Walk This Way: New York City and Low Emissions

Allow me to brag for a moment. Us New Yorkers are so good at reducing carbon emissions, we do it even when we aren’t trying. In fact, I help save the environment every time I leave my apartment, whether it’s to go to work, to go out to eat or to spend the day shopping.

How, you ask? By pounding the pavement. That’s right, good old fashioned exercise!

Now, I know there are plenty of ways big cities are not environmentally friendly. But according to the New York City Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, the city that never sleeps accounts for only 1% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while housing 2.7% of the country’s population. Not coincidentally, this is also the only city in the country where more than half of households do not own a car. (In Manhattan, the carless rate is an amazing 75%; nationally, it’s 8%.)

That helps explain why New Yorkers walk, on average, 4.5 miles per day, compared to the national average of 1 mile per day. And, just think how many of those miles are up and down subway stairs! So, not only do we do a service to Mother Earth every time we go out (we expend 7.1 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per person, compared to the national average of 24.5 metric tons per person), but we also do a service to our bodies.

Yet another reason I heart New York!