The January 16 edition of the Christian Science Monitor attempts to answer a very important question: What's the carbon footprint of a new subdivision or land development?
At issue is a plan to clear 14,000 acres of forest in remote northern Maine and build 2,300 housing units, all of which would only be accessible by car - generating an estimated 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 50 years.
Thirty-five states either have or are developing climate action plans that incorporate climate-change impacts into the environmental review process for land development.
"Climate change will be the defining issue for urban planning and land development in the years ahead," says Dr. Reid Ewing, executive director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland. "It will trump everything."
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
CS Monitor: The carbon footprint of development
