Nashville Pollution

While growing up, I never thought of Nashville as a city that has a lot of pollution. I've visited other cities that actually have a "smog" report on their local newscast every morning to say where pollution is high. Las Vegas, Los Angeles, etc.

Well, with the help from our fine city, Tennessee ranks at the top for having the highest level of global warming emissions per capita. Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and Memphis all ranked among the top 25 cities for having some of the largest carbon footprints in the country. Nashville ranked number 6 on the list.

"Greenhouse gas pollution is high throughout the South, but Tennessee has the dubious distinction of having more metro areas with a larger carbon footprint than any other state" says Trip Pollard, director of SELC's Land & Community Program. "Southerners are extremely dependent on driving and we use a lot of dirty sources of electricity, so we end up with larger-than-average carbon footprints."

Do they know that Al Gore lives in our state and uses solar energy panels on his house? I guess not.

You can read more about the report here at the Nashville Business Journal's website. Why is this the first time I've heard about this? What is being done by the city government to fix this? How can Nashville rise again (you know, the south rises again) if we have some of the worst pollution in the country?