Here's another one of these famous analyses. I'm sure Laura will love this one.

All of these maps are sourced by this data from the EPA:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissi ... o2inv.html

This is as of 2001--outdated once again but the best I could find. All of them are per capita.

I manipulated the Excel sheet to show what I wanted--you can view the work here:

http://www.theskyiscrape.com/nick/co2/CO2FFC_2002.xls

We begin with the total emissions by state:



The first thing that jumped out at me was how utterly pathetic (and I mean PATHETIC) Wyoming is. It's not even close. I wonder if there's any political region on the face of the earth that is worse.

The East Coast, the Northwest, and California are on the better end of the scale.

Now, this Excel sheet was also nice enough to separate the emissions by end-use sector. So let's take a look at a few of those, starting with power generation.



Again, Wyoming is awful in this category. The reason is pretty obvious: 97% of its power comes from coal:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/state ... m/state=WY

Now, does Wyoming get a bad rap here? I think it might, because all the power it generates might not be used by people in Wyoming. Indeed, this site says that "Wyoming exports 70% of its electricity production . . . while California imports 20%".

http://www.wba.vcn.com/Editorial_BTU.htm

This is a major thing to consider with these maps in general.

On the other end, Vermont is RIDICULOUSLY low. This is because 99% of their energy generated is from non-fossil fuel sources (the grand majority nuclear, interesting):

http://www.eere.energy.gov/states/state ... m/state=VT

Idaho is also extremely low, no doubt because of hydro power. The rest of the Northwest (Oregon and Washington) isn't too far behind for the same reason.

Another important sector would be transportation:



It should be no surprise that New York is #1 in this category. However, it's kinda interesting how the entire West lags behind in this sector. I wonder if suburban sprawl is more pronounced in the West.

It's also kinda odd that New Jersey is far worse than its surrounding states.

Next up is industrial:



I'm not quite sure what to extrapolate from this one yet. I'm curious as to how big of a role agriculture is in this sector.

Finally, we have residential and commercial, which in general are a rather small part of the equation:




The fact that warmer climates are decidedly lower off means that these sectors are largely dependent on heating fuels. The prevalence of heating oil in New England probably explains why they're showing up in extreme red in residential.

Lastly, I added a bonus map that shows which sector emits the most, so as to suggest what sector may need the most attention.



Interesting. I thought transportation might be more of an issue, but it's really only so in the regions that are already on the lower end of emissions as a whole (Northwest, California, New England).

Also, the three states that have industrial emitting the most (Alaska, Texas, Louisiana)--what do they have in common? The first thing that came to my mind was that they are all major producers of petroleum.

Those are some awesome maps Nick. Thanks for posting all that

California does pretty good, but it kind of makes me wonder how much better it would be if we eliminated LA.

I would say that suburban sprawl is most certainly worse in the West. The newer the area (population wise) the worse the sprawl. Hopefully that will be minimized in the areas that are urbanizing in the 21st Century (like Boise). Maybe we've learned some lessons.

As for New Jersey, they have no decent public transportation system like New York and New England have, or even Philadelphia and DC. A very large number of people in New Jersey commute into NYC or Philly by car everyday, and it is a primary trucking corridor for the entire East Coast.

Besides if you've ever smelled New Jersey, this would be no surprise whatsoever to you.

Wyoming is bad but if you take into consideration that say, for example, California has a much, much larger population than Wyoming...which place would be the bigger concern?

Well, Wyoming has 10 times the per capita CO2 emissions. California has about 100 times the population of Wyoming. So California produces about 10 times the gross CO2.

C'mon, Cali only has, like, 33 million more people. Totally insignificant

Pretty maps but meaningless. It in no way takes into account that an area may pollute heavily to produce a good that is used entirely in another area. The way I see it all pollution made in creating the good or product should belong to the consumer.

That Texas has to pollute to create oil for use by New York is really New York's problem. But these maps make it look like it is a Texas issue. New York doesn't have anu significant consumption patterns all that different from other states, they've just moved the pollution intensive manufacturing out of state.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/01/magazin ... ?dipshiats


American car buyers get a case of amnesia
When gas prices take a breather, consumers' common sense takes a hike.
By Alex Taylor III, Fortune senior editor
November 2 2006: 12:11 PM EST


NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Who can remember all the way back to last summer, when we had daylight-saving-time, baseball and $3 a gallon gasoline prices?

Not American car buyers, apparently, and you can see the evidence in the results of October auto sales.

Sales of big pickup trucks and SUVs went through the roof - doubling from the year before in some cases. Sales of small, fuel-efficient cars, meanwhile, remained stagnant. It is as if all that moaning and groaning about price gouging by oil companies never happened.

Actually, it is worse than that. American consumers have reinforced all the stereotypes they are labeled with: short attention spans, lack of social consciousness and thinking with their wallets.

Does anyone seriously believe that having once spiked up to $3 with very little provocation, gasoline prices won't do it again? Have they forgotten about the ongoing instability in the Middle East? And have they stopped caring about traffic density, scarce resources or global warming? And if they haven't, why aren't they exercising better sense in their vehicle preferences?

Homegrowns
General Motors' (Charts) customers get the ostrich award for sticking their heads in the sand. They drove up sales of hulking Chevy Tahoes and Suburbans, and Cadillac Escalades in October to double and triple the rates of a year ago. At the same time, they walked away from economical Chevy Aveos and Cobalts, sending sales of those vehicles down 31 percent and 43 percent respectively. "GM's truck business was boosted by lower fuel prices," sales and marketing boss Mark LaNeve explains. Apparently so.

One bright spot, sales of the fuel-gulping Hummer were about flat compared with a year ago. Perhaps consumers have tired of cartoonish macho design.

Over at Ford (Charts) and Chrysler (Charts), results were about the same. Sales of the new Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator both shot up more than 40 percent. Both are handsome vehicles greatly improved in their ride and handling from previous versions, but how many people really need all that metal to drive to the 7-Eleven?

Over at Chrysler, sales of Jeeps - known for their go-anywhere capabilities but not their fuel economy - shot up 29 percent, with the biggest and thirstiest, the Commander, shooting off dealer lots at the rate of more than 8,000 a month.

Import buyers demonstrated a little more common sense. They tend to be self-selected Blue Staters anyway, who are attracted to import brands because of their lighter weight and more fuel-efficient engines. The gap between them and domestic buyers is widening

People are fucking idiots sometimes.

That article is misleading tremendously.

First off.. THe numbers for october are dramatically increased because last october was one of the worst months for domestic automakers ever- for 2 reasons... 1.) High Gas Prices were still new, and some overreacted (in the same way some react to lower ones) and traded in their SUVs and Pickups for small cars. 2.) Last october immediately followed the "Employee Pricing for everyone"- which pulled ahead october sales into July-Sept... AND also reduced dealer inventories on the most popular models.

2nd. That also mentions only the SUVs increasing in sales. It fails to mention that most of Ford's improvement came from an increase in CAR sales, like Fusion, Milan and Zephyr.

You can tell I don't get out East that much, huh?

Thanks for the info.

I noted this in explaining why Wyoming was suck a freak state. Obviously this doesn't tell the whole story, it's just one part, and we can note a few things.

I'm color blind, so I was surprised at first at how well Wyoming was doing.

I apologize if I came across as discounting the data you put together. My issue is with the methods used to assign pollution to an area or industry. Part of solving the problem lies in getting agreed upon definitions and responsibilities. Until we have done this basic part of tackling the problem we won't see results, but we will see lots of finger pointing.

Yeah but I heard Cali people are tiny.

The AP just did a better job than I did in analyzing this earlier.

Also, I could stare at this website for ages--truly fascinating if you want to find out where all the power in being generated in each state.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/

=====

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070602/ap_ ... g_states_1

Blame coal: Texas leads carbon emissions

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Sat Jun 2, 12:45 PM ET

WASHINGTON - America may spew more greenhouse gases than any other country, but some states are astonishingly more prolific polluters than others — and it's not always the ones you might expect.

The Associated Press analyzed state-by-state emissions of carbon dioxide from 2003, the latest U.S. Energy Department numbers available. The review shows startling differences in states' contribution to climate change.

The biggest reason? The burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap electricity.

_Wyoming's coal-fired power plants produce more carbon dioxide in just eight hours than the power generators of more populous Vermont do in a year.

_Texas, the leader in emitting this greenhouse gas, cranks out more than the next two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania, which together have twice Texas' population.

_In sparsely populated Alaska, the carbon dioxide produced per person by all the flying and driving is six times the per capita amount generated by travelers in New York state.

"There's no question that some states have made choices to be greener than others," said former top Energy Department official Joseph Romm, author of the new book "Hell and High Water" and executive director of a nonprofit energy conservation group.

The disparity in carbon dioxide emissions is one of the reasons there is no strong national effort to reduce global warming gases, some experts say. National emissions dipped ever so slightly last year, but that was mostly because of mild weather, according to the Energy Department.

"Some states are benefiting from both cheap electricity while polluting the planet and make all the rest of us suffer the consequences of global warming," said Frank O'Donnell, director of the Washington environmental group Clean Air Watch. "I don't think that's fair at all."

He noted that the states putting out the most carbon dioxide are doing the least to control it, except for California.

Several federal and state officials say it's unfair and nonsensical to examine individual states' contribution to what is a global problem.

"If the atmosphere could talk it wouldn't say, 'Kudos to California, not so good to Wyoming'," said assistant energy secretary Alexander "Andy" Karsner. "It would say, 'Stop sending me emissions.'"

Some coal-burning states note that they are providing electricity to customers beyond their borders, including Californians. Wyoming is the largest exporter of energy to other states, Gov. Dave Freudenthal told The Associated Press.

He said two-thirds of the state's carbon footprint "is a consequence of energy that is developed to feed the rest of the national economy. That doesn't mean that somehow then it's good carbon, I'm just saying that's why those numbers come out the way are," Freudenthal said.

And the massive carbon dioxide-spewing and power-gobbling refineries of Texas and Louisiana fuel an oil-hungry nation, whose residents whine when gasoline prices rise.

However, some of the disparities are stunning.

On a per-person basis, Wyoming spews more carbon dioxide than any other state or any other country: 276,000 pounds of it per capita a year, thanks to burning coal, which provides nearly all of the state's electrical power.

Yet, just next door to the west, Idaho emits the least carbon dioxide per person, less than 23,000 pounds a year. Idaho forbids coal power plants. It relies mostly on non-polluting hydroelectric power from its rivers. [Ed.: ]

Texas, where coal barely edges out cleaner natural gas as the top power source, belches almost 1 1/2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. That's more than every nation in the world except six: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India and Germany.

Of course, Texas is a very populous state. North Dakota isn't, but its power plants crank out 68 percent more carbon dioxide than New Jersey, which has 13 times North Dakota's residents.

And while Californians have cut their per-person carbon dioxide emissions by 11 percent from 1990 to 2003, Nebraskans have increased their per capita emissions by 16 percent over the same time frame.

Officials in Wyoming, North Dakota and Alaska say numbers in their states are skewed because of their small populations. But Vermont, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia are similar in size and have one-12th the per-capita emissions of Wyoming.

A lot of it comes down to King Coal.

Burning coal accounts for half of America's electricity. And coal produces more carbon dioxide than any other commonly used U.S. fuel source. The states that rely the most on coal — Wyoming, North Dakota, West Virginia, Indiana — generally produce the most carbon dioxide pollution per person, but also have the cheapest electric rates.

States that shun coal — Vermont, Idaho, California, Rhode Island — and turn to nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas, produce the least carbon dioxide but often at higher costs for consumers.

It's unfair to pin all the blame on the coal-using states, said Washington lawyer Jeffrey Holmstead, who as an attorney at Bracewell Giuliani represents coal-intensive utilities and refineries. Holmstead is the former Bush administration air pollution regulator who ruled that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, a decision that was overturned recently by the
U.S. Supreme Court.

"Coal-fired generation is the most economical, least expensive way to produce power almost anywhere in the world," he said. He argued that outlawing such plants would have little overall impact globally; however, the U.S. has long been the leading global source of carbon emissions.

Instead of trying to wean themselves from coal, Texas government officials went out of their way to encourage the state's biggest utility, TXU Corp., to plan for 11 new coal-burning power plants that would have produced even more carbon dioxide. The strategy collapsed when an investor group buying TXU cut a deal with environmentalists to drop plans to build most of the coal plants.

The Texas state agency charged with monitoring the environment declined to comment on carbon dioxide emissions. Spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said the gas "is not a regulated pollutant." Frank Maisano, a lobbyist and spokesman for Bracewell Giuliani, which also has offices in Texas, defended the state saying, "these net exporters of energy are always going to produce more carbon dioxide."

Emissions from generating electricity account for the largest chunk of U.S. greenhouse gases, nearly 40 percent. Transportation emissions are close behind, contributing about one-third of U.S. production of carbon dioxide. States with mass transit and cities, such as New York, come out cleaner than those with wide expanses that rely solely on cars, trucks and airplanes, like Alaska.

Alaska, which stands out for its carbon dioxide production, also stands out as one of the early victims of climate change. Its glaciers are melting, its permafrost thawing, and coastal and island villages will soon be swallowed by the sea. Alaska ranked No. 1 in per-person emissions for transportation, which includes driving, flying, shipping and rail traffic.

That's not the state's fault, says Tom Chapple, director of the state Division of Air Quality. Its sheer expanse requires a lot of air travel. And Anchorage ranked No. 2 nationally in air cargo traffic.

For people who want to reduce their household emissions, or their "carbon footprint," the state where they live really does matter.

After seeing
Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," Gregg Cawley used one of the many calculators available online to determine his "carbon footprint." The University of Wyoming professor lives in a small one-bedroom apartment and drives a moderately efficient Subaru, so he figured he contributes less to global warming than the average American.

But the calculations showed otherwise. They suggested Cawley produces more carbon dioxide than most Americans. Even if he reduced his energy consumption, the numbers would hardly budge. "My God," he thought, "what do I have to do to my lifestyle to change this?"

Then he changed his home state in the equation. He took out Wyoming and plugged in Washington state.

"I came in way low. I said, 'That's the problem. I live in the wrong damn state.'"

That simple hypothetical change of address cut his personal emissions by nearly three tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Coal definitely needs to go, but unfortunately, big coal owns the state of West Virginia. I'm sure it's the same way in Wyoming too.

Is there data that shows CO2 emissions vs per capita income? It would be interesting to see which state is making the best use energy.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's probably California or New York.

Well, I was close. They were #2 and #4. New England and the Northwest pretty much owned the top 12. Once again though, we still run into the problem of states like Wyoming exporting energy to other states.

I used this for reference: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104652.html

1 Connecticut $3,478.43
2 New York $3,274.95
3 Massachusetts $3,031.81
4 California $2,958.11
5 Vermont $2,710.18
6 New Jersey $2,687.08
7 Rhode Island $2,631.09
8 New Hampshire $2,477.34
9 Maryland $2,457.04
10 Oregon $2,361.54
11 Washington $2,247.99
12 Idaho $2,100.14
13 Hawaii $2,035.70
14 Florida $2,022.89
15 Virginia $1,963.11
16 Illinois $1,834.67
17 Minnesota $1,771.06
18 Colorado $1,613.08
19 Delaware $1,589.25
20 Michigan $1,588.72
21 North Carolina $1,574.00
22 Maine $1,573.55
23 Arizona $1,572.43
24 South Dakota $1,515.84
25 Georgia $1,510.09
26 Wisconsin $1,493.97
27 Pennsylvania $1,475.36
28 Nevada $1,445.72
29 Ohio $1,318.17
30 South Carolina $1,305.33
31 Tennessee $1,248.21
32 Missouri $1,235.17
33 Nebraska $1,191.28
34 Kansas $1,084.68
35 Iowa $1,030.57
36 Arkansas $982.77
37 Texas $900.31
38 Mississippi $895.41
39 Utah $883.55
40 Oklahoma $863.60
41 Alabama $841.50
42 Indiana $760.43
43 New Mexico $732.69
44 Kentucky $689.89
45 Montana $669.26
46 Louisiana $587.61
47 Alaska $466.21
48 West Virginia $401.62
49 North Dakota $343.43
50 Wyoming $234.91