The Cost of Cap-and-Trade by State

So there's a bill to do something about global warming that's wending it's way through the US Congress; it's known as Waxman-Markey, after its two main sponsors. The bill would institute a cap-and-trade system that would limit CO2 emissions; if implemented, it would ultimately have some cost to consumers - about $175/annum for the average American household by 2020. But those costs wouldn't be distributed evenly, and Nate Silver has a map of how those per-household costs would break down by state:



Nate has all the gory methodological details in his post. I just want to make two points:

1) This bill is, by itself, inadequate, has gotten watered down considerably already, and will undoubtedly be further watered down in the Senate; and, indeed, I'd be shocked if it passed the Senate at all. But the way to think about it, I think, is as a contribution to a conditional chain: if the US government fails to do anything in the reasonably near future to fight global warming, then horrible catastrophe is inevitable; but if the US does pass even a weak bill, then an international agreement becomes more likely; and if that happens, then altering the energy-intensive development of China becomes a possibility; and if that happens, then we might be able to moderate the slew of catastrophic consequences that are gathering for the end of this century.

2) The United States is not really a democracy, not by modern standards. I'm not talking about all the corruption, the lobbying, and the tilting of the playing field toward special interests, though you could surely make a decent case for the non-democraticness of the US on those grounds alone.

What I'm talking about, though, is the US Senate. Wyoming, which has about half a million people, has two senators. And New York, which has about 19,000,000 people, also has two senators. Florida, which might well be drowned in a century or two by rising seas, has 18,000,000 people and two senators. West Virginia, which produces a lot of coal, has less than 2 million people - and two senators. You see where I'm going with this? The United States government, which was revolutionary and awesome back in the 18th Century, should no longer be considered to have a legislature that meets modern standards for representative democracy. I'm not the first to point this out, of course, but it really doesn't get the attention it deserves. I mean, the form of government of the US is obsolete: why isn't this a matter for public discussion? And of course, the skewing of representative democracy tends to pull in favor of rural areas, which tend to both use and produce more in the way of CO2-heavy fossil fuels, and against urban areas, which are more energy-efficient and more supportive of efforts to fight global warming. So, to the litany of insidious aspects of the global warming challenge, add this: the outmoded institutional structure of the United States government.

Carbon Footprints, Transit Ridership and More

Via Good, the Housing and Transportation Affordability Index has some excellent maps for several dozen US metros that pertain to housing, transportation, and energy issues. This one shows CO2 emissions from auto use per capita in the New York City area:



The numbers go way, way down as you move towards the urban center. Of course, most people in New York City don't even own cars. But maybe a bit more surprisingly, the pattern is almost as striking in cities where sprawl is rampant. Here's Atlanta, for instance:



The gray lines are freeways and the black lines are Marta rail lines. It looks like per capita CO2 use is highest both along the Marta lines and near freeways; in the case of the latter, that's presumably because the sprawl is somewhat more dense near freeways. But, of course, the general rule is that the closer you are to the city center, the smaller your carbon footprint.

There are many, many more maps here on a number of variables pertaining to housing and transportation. To pick one at random, here's transit ridership as a percentage of workers in the Bay Area:



There's much more like this - average rents, gasoline expenses, travel time to work, etc.; it's a ton of information that's both fascinating and useful. And all in map form. If you're like me, in other words, this site has the potential to waste a tremendous amount of your time.

Google Earth Map of CO2 Emissions in the US

This is a bummer:

A NASA satellite to track carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere failed to reach its orbit during launching Tuesday morning, scuttling the $278 million mission.

“It’s a huge disappointment to the entire team that’s worked very hard over years and years and really did their best to see it through,” said Charles P. Dovale, the launch manager. “The reason not everyone is able to do this is it’s hard. And even when you do the best you can, you can still fail. It’s a tough business.”

On the bright side, NASA and some Purdue scientists, working on something called the Vulcan Project, just launched a new Google Earth map that lets you see the amount of CO2 being emitted in the United States every hour. (The Purdue folks are the ones who put together this impressive map animation.) Here is a demonstration flyover:



It shows information about emissions at the state and county levels, and even gives information on specific source points, such as airports. It also breaks down emissions by sector, showing relative contributions from air traffic, electricity production, industry, commercial, transportation, and residential sources. It really does a good job of helping the viewer visualize carbon emissions - a sort of nebulous and abstract thing to try to think about - and that may prove to make it a very valuable tool in public efforts to decrease those emissions. You can download the Google Earth map at this site (though it ran a bit slow for me). And by the way, kudos to the Purdue folks for picking a badass name for their research project. You gotta know how to market this stuff, people!

CO2

An incredible map animation of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States:



The Purdue U. researchers who put this together are also working to recapitulate the effort on a global scale with something they call the Hestia Project. Should be even more fascinating.

Meanwhile, in other CO2-related news, Western forests are dying at an increasing rate:

Jan 23rd, 2009 | GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- Trees in old growth forests across the West are dying at a small, but increasing rate that scientists conclude is probably caused by longer and hotter summers from a changing climate.

While not noticeable to someone walking through the forests, the death rate is doubling every 17 to 29 years, according to a 52-year study published in the Friday edition of the journal Science. The trend was apparent in trees of all ages, species, and locations.

"If current trends continue, forests will become sparser over time," said lead author Phillip J. van Mantgem of the U.S. Geological Survey's Western Ecological Research Center.

The West is a brittle environment to begin with. And this sort of thing has the potential to catalyze some nasty feedback loops:

These thinner and weaker forests will become more vulnerable to wildfires and may soak up less carbon dioxide, in turn speeding up global warming, they said...

Warmer temperatures may be encouraging pine beetles and other organisms that attack trees, the researchers said. That, along with the stress of prolonged droughts, may be accelerating death rates.

Frightening. And we're still waiting for the first wisp of evidence that humanity is remotely capable of dealing with this issue...

UPDATE: Paul Rosenberg has more on the Western forests.