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 Bum [...]
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 Peter [...]
I 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 [...]
Great 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, [...]
Occasionally, 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 [...]
It’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, [...]
The 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 [...]
I’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 [...]
Well, 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 [...]
I just returned from the Discovery 2009 and Innovator’s Summit in Chicago. The conference is all about analytics, data mining, visualization and the people who make their living understanding numbers. One the speakers, Joel Best, really caught my attention. He is the author of several books including Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data [...]
