RiNOsaurusRex

Obama's Big Speech Is Environmental Disaster

(Click anywhere on article text below to see original source for statistics)

Obama’s decision to give his acceptance speech at the Invesco Stadium could produce, at least, four times more carbon dioxide pollutants than if he gave the same speech at the Pepsi Convention Center, as originally planned. Or… to put it another way, his one evening at the stadium could create more carbon pollutants than all four days of the Republican Convention... combined.

So much for having a “green” convention, right? Here's how I crunched the numbers...

The Pepsi Convention Center (where the rest of the Convention will take place) holds about 18,000 guests and has about 5,000 parking spaces. The Ivesco Stadium holds about 78,000 guests and has about 20,000 parking spaces. For a typical game night, a 78,000 seat stadium generates 65,000 kilowatt hours of electricity and 35,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Each kilowatt of electricity produces about 1.55 pounds of CO2 pollutants, and each cubic foot of natural gas produces 0.12 pounds of CO2 pollutants.

So... just to run the lights, a packed stadium of 78,000 guests would produce 104,720 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere for one game (or about 1.35 pounds of CO2 pollution per person). Using those same values, an 18,000-seat convention center would produce 24,300 pounds of CO2 pollution--significantly less.

But running the stadium isn't the worst of it. It's actually putting 60,000 more people (or 20,000 vehicles, rather) on the road that has the biggest environmental impact. The average automobile gets 21 mpg… and the average commute for an American driver is 29 miles roundtrip. The average gallon of gas produces 19.564 pounds of CO2 pollutants.

So, using this data, the 5,000 cars in the Pepsi Center parking lot would create 135,084 pounds of CO2 pollution. And the 20,000 cars in the Invesco stadium would produce 540,339 pounds. So, the total pollutants created by one-night at the convention center would be 159,384 pounds (24,300 + 135,084). And the total pollutants produced by the stadium would be 645,039 pounds (104,720 + 540,339).

Therefore, Obama's one-night at the stadium could produce four times the amount of carbon pollutants as one night at the Pepsi Center (where the rest of his convention will take place)... or... more pollutants than ALL FOUR nights of the Republcan Convention... combined.

Unfortunately, for the environment, though, my estimates are probably very conservative (and overly generous to Barack Obama). The huge lights, megatron televisions and sound systems in the stadium are going to use a lot more electricty than an indoor convention hall. Furthermore, those extra 60,000 people who will be traveling to the stadium in Denver won't be driving just 29 miles, but will probably be driving hundreds (or thousands) of miles and/or taking jet planes across the country. So, Obama's carbon footprint for one speech is probably much worse than four times as large as McCain's.

Who knew Obama's ego would be so costly... to the environment?

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