TweetGreat news! Carbon emissions in the US were down 3% in 2008, and are likely to trend even lower in 2009, according to a study published by the EPA. Of course, it’s a little like congratulating a sick person on losing weight – positive effect, but a decidedly negative cause. According to the LA Times, [...]
TweetJust when you thought it was safe to trade carbon credits via the German Emissions Trading Authority, hackers make off with your eco-loot! Through a classic “please click this link and login to verify your account” phishing scheme, hackers acquired the credentials of some major firms and transferred $4 million worth of carbon offsets into [...]
TweetIt’s a perfect storm for developers of carbon accounting software: a brand new market, social and political pressure to comply, and a low barrier to entry. And it’s worse than I thought. A recent LinkedIn discussion pointed out that there are over 60 vendors offering carbon accounting solutions. That seems like a lot to me, [...]
TweetLots of good infographics to be found across the web, intending to explain complex issues bite-sized visual chunks. We start with “Global Warming Skeptics vs The Scientific Consensus” from the Information is Beautiful blog. Despite the clear agenda by the designer, it does a nice job of introducing the various debates surrounding man’s impact on [...]
Tweet Anyone paying attention to the Copenhagen climate summit is probably overwhelmed by the numbers, negotiations, rumors and rants plastering the media. The scoreboard above tries to simplify all of that by projecting the temperature changes expected under the current agreements. The estimates are generated using the C-ROADS software, a sort of “climate model lite” [...]
TweetOnce upon a time, I was a research scientist. I worked in biology and human health labs for almost ten years before changing careers to count carbon. As my current job began and I was asked to give presentations on carbon accounting and climate change, I knew I had better work on really understanding the [...]
TweetThe thing I find fascinating about carbon accounting is that it provides an even playing field to compare seemingly disparate objects or activities. For instance, which is worse: driving a Volkswagen Golf, or owning a cat? Answer: it’s almost too close to call. Robert and Brenda Vale, architects from New Zealand, have published a new [...]
TweetI’ve talked about visualizing greenhouse gas emissions before, but Sam Savage’s book The Flaw of Averages made me wonder whether there were even more powerful ways to understand data than simple graphs and charts. He calls them “Mindles.” The concept goes something like this: you don’t learn to ride a bike by studying the equations [...]
TweetWell, it’s official – greenhouse gases are now under EPA regulation. There’s been talk for the last year or so, and battles over whether carbon falls under their jurisdiction. At the same time, many states (including my state North Carolina) have enacted legislation to perform the same function on a more local level. The feds [...]
