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Mayor Shirley Franklin and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport General Manger Ben DeCosta held a press conference at the airport’s atrium this morning to say that Georgia’s new gun law, which as of today allows state firearms license holders to carry weapons on public transit, in restaurants that serve alcohol, and in city and state parks, does not apply to the airport.

“There is no change at this airport,” said DeCosta, who explained that the airport is a city building and thus covered by state law 16-11-127 prohibiting people from carrying weapons in public buildings. “Hartsfield-Jackson is a gun-free zone” said DeCosta.

DeCosta’s statements were reiterated by City of Atlanta attorney Elizabeth Chandler and by Mayor Franklin, who added that no one needs to bring a gun to the airport for protection.

“You can come to the airport and be safe because there is law enforcement here,” said Franklin.

As for the rest of Atlanta, with its soaring crime rate and chronic police shortage, it’s every man for himself!

She didn’t actually say that last sentence. I’m inferring.

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Gather ’round, Atlanta, Marietta, Sandy Springs — according to the Brookings Institution, your carbon footprint is shrinking. Everybody gets a gold star.

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank has released a study of the carbon footprint from transportation and residential energy uses of 100 metropolitan areas. The three-city survey conducted from 2000 to 2005 in our neck of the woods shows that our impact has decreased 4.75 percent while that of the average metropolitan areas and nation has increased 1.1 percent and 2.2 percent during this time, respectively. In all the rankings, the three cities hovered in the middle.

Hard to believe, eh? I know what you mean. That could be chalked up to the fact that the areas are more-or-less near one another, that a lot of other metro Atlantans travel from as far off as Gwinnett and Hall County to work in the city core, etc. The output surely hasn’t reduced because of public transit. With how sprawling metro Atlanta is, the three cities selected may not be suitable samples.

The study also doesn’t take into account our food supply, which according to a consultant with Mayor Shirley Franklin’s Sustainable Atlanta initiative, makes for up to a quarter of our carbon footprint that’s often overlooked.

What are the solutions? Researchers say:

Federal policy could play a powerful role in helping metropolitan areas—and so the nation—shrink their carbon footprint further. In addition to economy-wide policies to motivate action, five targeted policies are particularly important within metro areas and for the nation as a whole:

• Promote more transportation choices to expand transit and compact development options
• Introduce more energy-efficient freight operations with regional freight planning
• Require home energy cost disclosure when selling and “on-bill” financing to stimulate and scale up energy-efficient retrofitting of residential housing
• Use federal housing policy to create incentives for energy- and location-efficient decisions
• Issue a metropolitan challenge to develop innovative solutions that integrate multiple policy areas

Marilyn Brown of Georgia Tech, considered one of the leading researchers in energy policy, co-authored the study. After the jump, feast upon the numbers. To view the full study, click here.

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