Texas Sized Polluter

I found a very interesting and appalling article today that I would like to share with y'all. Here are a few highlights:

"Were the Lonestar State to secede from the union it would be the world's eighth-largest emitter of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, just behind Canada, with 630 million metric tons spewed into the atmosphere in 2005, according to new figures released this week by the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration...

As the nation's leading producer of energy, and with more cattle and oil refineries than any other state, it is essentially America's power plant, gas pump and beef basket. Yes, all those cows play a part. While many environmentalists focus on the methane (another greenhouse gas) produced by cows, the raising of cattle also contributes to CO2 emissions (the burning of fuel to transport cattle and meat, etc.). A study released last summer by Japanese scientists showed that production of just 1 kilogram of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home...

But it's not just industry and agriculture that give Texas such an outsize carbon footprint. Texans epitomize America's penchant for overconsumption, so much so that they've even coined their own phrase for superlarge portions: Texas-sized. The state's 23.5 million residents use nearly 3,000 more kilowatt-hours of electricity every year than the average American and a higher percentage of them drive large, gas-guzzling vehicles. Of the 20 million registered vehicles in Texas, one in four is a pickup truck. Of the 245 million vehicles registered in the United States, only 16 percent are pickups, according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Last year light trucks made up 61 percent of all new vehicles (both personal and commercial) sold in Texas, compared to just over half of total vehicle sales in the country.

Nearly a third of Texas's carbon emissions come from transportation. With so much wide-open space, Texas hasn't needed the kind of urban planning that promotes density. Rather, it is a state of far-flung towns and cities, connected by highways and with practically no mass transit. Air quality has suffered as a result; by some estimates more than half of all Texans live in areas where the air is unsafe to breathe, as defined by the EPA's Clean Air Act. "

If you'd like to read more, check it out in this Newsweek Article. God bless Texas.