Down to Earth Blog

All Those Tailpipes Add Up: Last week the environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense released a report quantifying carbon dioxide emissions from all of the vehicles on the road in the United States. They separated the data by automaker and found that cars from each of the Big Three -- General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler -- emit, in total, more carbon dioxide than the nation's largest electric utility, American Electric Power (which runs 60 power plants).

The United States has 30 percent of the world's cars, but those vehicles contribute 45 percent of the global automotive carbon dioxide emissions.

Environmental Defense advocates a market-based approach to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They propose a cap-and-trade system, in which companies who keep emissions under their cap level would earn a credit, which they could sell to companies who exceeded their cap. Such a system exists under the Clean Air Act to control sulfur dioxide emissions.

Last week, I participated in the media conference call for this report. John DeCicco, author of the report and a senior fellow at Environmental Defense, said that it's "important not to pin all the blame on the car companies." He said that a problem of this magnitude (global warming) takes shared responsbility to solve: "Automakers to provide more fuel-efficient vehicles and consumers to choose them."

Some surprising numbers: 

19.6 mpg:  The average fuel economy of all vehicles on the road in the United States today.

600 gallons per year: Average amount of gasoline each car uses (that's 12 50-gallon drums)

The report compares auto emissions to power plants because it's easier to visualize pollution coming out of a smokestack instead of a tailpipe.

Environmental Defense feels that a national cap-and-trade policy is the best way to address the issue of carbon dioxide pollution. That's because such a policy would allow state and local government officials to get credit for land-use and infrastructure choices that reduce the need for people to drive.

"In the short term, most people don't have a lot of flexibility on how they get around," said DeCicco on the conference call. "The decisions that shape our transportation infrastructure and choices ... rest with state and local governments."

Steve Cochran, director of strategic communications at Environmental Defense, added that such a policy "allows us to move toward energy sources that are much cleaner." He thinks there could be a carbon amendment to an energy bill this July or September in the Senate and that a new carbon-emissions law could pass Congress within three years.

What can you do now to reduce the impact your driving has on global warming? You'll find some green driving tips here, plus learn how fuel savings add up.

If you want to contact your government officials about this issue, use AOL Government Guide to find and communicate with them.

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• #2 Comment from thechargerdude 
  7/12/06 2:06 PM | Permalink

  Quit it, your making sense. All of the Co2 on Earth makes up 0.3% of 1%, and 99% of that was here before the Kyoto treaty was announced. In Al Gores book, he ADMITS that even if we did EVERYTHING he wants, it won't make ANY measurable difference on Co2 levels. Some people with a desire to destroy the American economy can't understand that.
• #1 Comment from foxster5 
  7/7/06 8:02 PM | Permalink

  Why doesn't anyone do impartial research? PBS has done extensive programming with NOVA on the earths magnetic field and the Sun. If anyone thinks for a moment that man has a major contribution they are sadly mistaken. A volcano can produce more that a trillion cubic yards of carbon dioxide in one event. If Carbon Dioxide is the "greenhouse" gas everyone is worried about, how about the human population. Every breathe you take makes the gas as a by-product. So we really need to reduce the human population more than anything else. Why doesn't anyone talk about that. Cut the world population in half and the carbon dioxide production would be cut by more than 50%!! Also, how many people are aware of what converts carbon dioxide back into oxygen? We are developing everywhere at an alarming rate, we need to stop land development and replant as much as we can, green leafy plants are what we really need. But let's not talk about that either. Let's be real here. TOO many scientists that are truthful are being kept quiet by government and others so that the real truth is never revealed. How ironic.
  
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