Daily Score Blog

As you may have noticed, we love maps, especially interactive ones. I just came across a nifty new little tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technologies that shows annual spending per household on gasoline in 52 major metropolitan throughout the US:

The maps provide data for the years 2000 and 2008, enabling comparisons for the eight-year period between annual household gasoline expenses, monthly household transportation expenses (including vehicle purchase price, insurance and maintenance) and monthly household transportation expenditures as a percent of income. Across the 52 metro areas studied, residents spent a combined $107.4 billion more on gasoline in 2008 than in 2000, an average increase regionally of 155%.

As we might expect, the difference between walk- and transit-friendly urban areas and car-friendly suburbs is staggering. City-dwellers spend $2,100 less per year, on average, than out-ring suburbs. A  household in NW Portland averages $0-$1,600 per on gasoline, whereas a household in a suburb like Lake Oswego, OR spends $3,000 to $3,800. The message? We're spending a far greater percentage of our income in 2008 on transportation than we were in 2000 – and gas prices are hurting those of us with fewer choices about how to get around far more than the city dwellers who have the freedom to walk or bike or take the bus.

I've got to give USA Today some credit:  they know how to make eye-catching graphics.  Take, for example, the nice interactive illustration they posted recently, detailing the expected cutbacks in the airline industry across the US.  High fuel costs and a weak economy are forcing air carriers to pare both the number and the seating capacity of the planes they're planning to send aloft -- and the interactive map shows exactly where, and how, those cutbacks are expected, through next October.  The snippet to the right doesn't do the real graphic justice -- so check out the original.  It's nifty.

Interestingly, Washington is one of only 8 states with a projected increase in seated airplane capacity. But it's an anemic gain of just 1 percent.  USA Today projects a 5 percent drop in oregon, and an 8 percent decline in Idaho.  But Hawaii is facing a 27 percent decline in air travel -- a significant blow to the islands' tourist economy.

High oil costs sure change everything, don't they?

"Staycation...a portmanteau that combines “stay” and “vacation” and refers to a holiday that takes place either at or near home."

With gas well above $4 per gallon this summer, and with airlines raising prices and canceling flights because of high fuel costs, it's not too surprising to find a word like "staycation" gaining a toehold in the North American lexicon.  Google now finds nearly 200,000 web pages that use the word -- most of them added within the last few months, if my casual browsing is any indicator.

But even back when fuel wasn't so pricey, some of my favorite vacations were spent within a 50 mile radius of home.  It's easy to forget how many parks, museums, nature walks, boat rides, and all-around fun can be found close to where you live -- which makes a staycation a perfect opportunity to reconnect  yourself to your home town.

So I'm curious:  is anyone out there planning a staycation this year?  Where are you, and what do you plan on doing?

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user matildaben, distributed under a Creative Commons license.]

The director of the US Congressional Budget Office talks sense about how to make climate policy fair to low- and middle-income consumers.  They've got a long version (pdf) and a short version on their blog.

If you care about this issue at all, you really should read these.  Seriously.

Over at Gristmill, blogger JMG takes up my quixotic challenge to rid the world of compressed-chemical dusters. They're basically greenhouse gas atom-bombs -- which I described in a pair of posts here and here -- and they should be banned immediately.

As far as I know, there's no government action to outlaw the little bastards, but I do think there's hope. In fact, this is a perfect time for the private sector to take the lead. Now if only there were some large-volume progressive-minded retailer looking to burnish its green credentials... Maybe a big wholesaler headquartered in the Northwest... like in the Seattle suburbs...

(Cough, Costco, cough.)

Did you say Costco? Hey, great idea!

Now, I'd rather have them banned outright, but incremental steps are welcome too. One good step would be for Costco to simply stop purchasing cannisters with HFC-134a, substituting cannisters with HFC-152a, which does exactly the same thing with about one-tenth the climate impact. Another good step would be to stop using HFC cannisters and instead sell CO-2 cannisters, which are drastically less harmful. A purchasing decision by an outlet as big as Costco can have a meaningful impact all the way back up the supply chain.

And then Costco should do a little trumpeting of it's actions: make a big deal about banning the greenhouse gas bombs. That would have the effect of both raising consumer awareness and raising the bar for competitors.

If you want to contact Costco, the info is at the end of JMG's post. But please be nice about it, fergoshsakes. Retailers are almost certainly unaware of the cannisters' greenhouse gas contents.

This isn't exactly a balanced article -- but since its biases match mine, it's great!  Portland Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder is proposing a congestion charge for the Columbia River Crossing:

Burkholder believes congestion pricing for some busy roads could manage roads for highest productivity; cut pollution, fuel use, CO2 and congestion; and generate revenue for public transportation and high-performance transportation infrastructure and services.

I think that congestion pricing should be on the table, regardless of whether the Columbia River Crossing is rebuilt.  So it's heartening to see the idea gaining currency.

A few years back, I had a fair amount of skepticism about whether buying a hybrid car was really and truly the best buy for the climate.

My argument at the time: hybrids came at a pretty steep price premium.  A low-end Prius cost many thousands of dollars more than a comparable Corolla.  I ran the numbers, and decided that a green-minded consumer who just wanted a new set of wheels would probably be better off buying a cheaper car that got decent-but-not-awesome mileage, and investing some of the savings in something even more effective at reducing emissions: new insulation, say, or super-efficient appliances and furnaces.  Then both you and the planet might come out ahead.

But a few months back, I basically abandoned that line of thought.  What changed?  Mostly gas prices.  As the cost of fuel has risen above $4/gallon, the cost savings from a gas-sipping car have risen in tandem.  Plus, hybrids are proving that they maintain their value very well; maintainance costs are low, and worries about expensive battery replacements are subsiding.  Car rating service Intellichoice.com concluded that the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid were the cheapest cars of their class available, considering the total cost of ownership over 5 years.   So if hybrids are the best buys in their own right, the climate benefits are just gravy.

But now, I see that Edmunds.com has come to the opposite conclusion, and that hybrids aren't even close to being the cheapest cars on the lot.  The Prius, according to Edmunds, clocks in at #26 -- not terrible, really, but not stellar either.   And the Edmunds report even assumes that gas rises to $5 per gallon. 

And apparently Consumer Reports has yet another take; they rated the Prius as the third most economical new car, behind 2 versions of the Honda Fit.  Of course, Consumer Reports limits their consideration to cars that meet their other criteria for quality and safety. (See here for a list of Edmunds & Consumer Reports top 10 most economical cars).  Still, by their reckoning, hybrids fare pretty well.

If I dove into the numbers, I might figure out what's going on here.  Are there different assumptions about mileage, or maintenance costs, or financing? Hard to tell.  But for the moment, I'll consider the issue unsettled.  At current and or/foreseeable gas prices, and factoring in the total cost of ownership, hybrids are either the very cheapest cars to buy; close to the cheapest; or not too shabby, all things considered.  Your mileage may vary.

It's difficult to illustrate the opportunities that are available now on our roads. We don't need big expensive building projects, just smarter systems that protect both our pocketbooks and our natural resources.

It's fairly easy to make the case analytically, but it often doesn't sink in. To find that intuitive hook, I was planning an interpretive modern dance about traffic congestion. But at the last minute, we were all saved from what would surely have been an uncomfortable experience. Instead, I give you Sightline's new 44 second video on fixing our roadways:

Big thanks to Don Baker and Aldon Baker.

My patience is wearing thin. Yesterday, to some fanfare, the EIA released a bullish forecast predicting big demand for fossil fuels. Something seemed fishy, but I couldn't put my finger on it until I saw the brand-new -- just revised -- projections of gasoline prices:

No, honestly, this is the US government's official projection -- aka "the reference case" -- for gasoline prices, shown here in 2006 dollars. In fact, it's so official that it comes under this banner: "The tables presented here summarizes [sic] the revised early release version of the AEO2008 reference case and replaces the early release version that was initially posted in December 2007."

But as anyone not living under a rock is aware, the average retail price of gasoline is currently above $4 per gallon (it's $4.13 nationally, to be precise). This leads me to one of two conclusions. Either a) the poor researchers at the Department of Energy actually do live under a rock; or b) the EIA is doing what can only be described as "a heckuva job."

Policymakers are looking to economic modelers to help them understand some of the implications of greenhouse gas cap-and-trade policies.  And most of the models used for the purpose are of a class called "Comptuable General Equilibrium" models, or CGE models.  Based largely on the thoughts of a couple of academic economists (Prof. Peter Dorman among them), we've been pretty skeptical of the predictive value of CGE modeling. 

But our critiques have been tame:  UCLA prof. Matthew Kahn really, really doesn't like CGE models:

To be honest, these CGE models are crap. These black box models must take a strong stand on dozens of behavioral responses where in each of these cases we don't really know what the elasticity is. Feed in 20 bad estimates and you won't get back a great tasting meal...

The CGE crew's model isn't science, it is magic and it makes economists look bad.

Aw, quit being such a shrinking violet, Prof. Kahn!

The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives has a new report on the ecological footprint of Canadians that's worth at least a quick glance.

For those who aren't familiar with the concept, the "ecological footprint" is a measure of the impact of a wide range of human activities -- energy, food, clothing, shelter, you name it -- put in terms of a common unit:  the number of acres of global land required to produce (or recover from) the impacts of those activities.  The methodology lets us compare, say, the lifestyle of a Northwesterner with a Norwegian or a Nigerian, on more-or-less equal footing.  Unsurprisingly, folks in industrialized countries -- those of us can afford cars, big houses, lots of stuff, and food that's high on the food chain -- have a relatively large "footprint." 

What's most interesting about the CCPA study is that it looked at the ecological footprint of Canadians at different income levels (see the chart).  The trend isn't too surprising:  the folks at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder have a smaller footprint than those towards the top.  What is a bit unexpected, though, is the big jump in the footprint of the richest decile.  Apparently, a high-income lifestyle really does result in a significantly larger impact on the planet.

Frequently, we hear that only wealthy nations are able to fix environmental problems.  If you're just scraping by, there's no way you'll bother to protect parks, or limit pollution; you've got bigger fish to fry.  This argument is often trotted out to support rapid economic growth as a way of protecting the planet.  (For the geeks out there -- the concept that environmental impacts decline as the economy grows is called "the environmental Kuznets curve.")

But to the extent that ecological footprint measures are an accurate gauge of environmental impact, the "environmental Kuznets curve" is something approaching bunk. Wealthier nations tend to have higher footprints per capita, as do wealthier individuals within a nation.  Economic growth, by itself, just won't save the planet.  The key, as always, is to make sure the right sorts of things are growing -- something that the market, all by itself, simply doesn't do.

I've said it before; I'll say it again: Strong bi-partisan leadership in California puts state residents ahead of the public opinion curve when it comes to climate policy. It makes you wonder what actions the rest of the country would get behind if Cali-style forward-thinking was coming as loud and as clear from more leaders on the national stage.

A new poll, released just as the California Air Resources Board gears up to unveil the most aggressive energy policies to date to reduce global warming pollution (California's AB 32: Global Warming Solutions Act), including Americans first cap on greenhouse gas emissions, shows broad public understanding that fixing climate change goes hand in hand with energy stability and economic prosperity. David Metz, polling firm Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin & Associates Senior Vice President said, "From a pollster's point of view, these numbers are definitive - California voters want strong state action to address global warming."

Indeed. The policy package, aimed to transform the state's energy profile and cut pollution, gets 79 percent support among state voters. A solid 58 percent say they support the climate policies even if they increase the cost of gas, electricity and some consumer goods. (Party lines haven't been entirely obliterated; that's 71 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents and 37 percent of Republicans.)

More highlights from the survey:

Germany's been a global leader in energy policy for some time now.  (For what it's worth, we picked Germany as the "model" for the Cascadia Scorecard's energy indicator because it was doing such a bang-up job with its energy policy.)

And if anything, it looks like their efforts to reduce emissions are picking up steam:

German use of oil, gas and coal in 2007 fell by 5.6 per cent compared with 2006, according to a new report from [oil company] BP...

The report emerged as the German government passed a new round of environmental laws designed to ensure the country meets ambitious carbon dioxide reduction targets.

I took a look at the BP Statistical Review of World Energy -- and the news report is correct: Germany has made some impressive strides in reducing energy consumption, not just recently, but over the course of a decade.  The graph to the right shows oil consumption per person -- which has fallen by 18 percent since 1997.

File this in the "Yes, sane energy policy is possible" file.

The World Resources Institute has a geekalicious image (see page 15 of this pdf) that shows how human activities contribute to global warming.  Click on the image below to get a legible, full-sized version.

The most interesting bit, to me, is the massive contribution of agriculture and land use -- the green and purple areas on the bottom left -- to global climate change. Worldwide, the net impacts of land use are far more significant than global transportation emissions.

But in the Northwest, the situation is reversed. At the moment, forests in this part of the world appear to be carbon sinks, and transportation is far and away the largest single source of climate warming emissions. So just because transportation isn't the biggest deal globally, it's still where state and regional policymakers should focus their attention.

[Thanks to Clayton O'Brien-Smith for the tip.]

Update:  In comments, milan points out original graphic on WRI's website:  small version, large version.  If you're planning on using some version of this graphic for your own purposes, I'd use the ones from WRI, since they've got the WRI logo on them already.  I just copied the ones above out of their pdf, so they're not quite as pretty.

 Richard Larrick and Jack Soll of Duke University in the US say that a simple switch from expressing a car's fuel efficiency in miles per gallon (mpg) to gallons per 100 miles makes it much easier for people to assess how much money they could save on fuel.

We always love to see our ideas crop up in new places, especially when its highly topical in light of $4/gallon gas.  So naturally I was excited when I came across an article in yesterday's New Scientist that reinforces something we've been writing about for a while now.

The article goes on to reiterate that if we want to get serious about immediately cutting our carbon emissions, we need to focus on improving gas guzzlers instead of searching for a 100 mpg super-car