Blame Coal: Texas Leads Carbon Emissions

Blame Coal: Texas Leads Carbon Emissions
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
Saturday, June 2, 2007

(06-02) 09:45 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
America may spew more greenhouse gases than any other country, but some states are astonishingly more prolific polluters than others — and it's not always the ones you might expect.
The Associated Press analyzed state-by-state emissions of carbon dioxide from 2003, the latest U.S. Energy Department numbers available. The review shows startling differences in states' contribution to climate change.
The biggest reason? The burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap electricity.
_Wyoming's coal-fired power plants produce more carbon dioxide in just eight hours than the power generators of more populous Vermont do in a year.
_Texas, the leader in emitting this greenhouse gas, cranks out more than the next two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania, which together have twice Texas' population.
_In sparsely populated Alaska, the carbon dioxide produced per person by all the flying and driving is six times the per capita amount generated by travelers in New York state.
"There's no question that some states have made choices to be greener than others," said former top Energy Department official Joseph Romm, author of the new book "Hell and High Water" and executive director of a nonprofit energy conservation group.
The disparity in carbon dioxide emissions is one of the reasons there is no strong national effort to reduce global warming gases, some experts say. National emissions dipped ever so slightly last year, but that was mostly because of mild weather, according to the Energy Department.
"Some states are benefiting from both cheap electricity while polluting the planet and make all the rest of us suffer the consequences of global warming," said Frank O'Donnell, director of the Washington environmental group Clean Air Watch. "I don't think that's fair at all."

more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/02/national/a094509D20.DTL

The park Rangers at the Big Bend will tell you the reason you sometimes cannot see the desert floor from the south rim of the Chisos is because of the smog coming from Pennsylvania!

Anybody have the number of American owned coal fired generating plants that are now lining the south side of the Rio Bravo?

And blame the media for not vetting Shrub's record as governor. They thought his aw-shucks b.s. "Don't mess with Texas" was oh-so-cute.