Almost a quarter of a billion - per day! In all, it will cost America more than a BILLION DOLLARS to get our community organizer-in-chief and his posse out of the country for a little while. On the plus side, he spends more than that while here's here, so that trip to India may end up being a bargain for us. From NDTV via memeorandum: US to spend $200 mn a day on Obama's Mumbai visit
What isn't talked about too much is the carbon footprint of the trip. From WUWT: 'Greenest President Ever' trip to India has a carbon footprint bigger than the citizens of many US citiesThe US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.
via Instapundit
"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.
About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.
...We are constantly told how bad air travel is for the planet. For example the UK has a whole organization dedicated to the issue, called "Plane Stupid". Fortunately it is groups like these that enable us to calculate the carbon emissions of air travel using the handy dandy Terrapass web page.
1. If one assumes that all 3,000 people fly commercial from Washington, DC to New Delhi and back (and nowhere else), their cumulative carbon footprint can be calculated according to Terrapass at http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/#air.
Here's the info on their calculation methodology.
So here's what we get for the maximum number of people, ten, that we can select at one time on that website. Note that Bombay India is now called Mumbai, but the airport code is still BOM in Terrapass:So multiply 62,238 lbs of CO2 for ten people times 300 (to make three thousand) and we get: 18, 671,400 lbs, or 9,336 short tons (2000 lbs) or 8,469 metric tons of CO2
To get the per capita figure in metric tons, divide that again by 3000 people which gives us 2.823 metric tons per person for this round trip.
2. The Brookings Institute did a survey in 2008 ranking major US cities by their per capita emissions. You can read the full report here. (PDF). If we were to compare his trip to the city table:
Obama's trip comes in between Memphis and Raleigh on a per capita basis.
3. Caveat: Of course, this calculation excludes the carbon footprint for also traveling to Indonesia, S. Korea and Indonesia as part of this Grand Tour, as well as any other activity while in those places. Plus vehicles, and other forms of travel. ...More from The UK Daily Mail: Forty planes and six armoured cars: Obama visit to India the 'biggest ever by a US President'
4. If Obama wanted to offset the Carbon using the tool of choice of his buddy, Al Gore, the Chicago Climate Exchange, he could do so pretty cheaply since carbon offsets there are selling for 5 cents per metric ton.
So with 8,469 metric tons of CO2 emitted for the Washington to Bombay round trip, he could buy a carbon indulgence for a mere $423.45. That's chump change when you are blowing a cool 200 million per day to keep everybody traveling in style.
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