: "For example, Seattle's carbon footprint from transportation and residential use has dropped, while Portland's has actually increased, according to Brookings."
Portland has hundreds of miles of light rail - its carbon footprint must be shrinking, and shrinking fast.
You are helping the enemy by undermining the message from Union Station. Our leaders expect much better of their people. Consider yourself denounced:
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
-- 2005 ST Communications Group "Policies and Procedures Manual," Ch. 6 p. 10 (Maxim 24, attributed to Hermann Goering).
Ride the Wave!
Posted Fri, May 30, 8:31 p.m. inappropriate
LA is not what you think: As I've noted before, Los ANgeles is actually the DENSEST urbanized area in the US, yes denser than New York,San Francisco or Boston. People mistake sheer huge size (16 million people) for sprawl. LA has a good transit system, and lots of carpooling.
Posted Sat, May 31, 11:30 a.m. inappropriate
Seattle and transportation: In adopting its Climate Action Plan, Seattle had to determine which emissions it was responsible for, which requires some judgment calls. For example, Seattle took responsibility for a proportion of the flights in and out of Sea Tac Airport.
In a recent City report, Seattle acknowledged that emissions from transportation were growing, and may well threaten the ability of Seattle to meet the Kyoto target. I don't know why the Brookings Institute concluded that transportation was improving, but it was measuring the Seattle metropolitan area, not just the city of Seattle.
Brookings is to be commended for taking a shot at the analysis. No matter how you cut it, we will need steep cuts in emissions to reduce the worst effects of global warming. And Brookings is correct that cities will play a lead role, because of their potential to absorb population in walkable communities connected by transit, with highly efficient buildings.
Posted Wed, Jun 4, 11:45 p.m. inappropriate
climate change propaganda: I for one am SICK AND TIRED of climate change propaganda, and the person who heads it in Seattle, Greg Nickels.
8,000 years ago the Bering Straight land bridge was drowned and stopped migration.
8,000 YEARS AGO
Since the end of the Ice Age, earths temps have risen about 16 degrees F. and sea levels have risen about 300 feet.
Greg Nickel's garbage is green.
"It is a cold fact: the global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenges since 10,000 years ago."
--Lowell Ponte, 1976
Posted Thu, Jun 5, 1:20 a.m. inappropriate
Don't give me this garbage.: Darnell Coles, don't give me this garbage about sound transit. Here's a paragraph from an article entitled "Proposition 1: How much will it really cost?"
by Gregory Roberts at the PI:
"After the 1996 vote, Sound Transit estimated that it could build a light rail line from the north end of the University District to south of the airport by 2006 and complete expansion of its commuter train and bus programs for $3.8 billion, adjusting for inflation. Now, the agency is looking doing those things by 2016 -- except that the light rail line would be one stop shorter on each end -- at an estimated cost of $6.2 billion."
Consider *yourself* denounced pal.
Darnell said:
"Say it now - with feeling: "Sound Transit Forever!"
What is this garbage you spew, Darnell Coles?
Posted Thu, Jun 12, 12:02 p.m. inappropriate
RE: LA is not what you think: Dick,
Could you please offer a source for that claim?
I just found a list in a US Census Bureau paper which usies somewhat old statistics (1990) but which contradicts your statement.
http://tinyurl.com/3kjyn