The Oil Drum: Local | Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Green NYC

Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Green NYC

Posted by The Interloafer on May 3, 2006 - 11:17pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: carbon, emissions, greenhouse effect, urban planning [list all tags]

Last Thursday I mentioned that my biggest take-away from the recent energy solutions conference here in town was a PowerPoint slide from Charles Komanoff, who noted that the average American pumps as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a day as the average person in the rest of the world puts out in a week. Charles was kind enough to forward me a link to his presentation (PPT!), which includes the slide in question:

I think those of us who ride transit, cycle or walk to work in New York can take a little solace in that we're not as bad as rest of the country.

As David Owen noted in his famous New Yorker article of October 18, 2004, "Green Manhattan":

The most devastating damage humans have done to the environment has arisen from the heedless burning of fossil fuels, a category in which New Yorkers are practically prehistoric... New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use.

Urban planners ought to be on the front lines of the anti-global warming battle, revitalizing cities to be more like New York: Dense, walkable, with lots of transit and lots of buildings with jobs and housing close to one another.