Reduce Global Warming: Live in Cities
compiled by David Barth, June 16, 2008
From Wired, June 2008, page 158.
Living and working in the same city reduces commute time and the resulting automobile pollution. Car exhaust adds 1.9
billion tons of carbon each year, more than that produced by India, Japan, or Russia.
Manhattan is one of the "greenest" large cities in the U.S. An Manhattan resident's carbon footprint is 30 percent
smaller than the average American's because 65 percent of that city's population does not use an automobile to get to
work, large apartment buildings are the most efficient buildings to heat and cool, and there is a lower number of
lawn mowers per capita than in most other cities.
If one person member of an average household ceases driving to work and takes mass transit instead, the CO2 generated
by that household will drop by 30 percent.
There are 40 million lawn mowers in the U.S., and in one hour each of them generates the same amount of pollutants as
11 automobiles.