This morning, ClimateBiz reports on a recent survey by a Seattle P-I journalist on carbon calculators. The reporter tried out ten different calculators, and here are the results:
Not surprising. Last year, I did my own exploration of carbon calculators, and came out equally confused. TerraPass had made it into my list of Top 3 Calculators, along with ZeroFootprint and Nature. Now comes Cool Climate, the new calculator from UC Berkeley, that promises to be better than all its predecessors.
Not only is it hard to figure out which calculator to use, but there is also the accountability problem of carbon offsets, carbon calculators’ close cousins. When I am sitting at home in California, how can I know for sure, that the money I am giving will indeed result in carbon credits? The alleged 20% rate of doubtful credits, as reported by the U.N. Clean Development Mechanism organization, spells out caution.
Last, I have my own reservations about the behavioral consequences of relying too much on carbon offsets. I have said it before, we cannot buy our way out of our predicament. Conservation, efficiency, smarter technology solutions, should always come first, with carbon offsets as the absolute last resort. Recognizing that there are indeed circumstances when one has to fly, as an example, and carbon offsets do have a very legitimate role.
I wonder, what is your experience with carbon calculators? Do you buy carbon offsets? If so, when? How would you improve the current system?
I’m kind of shocked.
I was under the impression that the market was converging on AMEE, but apparently not so. Or maybe AMEE allows too much freedom for the sites who use that tool.
I think it’s really strange that not one of the calculators gives exact the same result. It makes you almost think that they all use unique code, that all these programmers have cooked up something themselves, without knowing about AMEE, or thinking about collaborating in general. What a waste of effort!
Allow my ignorance, but what does AMEE stand for?
From http://www.amee.cc/?page_id=2 :
AMEE aims to be the “The world’s energy meter”, it:
* is a neutral, open platform for measuring the Energy Consumption of everything
* enables the calculation of the “Carbon-Footprint” of anything, and everything
* aggregates “official” energy metrics, conversion factors and CO2 data from over 150 countries
* is commercially enabling to 3rd party web agencies/etc. who can then sell their services to their clients
* is commercially enabling to researchers and data owners who can syndicate their data via the platform
* is a common platform for profiling and transactions (there’s a transaction engine at the core of AMEE)
* is a “Web 2.0″ service applied to Climate Campaigning
* designed to save you time, effort and money; and increase transparency and trust in an increasingly complex arena
Wow! This is a great resource. Thanks Meryn, for sharing it here. As you mentioned above, can we assume that all the programmers behind existing calculators know about it, and use it? If not, topic for an expanded conversation beyond this blog, into the rest of the blogosphere, and the media, and with existing calculator sites?
Left comment on AMEE website.
Thanks for the kind comments. Yes ideally we’d like everyone to collaborate with us to help standardise the space.
We’re doing as much as we can to reach out to people, and constantly working to improve the data and the AMEE API service itself. It’s a substantial undertaking for us to provide all the factors that people need and keep them up to date – but it has to be done so that everyone can work to the transparent baselines.
This kind of discussion and support is exactly what we need to get the word out, about what we are trying to achieve.
BTW, AMEE is an acronym for the “Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine”
Thanks Gavin. Quick response! I just wonder how many of the calculator sites mentioned in the reporter’s survey, do use your platform? Do you happen to know?
Love your acronym. You are doing very important work.
None of the ones in that screen-shot use us (yet). We’re only just starting to roll out across the USA – Morgan Stanley (intranet-only) and SUN Microsystems are the first two to engage with us so far, but there’s a lot more in the pipeline.
There are two main problems with carbon calculators.
The first is that most assume the users are morons. That is, instead of saying, “how much petrol do you use each month?” or “how many kWh of electricity each week, and what kind of power plant does it come from?” they ask if your house has insulation or not, if you do any recycling – and then from those general things they make a bunch of assumptions and come up with the final figure. Going from vague answers through vague assumptions they naturally come up with vague and varying results.
The second is that those assumptions differ from one calculator to the other. This is understandable. Where do we draw the line in assessing our impact? For example, burning natural gas in the home will cause [according to the EIA] 120.6lbs of CO2 emissions for each 1,000 cubic feet you burn. But do we only count what we burn directly?
Well, the pipes taking it from the gas field to your home leak 5-10% of the natural gas, and natural gas has a greenhouse warming effect 23 times greater than carbon dioxide, so we have to add 23x 5 to 10%, or 115-230% to its impact, so that it’s effectively 259-398lbs CO2 (effective) per 1,000 cu.ft.
Wow, that’s high, should we really call it that? Well… it’s not really possible for us to burn the natural gas without pipes bringing it to us, so… Yes.
And then there’s all the machinery drilling for the natural gas, the company and its offices, and so on and so forth. And each of those will have its own assumptions behind it.
So depending on where you decide to draw the line, you get very different figures for the emissions due to natural gas.
Now, take that problem of where to draw the line and see how it applies to the meat we eat, the clothes we wear, and… you start to see why the figures vary so much.
In general, you’ll find that the less questions the survey asks you, the less accurate its figures are. The less questions, the more assumptions the survey has to make. Go for something detailed like the Carbon Account.
Gavin and Kyle, maybe the two of you should be talking . . .
Kyle, thanks for your very thorough analysis – as usual! – That is the problem with carbon counting, isn’t it? Where do you draw the line? I am of the ‘good enough’ school. If too much information is requested, users get discouraged. If not enough, results are meaningless. The question then becomes, how much information to ask from users, so that the results can be of any use.
The other issue is how to make those results speak to people, in terms that they can easily relate to. Tons of CO2 do not say much to me. You’ve got to give me some meaningful equivalents. Not an easy task.
I do a footprint calculator about once a year, just to see how we’re doing – I don’t know what the original source was, mine is in a spreadsheet I set up 3 years ago. So it’s probably not an accurate calculator, but the changes over time are meaningful.
I have purchased offsets in the past, when I realized that our decisions not to fly and not to drive as much was resulting in family members flying and driving more. I’m actually thinking, from reading Kiashu’s blog, that what I *should* be doing is starting seedlings & paying a stipend to a friend who is re-establishing mixed forest & orchards on church land, because I don’t have any place to plant trees I can actually tend. Then I would *know* the offset was real.
Thanks Rosa, for sharing your ‘real life’ example. Again, this shows how little we as consumers of various Web services, know about the validity of such services.
Let us know when you do start your own offset program. It would be great to see pictures!
“Tons of CO2 do not say much to me. You’ve got to give me some meaningful equivalents. Not an easy task.”
That’s why I expressed it as “a new currency”. We use dollars in our trade between people, and Carbons in our trade between ourselves and the Earth. When you cause emissions, you are “spending Carbons”, when you plant trees you are “earning Carbons”, and the small amount of emissions you can have which won’t push the world over the edge in terms of climate change we just call “income in Carbons”. The aim is then to balance the books.
A good carbon calculator would tell you the Carbons price of everything you’re likely to have in day-to-day life.
Once you know the dollar or Carbons price of things, keeping accounts is not difficult. If you spend without keeping track of it, it’s very likely you’ll end up in great debt. And that of course is our practice in the West. Buy now, pay later. “Shit, how much?!”
If you keep accounts of your spending, then you’re likely to reduce your spending. The sort of people who have no idea how to keep accounts are very likely to be big spenders.
That brings us to separate carbon accounting systems which are now getting <a href=”“>some traction in the enterprise. I don’t know of any consumer product which does that though.
Yes, we have the calculators, but it’s not real-time, and not integrated into daily accounting: Sounds like an opportunity for Wesabe, Mint or Geezeo…
Calculating is very difficult. The methane component atmospheric half life is short compared to carbon dioxide. It is much more potent, but for a shorter time. You have to build models for the time period you feel is important. For me that means 20 years as we won’t see major technological changes until the end of that period.
For short term effects (20 years) switching from coal to natural gas is effective if leakage is kept to around 6%, if it is oil v natural gas the break-even is around 3%. If you are worried about 100 year figures the leakage break-evens are about 11% and 7%. (I’ve done these calculations, but recommend a paper by Lelieved et al Nature 434 (14 April 2005) for some solid basic work.)
Most studies show Russian transport in a range of 1.5 to 3%. US numbers are much more well known and is generally in the 1.5% range. Of course fixing NG transport infrastructure should be a priority. One encouraging development is the rising price of NG – it is becoming more economical to fix leaks.
So natural gas is probably always better than coal and usually better than oil. But all are bad and we need to be leaving them behind. Unfortunately that is unlikely given the demands on energy growth in China and India (mostly). I don’t think China can keep the 8%+ annual energy growth they’ve demonstrated for the past decade as there are some infrastructure issues, but that is where most of the global warming game will be in the next decade.
Back to the calculators – the general calculations get very messy. Consider regional differences The carbon difference between North Dakota and California electric generation is nearly a factor of 4. I grew up in a small town with over 90% hydropower (largely isolated from larger grids) – we were probably 2.2 pounds CO2/KWH – sort of what you see in China.
I think the trick is to use a calculator to get a general idea and learn how to focus your own efforts. I personally don’t believe in buying carbon offsets as they don’t inspire personal change – at least for me. But each to their own. The idea of retiring credits in a firmly capped system has conceptual merit, although this depends on things like a working cap system and realistic pricing. It isn’t clear that either exists.
We attempt to make family commitments and get involved in some education efforts. I spend a lot of time working with kids and on efforts aimed at kids. We will need very different lifestyles. I’m not optimistic about adults – rightly or wrongly. Kids, if you excite them and are positive are a different story. And maybe the adults will follow.
Meryn, thanks for another great link. You really know where to find them! Also, love your integration ideas . . .
Steve, thanks for your enlightening explanation of the ‘leakage’ problem, and Kyle, for starting it.
I am not as pessimistic as you are with adults making changes, and here is why. I firmly believed people are not as dumb as they seem. They just have not been really talked to in a way that is relevant to them, and that will cause them to change their behaviors. Gas prices shooting up is probably the first time they got a message that worked! Grab people by the pocketbook, show them easier ways that are also better for the environment, and you will start seeing results.
I also think there should be more of a concerted efforts to work with the various targets involved: citizens, business leaders, and politicians. Each represent a separate campaign and selling strategy.
I made an editing mistake .. the small town I grew up in was probably about 0.1 pounds CO2/KWH … a city a few hundred miles away was next to a large coalpant (Coalstrip) … they were probably > 2.2 pounds CO2/KWH … Chinese numbers.
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Also – I’m not pessimistic on adults, I’m just not optimistic. Working with kids gives me a lot of enthusiasm and hope. I also hope it rubs off on their parents. Kids can deal with fundamental change. Most adults are invested in lifestyles and systems that make change difficult.
We need to work at all levels. I’m just somewhat depressed watching how politicians interpreted the public signal from increasing gas prices.
Hey Steve, we’re adults too, right? 😉
There’s lots of diversity in how people react. Lots of my reaction is based on pure knowledge. Most people don’t stand a chance of learning anything about life after they’ve graduated from college. They are completely in the hands of what mass media (and politicians) give them, and they’re giving them what they think keeps them popular.
We just need to get people into the “learning” mode again, especially learning by themselves. Then everything will be allright.
Once you get the hang of it, learning is so easy on the internet!
“after they’ve graduated from college.”
Assuming they went to college. High school in other cases. You know what I mean.
Meryn, this is where word of mouth, as well as well thought out communication campaigns can help. As citizens, we cannot underestimate our role as change agents, through our actions, and day to day conversations with friends, family, and cyberfellows . . .