Over at Sightline.org, Eric de Place has been working on a fascinating set of maps, on which he quantifies the greenhouse gas emissions of individual U.S. states, or clusters of states, by marking them with the nation or continent that generates equivalent GHGs.

Here are a few of Eric's detailed population comparisons, based on numbers of people (2003 population estimates):

As Eric puts it, they really drive home "the outsize significance of US climate policy" in terms of how it affects the entire globe: 291 million Americans are responsible for the greenhouse gas equivalent more than 3 billion citizens of countries. What a great tool these maps could be in helping Americans not only get it about the sheer quantity of climate disrupting pollution we're responsible for, but also perhaps to set goals for cutting our GGEs.