Thursday, January 27, 2011

Big cities are not always the biggest polluters.


Michelle Yazvac
1/27/11
Blog #2

You would think that larger cities would emit more toxins into the air because of larger populations however, it's just the opposite in this article. Public transportation helps largely with reducing the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. With larger populations in bigger cities, a useful public transportation system helps lower that percentage and we can thank "the urban dwellers." Researchers took 100 cities from 30 nations and analyzed the date of which ones polluted the most and ironically enough it was, for example, Denver that had double the amount of emissions than a larger city like New York where there are 8 million people.  Also higher than the cities of Paris, Athens and Shanghai! How can this be? It’s because these cities don’t depend on the automobile as much as suburban cities do. 
            A rising problem going on around the world is depletion of the ozone and every day people of high-ranking say things must be done about it. Recently Obama in the State of the Union announced that he would like to develop high-speed railway systems within our country. When places such as Africa, Latin America and cities in Asia were researched they too have low carbon emissions and we can conclude that this is because of the lack of industry in places like these as well as the use of vehicles. "’This paper reminds us that it is the world's wealthiest cities and their wealthiest inhabitants that cause unsustainable levels of greenhouse gas emissions, not cities in general, said editor David Satterthwaite.’” What’s thought of as most convenient means of transportation depends on the way a city is laid out. We can’t change the way how sprawled out cities are around the world that don’t have useful public transportation, but new ideas of getting around that do not harm the environment can be thought of. It’s every day choices that people make that should be considered.


http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-26-big-cities-are-not-always-the-biggest-polluters

No comments: