In millions of metric tons:
Texas: 688
California: 394
Pennsylvania: 275
Ohio: 262
Florida: 256
Illinois, Indiana, and New York come next. I didn’t know that Texas would rank so high on the list. And it’s interesting that #3, 4, and 5 are among the major swing states in many presidential elections. That’s not good news for a lot of reform ideas.
This information is from the fun to browse The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009, a Colombia/SSRC book.
Texas has a lot of refineries, which emit a lot of CO2, and drilling sites, which wouldn’t surprise me if they emit a lot of CO2. It’s also a huge and relatively spread-out state, which means a lot of driving.
“That’s not good news for a lot of reform ideas.”
I don’t know, I think that depends upon whether or not the emissions come from industry or from consumers, and whether or not voters know it – people have to first equate themselves with the those who will be affected by CO2 reform policies before they can be annoyed about it. I suspect that all most people know is that the drive to and from work has gotten a lot more expensive lately.
And Texans use lots of air conditioning. For that reason, I’m surprised Florida is so low on the list.
States ranked by population (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population)
California 36.5K
Texas 23.9K
New York 19.2K
Florida 18.2K
Illinois 12.8K
Pennsylv. 12.4K
Ohio 11.4K
Indiana is way down at #15 with 6.3K people and yet they’re #7 in terms of carbon emissions. I had no idea the Indy 500 produced that much carbon.
And it’s interesting that #3, 4, and 5 are among the major swing states in many presidential elections. That’s not good news for a lot of reform ideas.
Aww, those pesky voters getting in the way of Prof. Cowen’s plans for saving the planet through higher taxes and regulations. Is there an emoticon to denote a violin playing?
California is a good example that if you want to drive down per capita emissions, you should outsource your power generation and drive out your manufacturing. Then, you look nice and eco-friendly.
If we could just put all our coal plants in Mexico and outsource all business activity, the US could do the same…
Foobarista
USA is already doing that.
The government is selling nuclear technology to India and nuclear fuel to Rusia. So they will lower theirs co2 emmisions .Also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008073102824.html
a student of economics,
Surprising that folks who are supposed to be environmentally aware assert that California’s policy of exporting pollution to other states provides a good example of effective environmental policy.
California’s Energy Colonialism
TJIT.
Thanks for the interesting link. It clearly is trying hard to refute California’s energy efficiency, and makes a few good points about how raw averages may overstate California’s advantages because of things like climate and industry mix.
However, did you read to the end of the article? It concludes:
“Because even when you correct for these numbers, California is pretty efficient vs. the average on electricity consumption.”
And goes on to explain:
“The 8 states with the highest prices are the eight states with the lowest per capita consumption.”
Meanwhile, these same states, are all above average in income and productivity per capita.
In other words, a carbon tax would be a pretty effective way to improve America’s energy efficiency.
So, thank you for the additional evidence demonstrating that
Yes, wealth creation and energy efficiency can, and do, go hand in hand.
“Nothing wrong with that.”
Ummm, there’s a lot wrong with that. It’s a cost. Maybe there is a benefit. Maybe you can even have a net positive benefit by forcing people to do what they haven’t chosen to do freely. But, I doubt it.
a student of economics wrote:
Meanwhile, these same states, are all above average in income and productivity per capita.
In other words, a carbon tax would be a pretty effective way to improve America’s energy efficiency.
So, thank you for the additional evidence demonstrating that
Yes, wealth creation and energy efficiency can, and do, go hand in hand.
Hang on a second. I don’t think anybody is denying that if you tax energy, energy efficiency will go up. If you tax broccoli, the amount of broccoli per unit of GDP will go down too.
But if you are trying to say the high energy prices are causing above-average incomes, I think you have it backwards. Rich places can afford to impose more regulations on their people. In the same way, the US has more pork barrel spending than Bangladesh, and higher private sector R&D. That doesn’t prove pork spending increases private sector R&D.
Bob,
The point I was making a was a simpler, more modest one. Critics of policies like energy taxes typically demagogue that they “destroy jobs” or slow economic growth, etc. We hear that governments that burden their companies and people with such policies will lag behind other laissez-faire states.
The evidence is overwhelming that this has not been the case, whether you look at states (e.g. CA, MA, NY, WA, etc) or nations (e.g. Scandinavia). This doesn’t necessarily mean that such policies contribute to higher GDP (although they do increase parts of welfare that don’t show up in GDP, like air quality). But it does strongly suggest that they don’t hurt GDP enough to change the wealth and productivity rankings.
State by state comparisons are a bit ridiculous considering that markets are not limited by state lines. Rather they seem to serve angry people’s need to vent and bluster.
Bob, in your example, you conclude that “if every other state (particularly Florida) followed suit, the results would be a lot worse than what happened when California did it.”
However, this is not the case. In fact, the opposite is true. According to the theory of the second best, a uniform tax on carbon in all states is likely to be MORE efficient than a tax only some states. Shifting production out of state to avoid the tax creates first order inefficiencies (e.g. transportation costs, higher input costs, etc). But if the tax is nationwide, then production will remain where it is most efficient. However, total production will now reflect the full costs, and thus the total quantity of production (and pollution) will be (closer to) optimal.
As for your example with GDP growth in China, to truly make a logically analogous argument to mine, you would have to assert the pollution does not necessarily prevent higher growth (not that it actually causes it). I would agree. In other words, we can’t necessarily say that it causes high levels of GDP nor that it causes lower levels of GDP, but rather that it is not necessarily incompatible with either. Of course, this refers to measured GDP, which does not include air quality.
“People will maximize welfare when they choose freely, as long as the prices they face reflect the full costs of their actions.
A basic principle of economics, is that when there are negative externalities, such as those that concern TJIT and many others, then on the margin, raising the price, e.g. via energy taxes, will result in “a net positive benefit”. This is the idea behind Pigouvian taxes.”
Okay, let’s say that I agree completely with this. Then, what are the externalities and what are their exact (or clost to exact) costs? What is the government going to do with the revenue? The price has to be right and the government has to use the money correctly. My guess is that both are nowhere near in place. So, the net “benefit” will be reduced welfare and more wars, in my estimation.
If the survey data existed, it would be interesting to compare the per capita carbon dioxide emissions of each state with that state’s percentage of the population who do not give a damn about carbon dioxide emissions. This Texan does not believe, based on the “evidence” so far provided, that carbon dioxide will be the major cause for further global warming. Further, this Texan is not convinced that global warming is among the top problems facing mankind.
Oil & gas production also cause carbon emissions, which is what I thought when I saw Texas on top:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/05/09/pip.ruralpollution.ap/index.html
No one who matters cares about carbon emissions, though, so its all academic. If this was 1950 or even 1980, something might happen, but political power has shifted enormously and most in the EU and US don’t know it yet.
One statistic does not a story tell.
So what’s wrong with “exporting” pollution out of California? Are you against interstate trade? Exporting pollution might be an economic winner.
I’m not being facetious. Many of the problems of pollution come from the health problems when people inhale or are otherwise exposed to emissions. Isn’t pollution less of a problem if emitted in a area of only, say, 50,000 people within 20 miles rather than 5 million people within 20 miles?
Obviously just moving the polluting source around doesn’t eliminate all of the externalities, but it can eliminate some of the costs.
John Dewey: “The trillions in lost productivity and ineffective expenditures – the result of laws you would impose on the rest of us…”
It’s probably true that we will never agree on these issues. Just as you see me (and not congress) imposing greenhouse gas regulations on you, I see you raping the natural world, something that many of “the rest of us” value.
As always (almost), Thomas Friedman gets everything wrong. Denmark is far more like the U.S. than it is different. Check out http://www.dst.dk/HomeUK/Statistics/ofs/Publications/tranuk/kft2007.aspx. Road construction is the dominant type of transportation investment (by far) and has been for years. Indeed, since 2002 road construction investment has tripled while investments in rail and the Copenhagen Metro have plunged. The motorway system has grown from 834 KM in 1997 to 1,071 KM in 2007.
Denmark has 368 cars per thousand people versus 482 for the U.S. The number of private cars has grown from 1.738 million in 1996 to 2.020 million in 2006. Should I mention that Danish cars in 2006 were much heavier and larger than the cars in 1996?
Predictably, cars account for the vast majority of travel in Denmark. In 2006, cars and motorcycles accounted for 79% of travel. Trains were 7.85%.Bicycles and mopeds were 2.8%.
Of course, fuel consumption has risen as well. In 1996, Denmark consumed 4.184 billion liters of gasoline and diesel. In 2006 the number was 4.863 billion liters.
Experience has shown that you can count on Thomas Friedman to get anything (or everything) wrong as long as it fits his latte liberal worldview.
Here’s a website that lists gasoline consumption by state, also on a per-capita basis:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/ene_gas_con_percap-energy-gasoline-consumption-per-capita
I converted the numbers to gallons. Here are the top ten states in terms of gasoline consumption per person per year:
Wyoming 493
North Dakota 413
South Dakota 408
Alabama 393
South Carolina 392
Mississippi 387
Montana 386
Iowa 384
New Hampshire 381
Kentucky 381
The average is 310 gallons. California is listed as 30 gallons per capita – that can’t be right, it must be a data error. But the following states are all below 10 gallons a year:
Oregon, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Illinois, Nevada, Utah, Rhode Island, Hawaii, District of Columbia, New York, Vermont, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, California
The data is from 2001 I think.
a student of economics,
You said
Like many of your comments, wrong (either in fact, cause, or result).
Denmark leads the way in green energy — to a point
Something Rotten in the NYT
Thats a lot of imported energy for a country you called self sufficient in energy.
Denmark, like California, gets lower carbon emissions by outsourcing electricity production to other areas.
Gullible folks like you think California and Denmark have actually reduced carbon emissions by having someone else emit the same amount of carbon generating electricity somewhere else.
I don’t think anybody is denying that if you tax energy, energy efficiency will go up. If you tax broccoli, the amount of broccoli per unit of GDP will go down too. But if you are trying to say the high energy prices are causing above-average incomes, I think you have it backwards.
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