Happy Earth Day, from the Climate Emergency Committee. When we established our committee a few months ago, one of the first items on our to-do list was to take a look at the carbon footprint of ourselves, as streets dot mn. Carbon emissions need to drop, and there’s no reason why we as an organization […]
Just this past week, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) released a report entitled “Pathways to Decarbonizing Transportation” that models various ways for the state to achieve its climate goals. These goals were set in the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA) that was passed in 2007 and signed by Governor Tim Pawlenty (!!!). Minnesota aimed […]
Recently, I wrote about the usage emissions of gas (internal combustion engine), hybrid, and electric vehicles. When we only look at emissions out of the vehicle tailpipe or electric plant smokestack, electric vehicles are clearly the cleaner option for the marginal mile of travel. But as several commenters noted, we really need to look at […]
I recently took a test-drive in a Tesla Model 3. It was an impressive car, but the ride left me wondering: with all the electric horsepower under the hood, was it really better than a hybrid? The EPA has a dated, but functional website with all the fuel economy and energy efficiency information a driver […]
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 […]
I love interactive maps and one got my attention recently. Christopher M. Jones and Daniel M. Kammen at UC Berkeley published a study in 2013 taking data on household carbon footprints to develop carbon profiles of zip codes, cities, counties, and states. They took the carbon profile data and produced an interactive map of the […]