America’s billowing carbon emissions, on video
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008A group of scientists at Purdue University have finally made visuals from the numbers, depicting in real-time what the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions from the utility, transportation and industry sectors actually look like. What you will watch below is literally the heartbeat of America.
The video vividly illustrates the concentration of power plants and the massive CO2 output from dense population centers, particularly in the eastern half of the nation. No wonder Colorado, Montana and Idaho are so picturesque — watch and you’ll see what I mean.
Georgia’s contribution is substantial, which shouldn’t be surprising in light of the fact that we’ve got three of the biggest carbon-belching coal-fired power plants in the country. Scientists say the methods used to create the video could be employed to provide real-time monitoring of CO2 emissions, pinpointed to the source.
(Thanks to Andrew Revkin of the New York Times for spotting this.)
