Going Green

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Carbon: For Your Plate, Your Car, and Your Life

I love this headline:

Texas is biggest carbon polluter


By APRIL CASTRO, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Texas - Everything's big in Texas — big pickup trucks, big SUVs and the state's big carbon footprint, too.

Texans' fondness for large, manly vehicles has helped make the Lone Star State the biggest carbon polluter in the nation.

The headquarters state of America's oil industry spewed 670 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2003, enough that Texas would rank seventh in the world if it were its own country, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The amount is more than that of California and Pennsylvania — the second- and third-ranking states — combined.

A multitude of factors contribute to the carbon output, among them...(complete article here).

The article fails to mention that Texas is #1 in wind-generated electricity, was the only state with cooler-than-average temperatures during 2007, provides a big chunk of the oil and gas (and refined gasoline as well as petroleum-derived chemicals) for the rest of the nation, and in spite of the author's contention otherwise, many of the pickup trucks and SUV's are in rural areas that need the capacity for hauling things like oilfield equipment so the rest of the country can keep using petroleum products, seed and fertilizer to plant cotton, wheat, soybeans, grain sorghum, and other crops that keep folks fed and clothed, and that pull trailers of livestock that usually provide the main course for their meals. Narrow minds with narrow agendas often fail to see the big picture.

1 comment:

bigwhitehat said...

It also fails to mention just how big Texas is. We are the second most populous state. We are the busiest state with regards to commerce. Hmmm...... I wonder how that math works out.

The thing that irks me most though is this insistence that CO2 is a pollutant.