EarthLab's List of Top Green U.S. Cities for 2007

[Don B.]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

age probably does play a role in this for some people here, but i didn't score in the bottom of the list because i'm some "17 year old living in his mom's garage". i'm a 31 year old man with a life, a career, a mortgage, and debt, and i scored low because of the choices i have made in my life to lessen my impact on the environment. some of those choices entail ditching the car and living in a small centrally located downtown condo so that my mobility needs are met by my feet, my bike, and public transit. if i wanted to, i could afford to buy a much larger home for myself out in the boondocks and buy a car and drive 30 miles a day each way to get to work, but i CHOOSE not to do those things because of the priorities i have set out for my life, not because i'm some dumb kid who hasn't yet achieved anything in life.

being a grown-up is no excuse for being irresponsibly wasteful.

Thanks for your reply. You are also single, which makes a difference in the choices you make in life.

Thanks for totally ignoring my comment:

"This isn't to say that we can't do a better job of conserving, but the disparities in the list don't reflect where we are at in our lives."

--don

[Dr Nevergold]

What!? Chicago is above Portland?? Dang.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Attrill

The thing to look at is the impact the water drawn out from a river has on the environment. In a drier environment you will almost always see a huge impact on water being rmoved from a watershed. The Colorado river is a perfect example of a destroyed ecosystem:

Not very green, literally. There is an abundance of water in the Hudson and Delaware, and the massive amounts NY takes out doesn't have the nearly the same impact a smaller amount does in a drier climate.

As I've said before though, look at the whole picture. The construction of New York led to the wholesale destruction of ALL wildlife on the island and many surrounding areas as well. I'm not defending Las Vegas, just trying to point out that there are many factors involved. Simply because NYC is dense and close to water doesn't negate the massive amounts of energy needed to keep the residents cool in summer, warm in winter, and ship billions of pounds of food into the area. We were originally comparing LA and NYC - and I think the differences in "greenness" are not nearly as evident as they first may seem.

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by heckles

What!? Chicago is above Portland?? Dang.

Portland's automobile mode share is higher.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Don B.

Thanks for totally ignoring my comment:

"This isn't to say that we can't do a better job of conserving, but the disparities in the list don't reflect where we are at in our lives."

--don

here's the start of the paragraph i quoted from you:

"I suspect these differences, while partly related to choices we make in our lives, are largely due to the vast differences in age."

in my case, it is not largely due to my vast difference in age from you, it is ENTIRELY related to the choices i have made in my life. i was taking strong exception to your premise that that older or more "grown-up" a person is, the more automatic it is that they will score higher on this test. i would agree that for most americans that is probably true, but one can still choose to be environmentally responsible if they want it to be a priority in their life regardless of their age or place in life.

it is about choices. you have chosen to live a more environmentally unfriendly lifestyle than i have, that's great, but don't pretend that some unseen force put a gun to your head and made you make the choices you've made in your life simply because you've gotten older and are at a certain place in your life.

[Don B.]

^ Then we must agree to disagree. I'm certain there is a positive correlation between age and pollution quantity, because as people get older, they tend to accumulate assets and wealth (bigger homes, nicer cars, etc). I'm also convinced that single people use up less resources than married or coupled people, as well as certain other criteria (liberals versus conservatives, communists versus libertarians, etc). Why? Because it simply makes sense.

The average age on this forum is somewhere in the low to mid 20s. Heck, when I was 22 and single, I lived in an unheated, un-air conditioned 400 square foot room in the back of my mom's garage in Kansas City. My carbon footprint would have been tiny. I didn't fly on planes or travel on road trips, I worked and used mass transit and the bicycle to get around.

Whether you wish to admit this is true or not, the fact remains that my argument is logical and you do admit that for most Americans, it is true. That's my only point. You happen to be an outlier, but aside from earning a gold star, in the greater scheme of things it doesn't really matter what one person chooses to do or not do. It does matter when you aggregate those actions to millions of people.

--don

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Don B.

^ Then we must agree to disagree.

perhaps, but i think you have to admit that getting older or being more "grown-up" does not automatically mean that a person's carbon score will go up, it still comes down to the choices we make. do the vast majority of americans make really stupid and greedy choices as they go through life? yeah, no shit sherlock, but just because "most people are doing it" does not justify the waste of modern american excess. a person's carbon score is based on their choices, not their age, and the fact that there is a correlation between a person's age and a higher carbon score simply means that, on average, older people make more bad choices in an environmental context.

it doesn't have to be that way though, people can live differently and change the world if they want it badly enough. it's all about will and choices, not age. people will either start following the lead of people like me or our species dies. in my heart of hearts, i think our species is totally fucked long-term (from my experiences homo-sapiens are simply too greedy for a finite earth), but that doesn't mean that i'm not gonna at least try and do my best to avoid the impending disaster.

[Abner]

The best way to dispel the notion that aging and maturing automatically requires a person to increase their carbon emissions is to go to one of the many cities in this country where there are large populations of "grown-ups" who take transit, eat responsibly, and choose to live in dense neighborhoods. The idea that being a "real person" means you have to have more than one car per person and a 3000+ square foot home for two (or even four) people is pure garbage. It's nothing but a convenient excuse for not particularly caring about the issue enough to tolerate some level of discomfort.

It is of course true that carbon emissions rise as personal income rises (unlike other pollutants, this relationship is not known to turn downward at any income level), which might partially explain why Chicago edged out New York.

I doubt Chicago has much advantage over New York in terms of being near food supplies. The vast majority of the food people eat in this country is either imported from South America or bounced around all over the country before being shipped to its final destination; much of our food production comes from California and other Western states, anyway. It's a matter of choice: Chicago would only have an advantage in food sources if people here chose to source their food locally.

I noticed that the most conspicuously missing question on the test is "How often do you eat meat?" It's an unpleasant fact that how you eat matters just as much as your mode of transportation; I suspect that the creators of the calculator left it off simply to pacify people, knowing that young people are much more likely to adjust their transportation habits (which are helped along by their lifestyle preferences) than their eating habits.

[10023]

I'm a bit embarrassed that I'm so high, being a car-free Manhattanite. Maybe I should try to retake it and say that I don't fly all the time, and see what that does. It's mostly business travel so I don't think I should be held accountable for that as a lifestyle choice.

Then again, some other things I think could distort the results:

- They ask you how much you spend on your electric bill, not how many kilowatt hours you consume. Granted this is an easier question to answer, but electricity doesn't cost the same everywhere. Plus, it varies dramatically for those of us who live in places with seasons.

- Does it fully take into account how many people are in your household? An electric bill of $X for a household of 4 or roommates is much different than the same amount for just one person.

- I didn't check the box for a manual or electric lawnmower. I can't answer differently, because I don't use either to mow the patch of concrete on my terrace. Nor do I compost.






From Abner:
I doubt Chicago has much advantage over New York in terms of being near food supplies. The vast majority of the food people eat in this country is either imported from South America or bounced around all over the country before being shipped to its final destination; much of our food production comes from California and other Western states, anyway. It's a matter of choice: Chicago would only have an advantage in food sources if people here chose to source their food locally.

I disagree. First, if food is coming from the West Coast, Chicago is closer than New York. Second, most of the nation's calories come from the Plains and Midwest, and most of the manufacturing is there as well. I'd say the carbon cost advantages of being in the Midwest are even greater if someone doesn't source their food locally, because the big conglomerates (Kraft, Sara Lee, Kellogg, General Mills, ConAgra, Cargill, ADM, etc) are all in the Midwest.

And Manhattan in particular has additional energy requirements inherent in just getting stuff onto the island, which is part of why everything is so expensive.

[10023]

Can I put in for an amendment to the scoring table?

I emailed my roommate to ask what our electric bill averages over the year (rather than the summer months which I remember), and adjusted the thermostat answer (I had said 64 degrees, which is where it is right now in winter, but it's higher in the summer and the website probably figures that 64 means blasting the AC). And then I stripped down air travel to include personal flights only, rather than business trips.

New score: 193 (3.3)

Huge difference vs. the 318 I got before. The flying must be responsible for close to 100 points with this thing... that's unbelievable.

[JManc]

these types of tests try to shame anyone not living the ideal eco-lifestyle...which is pretty unrealistic in modern society.

[PhxSprawler]

Originally Posted by 10023

Can I put in for an amendment to the scoring table?

I emailed my roommate to ask what our electric bill averages over the year (rather than the summer months which I remember), and adjusted the thermostat answer (I had said 64 degrees, which is where it is right now in winter, but it's higher in the summer and the website probably figures that 64 means blasting the AC). And then I stripped down air travel to include personal flights only, rather than business trips.

New score: 193 (3.3)

Huge difference vs. the 318 I got before. The flying must be responsible for close to 100 points with this thing... that's unbelievable.

I went down to 342 getting rid of my busienss travel (I was actually at 423, not 453), and after getting rid of my housemate's car and being more honest about days I walk to work (since my office is next door over from my bedroom), my score dropped to 278.

Either way, I know I am doing a lot to reduce my footprint, and know that I could do a lot more!

I conserve water and have spent thousands to reduce my energy consumption, but there is no freakin way I will reduce my personal airplane travel.

Investing in clean-burning fuel sources is a much more efficient means of reducing our footprint anyway, IMO.

[10023]

The fact is that asking how often you fly is sort of irrelevant. There simply isn't a more environmentally friendly alternative, other than to simply not see your friends and family or take vacations, or have a job that requires travel. And unless you're a militant tree-hugger, people just aren't going to do any of that.

And beyond that, I think this particular test vastly overstates the incremental impact that an individual's flying habits have.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by 10023

I disagree. First, if food is coming from the West Coast, Chicago is closer than New York. Second, most of the nation's calories come from the Plains and Midwest, and most of the manufacturing is there as well. I'd say the carbon cost advantages of being in the Midwest are even greater if someone doesn't source their food locally, because the big conglomerates (Kraft, Sara Lee, Kellogg, General Mills, ConAgra, Cargill, ADM, etc) are all in the Midwest.

This would be an interesting point to figure out. Of course most of the calories consumed come from the Midwest, but grain also fits more cleanly into shipping containers (whether they be truck, train, box, whatever) than do fresh fruit, veggies, or nuts - and doesn't need nearly the amount of care (or energy) to ship. You don't have to refrigerate wheat. Since most people don't live off of grain alone, you can assume that any place that doesn't have to import as many fresh fruits, etc (like California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, and a handful of other states) would have a substantial advantage.

Side note - All of those conglomerates might be based in the Midwest, but there is plenty of wheat (and other grains) grown in other states. There are General Mills plants all over the place in Idaho and Washington state, for example.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by 10023

The fact is that asking how often you fly is sort of irrelevant. There simply isn't a more environmentally friendly alternative, other than to simply not see your friends and family or take vacations, or have a job that requires travel. And unless you're a militant tree-hugger, people just aren't going to do any of that.

And beyond that, I think this particular test vastly overstates the incremental impact that an individual's flying habits have.

Very true.

I think that we all know how much worse air travel is per passenger mile than train (or even car), but in this country there is no viable alternative. My job requires extensive travel as well, but I live car-free and haven't used heat/AC in over two years. I really can't imagine being more green than I am, given the options we have in the US.

[10023]

What exactly would be the green alternative, anywhere? New York to Southampton on the QE2? I highly doubt that's any more efficient than a transatlantic flight.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by 10023

What exactly would be the green alternative, anywhere? New York to Southampton on the QE2? I highly doubt that's any more efficient than a transatlantic flight.

a sailboat would probably be the best green alternative, though it'd take you a good bit of time to get there.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

a sailboat would probably be the best green alternative, though it'd take you a good bit of time to get there.

I'm sure PCBs are used in modern sailboat construction. Ya gotta swim (naked).

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Attrill

I'm sure PCBs are used in modern sailboat construction. Ya gotta swim (naked).

use one of them old school square-rigged wooden clipper ships. they were pretty damn fast in their day, and nary a PCB in sight.

[Alliance]

deforestation?