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Thursday, May. 29, 2008

Lexington tops list of enemies to environment

'Carbon footprint' is largest in nation

Lexington, which touts itself as the Horse Capital of the World, now has a less appealing nickname:

Bigfoot.

A first-of-its-kind study of the carbon footprints of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas being released by the Brookings Institution on Thursday puts Lexington at No. 100 -- the worst of them all.

Lexington is the 91st-largest metro area, but spews the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change at a per capita rate much higher than large cities such as Los Angeles (No. 2 on the footprint list) and New York (No. 4).

This could be bad news beyond the hard-to-grasp concept of a city like Lexington contributing to the planet's warming woes. The study's authors say our sprawling growth patterns and lackadaisical attitude about flipping on a light switch could mean life in Lexington will get a lot more expensive as global concerns force up energy costs.

Cheryl Taylor, who late last year became Lexington's first commissioner of environmental quality, said she generally agreed with the study's findings, adding that the city already is taking steps to reduce its footprint.

The study, called Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America, calculated that the average Lexington resident was responsible for putting 3.46 metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere in 2005.

The average footprint for all metro areas was 2.24 tons. For Honolulu, which had the No. 1 spot, the number was 1.36.

Several of our neighbors joined us at the bottom of the list.

The Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky area was No. 98. Louisville weighed in at No. 96.

It turns out that cities east of the Mississippi River, and generally south of the Mason-Dixon line, are much more likely to spew carbon.

And Lexington is the pollution poster child.

"I think that Lexington represents many of the factors that lead to high footprints," said Marilyn A. Brown, a public policy professor at Georgia Institute of Technology who is the study's lead author.

Those factors include:

• Traffic. The sprawl of the metropolitan area leads to a lot of driving, and there is relatively little use of public transportation. Single-family homes in a Lexington subdivision use considerably more energy than, say, Baltimore rowhouses that have shared walls.

Also counting against us: All the truck and other traffic on the interstate highways that intersect here.

• High consumption of dirty energy. Lexington's hot summers and cold winters mean residents use furnaces or air conditioners almost year-round. And much of that energy comes from burning coal, a high-carbon fuel.

• Inefficient homes. Because we are used to some of the nation's cheapest electricity, building standards in Kentucky and the Southeast place minimal importance on energy efficiency. Oregon, Washington and Idaho also have relatively cheap energy, but have "a conservation ethic" that means they waste less of it, Brown said.

A city such as Los Angeles ranked well, she said, because much of its development is in a concentrated area, there are strict building standards and many people use a mass-transit rail system.

The study is considered "a partial footprint" because it concentrates on energy use related to residential buildings and transportation. More research is being done to add commercial buildings and industry later this year.

The study recommends a list of changes in federal policy, such as promoting more transportation choices, rewarding local and state governments for reducing driving instead of encouraging it, and requiring that homes for sale include the costs of heating and cooling.

There are also things state and local governments can do, Brown said, including tightening building codes to produce more efficient homes and strengthening planning and zoning regulations so less forest and farmland is converted into subdivisions. Infill should be encouraged by providing financial incentives for people who buy or build in urban areas.