Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, wrote in January 2010 on the Huffington Post that President Barack Obama was “The Greenest President Ever“.
Weeellll….maybe not. You see, today we have these headlines:
The Daily Mail: Forty planes and six armoured cars: Obama visit to India the ‘biggest ever by a US President’
NDTV reports: US to spend $200 million a day on Obama’s Mumbai visit
(Note: snopes.com posted on November 4th that this $200 million figure was wrong, but at the same time the White House can’t provide the actual numbers for security reasons. However, the numbers are likely inflated and a result of an error that started with an Indian News Agency that got repeated. – read details here The Daily Mail has not retracted their story as of the evening of November 4th. If they do, we will certainly follow. -Anthony)
…About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments…
Of course we know any US President doesn’t travel lightly, and needs security details and armored cars…but really, 3000 people and forty aircraft?
Let’s do the carbon math:
Estimate of the carbon footprint of President Obama’s trip to India
We are constantly told how bad air travel is for the planet. For example the UK has a whole organization dedicated to the issue, called “Plane Stupid”. Fortunately it is groups like these that enable us to calculate the carbon emissions of air travel using the handy dandy Terrapass web page.
1. If one assumes that all 3,000 people fly commercial from Washington, DC to New Delhi and back (and nowhere else), their cumulative carbon footprint can be calculated according to Terrapass at http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/#air.
Here’s the info on their calculation methodology.
So here’s what we get for the maximum number of people, ten, that we can select at one time on that website. Note that Bombay India is now called Mumbai, but the airport code is still BOM in Terrapass:
So multiply 62,238 lbs of CO2 for ten people times 300 (to make three thousand) and we get: 18, 671,400 lbs, or 9,336 short tons (2000 lbs) or 8,469 metric tons of CO2
To get the per capita figure in metric tons, divide that again by 3000 people which gives us 2.823 metric tons per person for this round trip.
2. The Brookings Institute did a survey in 2008 ranking major US cities by their per capita emissions. You can read the full report here. (PDF). If we were to compare his trip to the city table:
Obama’s trip comes in between Memphis and Raleigh on a per capita basis.
3. Caveat: Of course, this calculation excludes the carbon footprint for also traveling to Indonesia, S. Korea and Indonesia as part of this Grand Tour, as well as any other activity while in those places. Plus vehicles, and other forms of travel.
If we figured in all the travel, it would well be higher.
The message? Travel lightly but carry a big hockey stick.
4. If Obama wanted to offset the Carbon using the tool of choice of his buddy, Al Gore, the Chicago Climate Exchange, he could do so pretty cheaply since carbon offsets there are selling for 5 cents per metric ton.
So with 8,469 metric tons of CO2 emitted for the Washington to Bombay round trip, he could buy a carbon indulgence for a mere $423.45. That’s chump change when you are blowing a cool 200 million per day to keep everybody traveling in style.
Obama’s ‘Green Army.’ Good to see them hard at work on behalf of the planet:(
Sure BO is the greenest president ever – just look behind his ears!
Quick quiz: How many US presidents have been killed while overseas? How many have been killed in the US?
So, where does he need the protection, now?
Hoskald says: “It reminds me of the Circus of the ancient Kings when they would pack up their entire court and travel the country. Bloody expensive….”
Circus is right. Still happening, too.
tallbloke says:
November 3, 2010 at 7:00 am
The modus operandi of the previous administration seemed to be to bring a few billion bucks of revenue back to the (favoured corporations in the) U.S. by starting wars rather than averting them.
“Forty planes and six armoured cars”? Pah. Check the Gulf War’s carbon footprint. Not to mention the depleted uranium bootprint.
So America deserves Obama’s flagrant excesses because Saddam Hussein did not comply with his Gulf War I surrender agreements?
What happened the last time a prominent US government official visited India? This was pre-Copenhagen, pre-Glaciergate, pre-Climategate – basically in ‘those heady days’ period.
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/eli-rabett-himalayan-glaciers/
A Malignant Narrcissist must be served! Especially the America hating latte’ Commie varitety.
@ur momisugly tallbloke says:
November 3, 2010 at 7:00 am
…………………………… Not to mention the depleted uranium bootprint.
DU is used for a quite a lot of very mundane things besides big bullets, in case you weren’t aware of it. Used extensively in aircraft (including commercial airliners) for weight and balance of control surfaces among other things. It’s very useful stuff, where you need lots of weight in a small volume. I wouldn’t advise eating it or breathing DU dust from machining, etc. because it is a toxic metal, but the radiation component is insignificant.
The very definition of a limousine liberal.
7.87×10^11 USD for the “Recovery & Reinvestment Act” nonsense plus 5.6×10^10 USD to help out his (PBUH) UAW buddies, to say nothing of his (PBUH) explicit support for Bush’s TARP & the whole Health Care raping, divided by his 652 days in office gives us a meagre 1.3×10^9 USD/day. At a mere 2.0×10^8 USD/day, it’s cheaper to keep him over there by an entire order of magnitude.
Let the profligate Keynesian stay in India for the rest of his dissipated life.
Hoskald says:
November 3, 2010 at 5:08 am
It reminds me of the Circus of the ancient Kings when they would pack up their entire court and travel the country. Bloody expensive….
Didn’t the king usually require the nobles he visited to pay the expenses?
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
— Cicero
Okay this is somewhat off topic but want to start some where. The only thing on the news today is all the talking heads analyzing the elections. Thrown in for good measure health and defence costs while leaving out the biggest elephant in the room, the climate disruption scam and costs involved. Now if these talking heads would only put a tiny amount of their energy into investigating this scam.
@Hoskald
“It reminds me of the Circus of the ancient Kings when they would pack up their entire court and travel the country. Bloody expensive….”
Umm.. there were no comms back in 1100. How else was a king to make on-the-spot inspections and advertise himself to his subjects?
Besides, all the travel and equipment used complied perfectly with Green requirements….
It is absolutely true that Obama is pushing the envelope toward a more extravagant, costly and wasteful Federal government. That is not meant to imply that the Dems are more evil than the Repubs though. No US President in the last half century, either Democratic or Republican has actually delivered a smaller or more efficient government than the President before him. The difference between Dem or Repub administrations is approximately the same difference as between being stabbed with a metal spike or clubbed with a metal pipe.
I will say this for Obama however; he is a much better public speaker as long as he has a ghost written script and a working teleprompter.
$200mil a day works out to $1.4bil per week. How do I stop it from coming out of MY pocket?
In his autobiagraphy Lee Kuan Tew said how ge used to fly commercial with an assistant to Commonwealth conferences while the premier of Bangladesh came by personal jet which stood waiting on the tarmac all week. He said that the poorer the country & the more useless the government the bigger the plane. But only 1 plane.
“The modus operandi of the previous administration seemed to be to bring a few billion bucks of revenue back to the (favoured corporations in the) U.S. by starting wars rather than averting them.”
Good to see you giving your seal of approval to environmentalist Sadaam Hussein (big thumbs up)…
Come to think of it, I don’t see much difference between the fascism of militant environmentalists and Sadaam….
I think the report is in error; 200 million rupees per day I might believe. 200 million USD per day for 3000 is over 15X the cost per soldier per day to fight the Iraq war including equipment – aircraft carriers, tank battalions, bullets, etc.
Watching the Prez on the tube. He is still determined to push the CO2/green/EPA regulation agenda. His words: “There is more than one way to skin that cat”, referring to the failure of the Kerry Cap and Tax bill.
He still thinks that a “Green” economic strategy is a job creator.
kim says:
November 3, 2010 at 5:25 am
What, no visa to Pakistan?
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They’re already sick of him droning on.
Well, you know, Obama’s staff has been working overtime for months now trying to mitigate the losses of the Democratic Socialist party. It’s only fair to give them a well needed rest in some exotic place. We taxpayers should be grateful for all their efforts to support the Progressive cause!
I didn’t know about this upcoming presidential visit until I read it here. I find it quite ominous. This is not sightseeing and photo-ops.
“I know you haven’t been getting on with your neighbour. We can help. Yes we can. Would that be OK with you?”
These things have to be done face-to-face.
Curiousgeorge says:
November 3, 2010 at 10:44 am
Watching the Prez on the tube. He is still determined to push the CO2/green/EPA regulation agenda. His words: “There is more than one way to skin that cat”, referring to the failure of the Kerry Cap and Tax bill.
He still thinks that a “Green” economic strategy is a job creator.
=======
The “bit” the world is missing is that “He” is simply an icon for us. The President in the US accounts for very little within a scheme that was designed from day one to inhibit crazy government.
The system of checks and balances works very well.
Ignore the “Man behind the Curtain”, he is a sour blink in time. Focus on our similarities and not the Fools who attempt to lead us astray.
; )
Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth the Second has slightly more restrained rates of expenditure. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are the only members of the Royal family who receive an annual parliamentary allowance.
About 70 per cent of the Civil List expenditure goes on staff salaries. It also goes towards meeting the costs of official functions such as garden parties, receptions and official entertainment during State Visits. The Queen entertains almost 50,000 people each year. All travelling costs are met from the same budget.
In 2006-2007 the revenue surplus received by the Treasury from the Crown Estates was £200 million ($322 million). Since 2001, The Queen receives a set amount of £7.9 million ($12.7 million) per annum.
In real terms, the payment is worth only a quarter of its 1990 value, and the Royal Household is expected to spend £14.9 million next year to enable the Queen to carry out her official duties. The £7 million shortfall will be made up out of a reserve fund which the Royal Household has built up over decades.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/7848129/Budget-2010-Queens-spending-under-scrutiny-as-Royal-Household-books-opened.html
http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/Sourcesoffunding/TheCivilList.aspx