June 9th, 2019 by Steve Hanley

If you want to know how much carbon dioxide a motor vehicle emits per mile, you can create an insanely complex mathematical model to generate fake numbers in a laboratory or you can analyze actual emissions from actual cars driving on actual roads. Which method do you think will give you more accurate results? If you said, “What is real world testing, Alex?” Ding Ding Ding Ding. You’re a winner. Go to the head of the class.

It is assumed the methane emissions from industrial operations in the US amount to 8 gigagrams, equivalent to just under 9,000 tons. Why? Because that’s what industry sources say they are. But when researchers from Cornell University and the Environmental Defense Fund decided to do some real world testing, they found the reality is quite different.

Using a Google Street View car…