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Provo is, On Average, The Nation's Worst Air Polluter

The Salt Lake Tribune

Provo, Utah is the worst polluting city in the United States, according to a new study, and Ogden is second on the list.

That’s according to the website MagnifyMoney.com, which compared the average household carbon footprint in the nation’s 200 largest metro areas and found households in the two Utah cities emitted an average of 10.55 and 10.16 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.

“Not surprisingly, we found that cities with larger carbon footprints tended to have more cars per household,” reads the report. “Households in Provo ... own an average of 2.1 cars and travel approximately 25,000 miles annually by car, while only 2% of commuters take public transit.”

MagnifyMoney analyzed 2017 data from the Center for Neighborhood Technology Housing and Transportation Index to produce the report. It defines carbon footprint as “the combined total annual amount of carbon dioxide produced to support the lives of each member of a household.”

Overall, the study found that “households in the West” spew “more carbon emissions that ones in urban, denser areas.” The city with the lowest average carbon footprint is New York — where 31 percent of commuters use public transit. The cars-per-household average in the Big Apple is 1.27 (40% fewer than Provo); the average distance traveled is 13,000 miles (48% less than Provo); the average metric tons of CO2 emissions is 5.38 (49% less than Provo).

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