You might have seen this chart making the rounds this week. It shows the relative size of US CO2 emissions according to electricity generation and transportation. Here’s the chart: The article, via Ritholz’ blog and Bloomberg News, talks about the reason for the shift. It has everything to do with change power grid in the […]
Electric cars like the Tesla Model S are an amazing technological leap forward, but by themselves don’t change the automobility picture. Here’s a chart from a recent Financial Times story [subscription only!] about a “lifecycle” carbon footprint study, which looks at CO2 from production and recycling of cars in addition to their emissions while they […]
In honor of the new Stillwater freeway grand opening, here’s a chart for you from some periodical called “Science.” It shows the results of a new meta-study of 39 other studies on carbon impacts. Here is the chart: The key idea here, from the Science blog: Many commonly promoted options, such as washing clothes in […]
Via Kevin Gallatin’s Twitter feed, here’s a chart that shows some different “cold weather” cities and their commuting mode-share. Voila: Gallatin plopped the Ford site targets and Highland, Saint Paul status quo into the chart to compare it with similar places around the world. He writes that “some say the Ford Site plan has unrealistic […]
This week’s podcast is a conversation with Brendan Jordan, the vice-president of the Great Plains Institute, a Minneapolis-based energy and climate think tank. I sat down with Brendan last week at his office to discuss the political landscape of climate change policy, both locally and nationally. We discussed how to think about climate and energy […]
This week’s podcast is a conversation with J. Drake Hamilton, a Science Policy Director for Fresh Energy, a Minnesota-based non-profit that works at the intersection of energy and environmental policy. J. and I sat down to talk about what the climate change conversation might look like over the next few years, in a political landscape […]
Via Carbon Brief, here’s an (interactive) world map showing the price people pay for a pound of CO2 in each nation around the world. The US has a “per-ton of CO2” price of 85 cents, versus $26.21 in Germany or $3.79 in Canada (for example). Note that this is the “effective carbon price,” which is […]
Via Fast Company, here’s a chart showing the national CO2 emissions trends from 1990 to 2014, divided up by sector as a percentage of the whole. As you can see, though emissions relative to each other remain largely stable, there is clear trend where transportation emissions are becoming a larger piece of the pie. Here’s the chart: Charlie […]
Passed on from a reader, and from this Citylab article, a simple side-by-side comparison of the USA and Germany. Check out some of the transportation stats: It’s not that the Germans don’t love cars. In fact, I hear they have a few car companies there, and sort-of invented the modern day freeway. Here’s what […]
A friend of mine was recently discussing her problem with air travel, and how impactful emissions from flight can be in ways that people seem to ignore. In other words, even people that care a great deal about the environment and reducing climate change emissions seem to fly around an awful lot. Here’s a chart […]