To go green, live closer to work

Don't want to fork out for a Prius? Can't see tanking up with ethanol? Can't afford solar panels for your roof?

Not to worry, you can still do something to fight global warming: Live closer to work.

That's one conclusion of a major national report published Thursday by the nonprofit Urban Land Institute.

Forty percent of the planet-heating gases that Californians emit come from transportation, according to the report's authors, and with its booming population and sprawling suburbs, the state's greenhouse emissions will continue to soar unless it dramatically changes the way it builds cities and suburbs.

The report, "Growing Cooler: Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change," analyzed scores of academic studies and concluded that compact development -- mixing housing and businesses in denser patterns, with walkable neighborhoods -- could do as much to lower emissions as many of the climate policies now promoted by state and national politicians.

Up to now, climate policy has primarily focused on such things as higher fuel economy for cars and trucks, cleaner fuels, greener building standards, lower power plant emissions, and international treaties. But a growing consensus of experts is also homing in on the everyday zoning decisions of local officials and county planners.

Since 1980, the number of miles Americans drive has risen three times faster than the population and almost twice as fast as vehicle registrations. And it is getting worse: The U.S. Department of Energy projects that between 2005 and 2030, driving will increase 59%, far outpacing an estimated national population growth of 23%.

"We can no longer afford to ignore land use," said Steve Winkelman, director of the Transportation Program at the Center for Clean Air Policy, and one of the report's authors. "Urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it."

The world's top climate scientists agree that human activity is largely driving the heating of the planet, with potentially catastrophic consequences, including a rise in sea levels, spreading deserts, widespread species extinction and severe weather. International and national policy experts say that limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius would require cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80% below 1990 levels by mid-century.