The LA Times CA section had an article this morning which highlighted findings from a recent Brookings Institute report. The report found that Los Angeles had the second lowest carbon footprint amongst major US Metropolitan area’s, after Honolulu. Third was Portland, and fourth was NYC. These findings are surprising, mostly because they are most likely wrong. So maybe what surprises me most, is that a oversimplified study with absurd assumptions could even get coverage at all.
To get these rankings, what the Brookings Institute did was to add emissions attributable to residential energy use (residential energy use x state average power production carbon emissions), and added to that emissions attributable to driving on federal highways (I would assume this was: Average miles driven x average carbon emissions of average vehicle).
I’m sorry for being the party pooper on this, but this study is sooooo far off from being an accurate representation of emissions that it is laughable. So, what were some of the things this study failed to take into account in measuring LA’s carbon footprint? Here are a few:
- Industry related activities and buildings
- Commercial activities and buildings
- Local Driving
- Long Distance Driving
- The Ports!
- The extreme amounts of energy attributable to water use (nearly 20% of our states energy goes towards water related activities (LINK)
- Construction activities – (the cement industry alone creates 5% of global ghg emissions)
- Etc….
So before we all get excited and celebrate our low carbon footprint by lighting off fireworks (As Santa Monica did yesterday), let’s keep our environmental goals firmly footed in reality.
