Greenest States of America
July 20th, 2007
Here’s a nice compilation of carbon (per-capita and total) emissions by state. It’s interesting to see some of the outliers – for example, South Dakota vs. North Dakota. One question in my mind is – do states with large cities have better per-capita scores because of public transportation and shared carbon costs (for example, heating in an apartment building), or would those be offset anyways by more industry? What is the greatest factor towards lowering carbon emissions, policy or land-use?
Scroll down to see the map. Link: http://www.eredux.com/states/
Popularity: 8% [?]
July 20th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I like the idea, but I think it’s too simplistic and more misleading than anything else. Although it may be accurate, the metrics and comparisons used are worse than worthless, they’re downright dangerous. The last time I checked, as a Colorado citizen I do not go out every day and produce all 21 tons alloted to me by myself, so it’s unclear what I should be doing.
If you were to start forming public policy on this, then Wyoming is the #1 offender and should immediately deserve all our attention. Nevermind that the skies are crystal clear over Cheyenne, unlike say, LA… oh wait? Didn’t CA rank really green? Let’s not worry about them.
What would make the difference here is if the information represented was something like average Carbon Generated/Person. That way, it would be easy to see states where people are directly producing more or less carbon (as you said jeff, by using public transportation, etc). Or, on the flip side, you could establish the Carbon Output/Watts Generated for each state- that’d be a clear way to see which states have the cleanest or meanest power plants.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Dave brings up a really good point. It is always the responsibility to the mapmaker to ensure that they are not “lying with maps”.
Take this map of the 2004 election you see on a lot of “This is Bush Country” t-shirts, for instance: http://img113.exs.cx/img113/4430/bushpopvote.jpg . Looking at this map, you’d think Alaska is the most important state to win since it represents the largest red shape, and you would have never have guessed California went democratic since the majority of the land is colored red. Because the size of state’s counties do not directly correlate with the number of people / votes, this map is in fact very misleading and not very useful.
Also, with all the neat new technology out there, let’s bring these maps into the 21st century people!
For instance, this animated flash map on global carbon emissions is a far more effective, both in divorcing amount of emissions from area of land as well as in subtly conveying the immediacy of the issue: http://www.vestaldesign.com/blog/2006/11/breathing-data.html