Wednesday, April 9, 2008
News CO2 map of the U.S.
Posted by Andisheh Nouraee on Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 8:53 PM
NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy just released a map of U.S. C02 emissions:
Metro Atlanta is chock-full-o-carbon-belching coal power plants, hence its relatively high C02 output compared to other similarly-sized metro areas.
If you look carefully at the map, you might be able to see a black dot over CL's office. That's from the C02 cloud created by the approximately three dozen cans of Diet Coke CL staff writer Thomas Wheatley opens at his desk each day.
(tip of my coal miner's helmet to Wired Science)
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Jesus, another intervention? First it was my confetti addiction, now it's Diet Cokes. You guys are laaaaame.
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Not making excuses here but it looks to me like Atlanta's death cloud is not any larger than the death clouds over similar sized metros like Dallas, Houston, Detroit and Boston. I am however, impressed with the lighter deathclouds over Miami and Phoenix. Can this thing tell me when I'm going to die?
I think the red/orange/yellow area around Atlanta is bigger than Dallas and Houston. The NE stuff is harder to tell between from Philly to Boston is basically one giant metro area.
What I found interesting was the other maps, which split out the varying degrees of CO2 emissions by source. They're so much more revealing than the overall map.
As with almost every data set, some things need to be kept in mind. For instance, the carbon footprint in places like Houston, New Orleans and the industiral northeast have high Co2 footprints because they provide energy and/ or goods which are then shipped to other areas. This could be viewed as a production map, rather than a consumption map. This effect would be obvious in Mexico, China and India where emissions controls are practically non-existant and manufacturing for other economies has been transferred. Similar results are visible on the map where major interstate and rail lines cross practically unpopulated areas while transporting those Co2 generating items to other less polluted markets.
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