City Dwellers Have Smaller Carbon Footprints, Although Not Where We're From

I'll be honest: I'm fascinated by carbon footprints. I'm fascinated, for example, that the annual carbon footprint of a Hummer is about equal to the carbon footprint for my air travel this year. I'm fascinated that the carbon footprint of an apple grown in New York City that I eat in D.C. is actually bigger than if the apple had come all the way from New Zealand. The more I learn, the more my preconceptions get turned on their head.

Most recently, I've been digging through the Brookings Institution's new report on the carbon footprints for the 100 biggest metro areas in the U.S. - totally fascinating! Some conclusions are obvious, like the fact that city dwellers emit less CO2 on average than people who live in rural areas.

Other conclusions are more surprising. For example, it turns out that people who live in the sprawlsvilles out West actually have smaller carbon footprints for their home electricity use and travel than many of the denizens who live in the tightly knit metro areas out East.

Where I live, in Washington D.C., residents rank dead last when it comes to per capita home energy use. I promptly blamed this on the summer humidity (which can turn even the most committed environmentalists to unrepentant AC use) and the bitter winters (which further demoralize D.C. renters into blasting the heat) - but Brookings suggests the cause might also have something to do with the prevalence of green building codes and clean energy incentives that exist out West. In other words, real progress can be made if only we could change some of our local laws.

More fascinating tidbits abound, so I encourage readers to look through themselves.