Pirate's Cove

As Obama gets set to announce all sorts of executive actions regarding, more specifically, existing coal power plants, which will artificially increase the cost of energy and cost of living for Americans, with middle and lower class citizens hit the hardest, let’s jump back to 2009 where Red, Green, and Blue calculated Obama’s carbon footprint

Due to the difficulty in obtaining specific data about the White House and the President’s travel detail, certain assumptions have been made which are documented after the main body of the article. These assumptions were kept conservative, yet realistic, and documented facts (such as airplane specifications and carbon emission factors) were used wherever possible.

An important consideration of a carbon footprint assessment is the boundaries – in other words ‘What is included?’ We have included the following items in the carbon footprint calculation:

1. Airplane Travel (all flights associated with a Presidential trip, including official Air Force 1 and alternate Air Force 1, military cargo planes, and advance security missions)
2. Helicopter Travel
3. Automobile Travel
4. White House electricity and natural gas use

We have not included the emissions related to: the Inauguration ceremony, maintenance of Camp David, maintenance of other personal property owned by the President, maintenance of the approximately 18 acres of White House grounds.

As RGandB points out, this could apply to all presidents. Yet, none of them are pushed all this “climate change” silliness like Obama. None made it a big deal during their campaigns. Anyhow, what’s the conclusion?

Using our set of assumptions*, the carbon footprint of the President is about 41,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year. This is the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of about 2200 American households. This also far exceeds the carbon footprint of any of the European leaders, largely due to the number of additional airplane trips that accompany the President when he travels to provide the necessary security for the Commander in Chief.

The average CF for Americans is 19.78 metric tons (no one has really done a big study since 2006, so that number might have dropped, especially with the recession that Obama has kept going). The world average was just under 4 tons. And here’s Obama with 41,000 tons.

Now, people will say “hey, he’s the POTUS, he has Stuff To Do!” Like taking long fossil fueled flights with all the limos and SUVs in order to give 30 minute campaign speeches. He’s made no attempt to reduce his own footprint, and has seemingly increased it tremendously.