Posts Tagged ‘carbon footprint’

In ReViz, I tear down an ineffective visualization and then try to rebuild it from the ground up. Which one do you prefer?

TweetI finished up UNC’s 2009 greenhouse gas inventory last month, and I’m pleased to say we had our first year of reduction since I started my job.  Better yet, it was a big reduction: 20% lower than 2008. Part of that reduction was due to some improved nitrous oxide emission factors for our coal boilers.  [...]

Car shopping is a nightmare, but new labeling may help you choose the best fuel economy on the lot. The negotiation is still up to you…

Tweet Meet the Habbits, strangely distorted humanoids that wear their environmental impact on their sleeve whole body. Rather than limiting themselves to just a carbon footprint, Habbits have a carbon head-print, hand-print, “bum”-print, etc. The relationship goes something like this: Height – Total Carbon Footprint Feet – Transport Hands – Home Energy Mouth – Water [...]

Tweet Call me a luddite, but I just don’t know if I’m ready for Twitter.  I mean, I get the concept of micro-blogging, and I certainly have a lengthy backlog of links and stories that I’ll never have time to macro-blog about, but is there real value in the hit-and-run style of Twitter? According to [...]

TweetI love it when someone visualizes data in a new way, and if it’s IRL (in real life) rather than on the computer screen, all the better. That’s the volume of one metric ton of carbon dioxide.  27 feet x 27 feet x 27 feet. Now, I just have to figure out a way to [...]

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, [...]

TweetOccasionally, I like to take a Friday to tell you about the blogs I read on a regular basis.  Today, it’s porno-graphic. Chart Porn, run by DC Economist Dustin Smith, is an all-you-can-eat buffet of infographics.  Dustin compiles links to just about every note-worthy visualization, flow chart, or map on just about any subject. Thankfully, ecometrics [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]