Cook County (Chicago) is No. 3 CO2 emitter and Chicago is No. 9 'greenest' city in U.S. -- Huh?

(Photo of Chicago from Flickr and photographer Giant Ginkgo)

Weekly Angst: How can Chicago/Cook County be one of the top carbon polluters in the country and at the same time Chicago be one of the “greenest” cities? That’s what two recent studies say.

The Vulcan Project, out of Purdue, released last week the names of the Top 20 carbon polluting counties, based on 3 years of research. The data are a bit old but Vulcan says it will soon update the findings.

Top 10 carbon emitters, in millions of tons in 2002
1. Harris County (Houston) 18.6
2. Los Angeles County (LA) 18.6
3. Cook (Chicago) 13.2
4. Cuyahoga (Cleveland) 11.1
5. Wayne (Detroit) 8.3
6. San Juan, N.M. 8.2
7. Santa Clare (San Jose) 8.0
8. Jefferson, Ala. (Birmingham) 8.0
9. Wilcox, Ala. (Camden) 7.6
10. E. Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge) 7.3

Suffolk County in metro New York City is 19th.

Houston is tops largely because of its oil and natural gas plants, and LA ranks high because of its freeways, the study says. The authors note blame cannot necessarily be attributed to the source because, for instance, New Mexico provides so much electricity to Southern California and Nevada. (Chicago, BTW, is home to the filthy Fisk and Crawford coal-fired plants that send their electricity out of state.)

The Vulcan Project, the work of researchers at Purdue, Colorado State and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, is funded by NOAA and the Department of Energy. It will now be able to track progress in cutting carbon emissions in the U.S. and is starting work in Canada and Mexico in order to cover all North America.

To see a really cool YouTube video of where emissions come from, go to the Vulcan home page and scroll down. You can also read about #11-20.


The other study – Top 50 greenest cities
Popular Science released a list in February naming the 50 greenest cities, based on electricity, transportation, green buildings, recycling and views of residents. Their data came from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Geographic Society’s Green Guide.

Top 10 green cities
1. Portland, Ore.
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Oakland, Calif.
5. Eugene, Ore.
6. Cambridge, Mass.
7. Berkeley, Calif.
8. Seattle
9. Chicago
10.Austin
Interesting, how many are university towns.

To see the other 40 and read how each city scored on a point system, go to the PopSci Web site.

So, what about Chicago?
Chicago won high points for its ample green space – 12,000 acres of parks and waterfront. It also got attention for being among the first cities to try cogeneration, a system that produces electricity and heat together so the heat doesn’t escape. It’s considered twice as efficient as separating the two. The Museum of Science and Industry uses the system, as do several other buildings. Chicago also got high marks for public transit. And a number of buildings have the highest, platinum energy efficiency rating from the U.S. Green Buildings Council LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

Clearly, the cities in each list were chosen on different criteria and cover different areas (city versus county). Which may explain how Chicago can be such a global warming dichotomy. Chicago has its out-dated Fisk and Crawford power plants spewing C02 and God knows what else, while a major portion of the city's power comes from nuclear. Its blue-bag recycling program is pure trash, and efforts to expand a new and much better cart system have been slowed by budget woes. But there are lots of parks, and the buses (though old) and EL pretty well cover the city, reducing the number of cars. Also there’s been a push to get buildings certified LEED.

Chicago, which prides itself on being a “green city,” is about to release its long-overdue Climate Action Plan. We’ll know a lot more about the true state of affairs when we see it.

(Sources: The Daily Green, Reuters, Vulcan Project, Popsci.com)