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Neighborhood Wealth Dramatically Impacts Home Greenhouse Gas Emissions

A detailed, nationwide analysis could set the stage for cities to tailor emissions-reducing policies

The San Fernando Valley Generating Station is a gas-powered power station located in Sun Valley, Los Angeles, that provides electricity to the city.

If U.S. home energy consumption were a country, it would rank as the world's sixth-largest greenhouse gas emitter. To bring housing emissions in line with international goals to limit global warming, planners must sift through variables such as local climate, building age and size, and occupant income.

A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA provides a new nationwide analysis evaluating these factors. The researchers fed detailed building data from 93 million homes (gleaned from a database of U.S. tax assessor records) into computer models that accounted for local fuel sources to estimate home emissions.

Density, floor space, annual emissions and income per person for highest and lowest emitting neighborhoods in Boston and LA metro areas

Credit: Amanda Montañez;  Source: The Carbon Footprint of Household Energy Use in the United States,” by Benjamin Goldstein et al., in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 117, No. 32; August 11, 2020


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One clear result was that wealthier people's homes in America tended to be larger and produce about 25 percent more emissions than those of low-income people. This relation held when the researchers dug down to compare neighborhoods within very different cities such as Los Angeles and Boston; in L.A., for instance, some affluent neighborhoods had emissions 15 times higher than nearby low-income areas.

Study co-author Benjamin Goldstein, a researcher at the University of Michigan, was surprised by another finding: dense apartment complexes are not essential to meet emissions goals. The data suggest single-family housing on small lots in certain areas, such as some in Los Angeles, could also reach international targets as carbon-free energy sources become more common. “Not everything needs to look like Brooklyn or Manhattan to be low energy,” he says.

Anu Ramaswami, a Princeton University environmental engineer, who was not involved with the study, cautions that its emissions-estimating models may not capture efficiency measures taken by some homeowners. But she says the research could set an example for municipality-level analyses. For example, such studies could help officials determine how to tailor specific local building policies to best reduce emissions, such as by encouraging smaller lot sizes or alternatives to heating oil.

Andrea Thompson is an associate editor covering the environment, energy and earth sciences. She has been covering these issues for 16 years. Prior to joining Scientific American, she was a senior writer covering climate science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where she primarily covered earth science and the environment. She has moderated panels, including as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Media Zone, and appeared in radio and television interviews on major networks. She holds a graduate degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University, as well as a B.S. and an M.S. in atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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Scientific American Magazine Vol 323 Issue 5This article was originally published with the title “Gas Houses” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 323 No. 5 (), p. 20
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1120-20