Efficient Polluters, Part 3: Transportation

"With most men, unbelief in one thing springs

from blind belief in another."

-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

(And yes, I suppose this holds for women, too.)

Seems to me that when it comes to the issue of climate change, the above statement holds, whichever side you're on in the global warming debate. A flat refusal to believe that the other side may have a legitimate position, seems to stem from an ideological certainty that one's cause is just, simply because one has chosen it: "my cause, right or wrong." Being an iNtuitive Thinker myself, according to Myers-Briggs, I get how that works. ;)

But ideology aside, let's move on to the data. While still on our subject of how some countries pollute more "efficiently" than others (with less CO2 produced per unit of GDP), I wondered how transportation patterns affect this. Is there a correlation between the means of transportation used by a country and the economic cost of the CO2 that the country produces?

Yep. Sure enough.

It seems that the number of motor vehicles per capita, when above a certain level, does correlate with GDP/CO2 (negatively), and passenger travel by non-motor-vehicle methods does, too (positively). To wit:

The number of motor vehicles (all sorts, incl. private cars, delivery vans, tractor-trailers, taxis, etc.) per capita doesn't seem to matter, really.. UNTIL a country crosses a threshold of about 1 vehicle per every 2 people. That level probably implies a certain degree of prosperity and infrastructure which makes vehicle traffic effective in "driving" the economy. (yes, haha)

But, as the proliferation of vehicles grows, as a country gets closer to one vehicle per person, there is a definite negative effect. See the chart below:



The USA, by the way, is the right-most point on the chart. It seems obvious to me that the proliferation of motor vehicles has a chilling effect on the use of mass transit, and thus a negative correlation with the economic cost of pollution. We can look at the same idea from another angle.

Let's take the volume of passengers (adjusted to the size of the overall population) traveling by rail or air instead of by motor vehicle. The data suggest there is a clear benefit to the use of rail and air travel in terms of effective economic use of polluting activity. Interestingly, air travel had a strong correlation by itself, as did rail by itself, almost equally as strong. However, the slope of the line was steeper for rail (by about 50%) implying 50% more bang-for-the-buck in rail travel. This seems to be a clear candidate for funding when choosing among environmentally-friendly development projects.



A couple of interesting asides:

1) the method of freight hauling didn't seem to be a significant variable in this analysis, other than this: there is a negative correlation with efficiency of pollution when there is an OVER-emphasis on shipping by truck. Rail and air freight didn't see this phenomenon.

2) passenger travel by motor vehicle actually had a nice positive correlation (about as good as rail), but only if it did not exceed a certain level (essentially that of Western Europe & Scandinavia). The USA was a noticeable excessive outlying point, no doubt because of our penchant to drive alone, and long distances at that. Hmm... I wonder if a Vespa counts as a motor vehicle in Europe? :)

3) there is no good transportation data on travel (for freight or passenger) by water. Oh well.

So, summing up this and the last two posts, my simplistic public policy recommendation for the USA is this:

Invest in more electric power generation and better grid infrastructure, with initial emphasis on nuclear (and hydro where possible) as sources, in order to quickly ramp up supply.

Insist upon the same for the "big three" bad-boy countries: India, Russia, China, as well as verifiable emissions testing. Use both carrot and stick if needed.

Invest in both light and high-speed rail for local and regional passenger travel in the continental US. Shift funds away from highway budgets, and raise gas taxes, to do it.

And since no one is going to make us give up our cars in this country, ever... at least convert them to electric, whether by incentive or by law. Just get it done.