Carbon Calculator
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smwheeler
Oct 27, 2008, 6:17:54 PM10/27/08
to Davis Low Carbon Diet
Is anyone else wondering about the limitations of carbon calculators
such as the one we're using?
We buy primarily organic food and locally grown produce, but there
seems no way to get credit for that. The "Fruit and Vegetable" bar on
our food tab is quite high, when I think it should be much lower.
The "Services" category includes things like charitable donations. It
seems questionable whether donating to environmental organizations,
for example, should be counted as a net increase in carbon.
We're also getting docked a lot for City of Davis water, sewage,
recycling, and trash services that we have no control over. If we had
the option of getting a 30 gallon trash container instead of a 90
gallon one, we'd certainly do it. We generate very little trash; is
there a way to get credit for that?
So, any way to fine-tune this calculator? -- Steve Wheeler
such as the one we're using?
We buy primarily organic food and locally grown produce, but there
seems no way to get credit for that. The "Fruit and Vegetable" bar on
our food tab is quite high, when I think it should be much lower.
The "Services" category includes things like charitable donations. It
seems questionable whether donating to environmental organizations,
for example, should be counted as a net increase in carbon.
We're also getting docked a lot for City of Davis water, sewage,
recycling, and trash services that we have no control over. If we had
the option of getting a 30 gallon trash container instead of a 90
gallon one, we'd certainly do it. We generate very little trash; is
there a way to get credit for that?
So, any way to fine-tune this calculator? -- Steve Wheeler
Kim Vincent
Oct 27, 2008, 7:13:10 PM10/27/08
to Davis Low Carbon Diet
Hi Steve,
Great comments! This is just the kind of "stuff" we are looking for
to help tailor our program for Davis residents.
Thank you for your comments and I will make sure Mitch sees this.
Kim
Great comments! This is just the kind of "stuff" we are looking for
to help tailor our program for Davis residents.
Thank you for your comments and I will make sure Mitch sees this.
Kim
Chris Jones, Berkeley Institute of the Environment
Oct 28, 2008, 6:07:50 PM10/28/08
to Davis Low Carbon Diet
Hi Steve,
Important issues. Thanks for bringing the up.
The current calculator does not include buttons for organic or local
but a version coming out in the next few weeks will.
In general, what we have found is pasture raised beef has roughly 50%
fewer emissions per pound than conventionally raised beef, while
produce has about 25% fewer emissions, on average. Of course, organics
also cost more so a good rule of thumb is if you are purchasing
organic food you should only be entering about 50% of the total
dollars you spend in the calculator. We actually used to have a button
that did just that 2 years ago and are now bringing it back now that
we feel we can support our results.
For "services" I recommend simply leaving the default values. You will
notice that services don't contribute very much relative to other
consumption items. As you know our economy has largely become a
service economy (which is a good thing for the climate) and on
aggregate these industries generate a lot of emissions. Even the non-
profit sector generates a lot of emissions, regardless of the type of
work they are doing. As an anecdote, a professor at UC Berkeley calls
himself a "climate pig" since he flies all over the world....talking
about climate change. Universities also generate a lot of emissions
and to the extent that universities exist to educate students,
students can choose to claim the emissions in their personal carbon
footprints.
One way to think about the CoolCalifornia calculator is it estimates
the emissions from everything households consume. Whether or not
households want to take responsibility for those emissions, is another
question. I personally believe consumption does largely drive
emissions in the economy, however, we should not be responsible for
bad decisions made by companies, so some shared responsibility may
ultimately make the most sense.
On the topic of emissions from city services, there are also much
larger emissions from federal government, e.g., emissions from
military, road construction, government buildings, etc. These are
currently not included in the calculator, although we do intend to
eventually include them.
We all know that you can't manage what you don't measure. To the
extent that household decisions impact carbon emissions throughout the
economy (and globally) I think it is important at least to measure
these to understand the full implications of consumption on
environmental change.
Please feel free to email me directly with comments as well. This kind
of feedback is extremely valuable to me. In the future you can expect
greatly enhanced tools based in large part on this kind of feedback.
Best,
Chris Jones
cmj...@berkeley.edu
Important issues. Thanks for bringing the up.
The current calculator does not include buttons for organic or local
but a version coming out in the next few weeks will.
In general, what we have found is pasture raised beef has roughly 50%
fewer emissions per pound than conventionally raised beef, while
produce has about 25% fewer emissions, on average. Of course, organics
also cost more so a good rule of thumb is if you are purchasing
organic food you should only be entering about 50% of the total
dollars you spend in the calculator. We actually used to have a button
that did just that 2 years ago and are now bringing it back now that
we feel we can support our results.
For "services" I recommend simply leaving the default values. You will
notice that services don't contribute very much relative to other
consumption items. As you know our economy has largely become a
service economy (which is a good thing for the climate) and on
aggregate these industries generate a lot of emissions. Even the non-
profit sector generates a lot of emissions, regardless of the type of
work they are doing. As an anecdote, a professor at UC Berkeley calls
himself a "climate pig" since he flies all over the world....talking
about climate change. Universities also generate a lot of emissions
and to the extent that universities exist to educate students,
students can choose to claim the emissions in their personal carbon
footprints.
One way to think about the CoolCalifornia calculator is it estimates
the emissions from everything households consume. Whether or not
households want to take responsibility for those emissions, is another
question. I personally believe consumption does largely drive
emissions in the economy, however, we should not be responsible for
bad decisions made by companies, so some shared responsibility may
ultimately make the most sense.
On the topic of emissions from city services, there are also much
larger emissions from federal government, e.g., emissions from
military, road construction, government buildings, etc. These are
currently not included in the calculator, although we do intend to
eventually include them.
We all know that you can't manage what you don't measure. To the
extent that household decisions impact carbon emissions throughout the
economy (and globally) I think it is important at least to measure
these to understand the full implications of consumption on
environmental change.
Please feel free to email me directly with comments as well. This kind
of feedback is extremely valuable to me. In the future you can expect
greatly enhanced tools based in large part on this kind of feedback.
Best,
Chris Jones
cmj...@berkeley.edu
Stephen Wheeler
Oct 29, 2008, 3:49:35 PM10/29/08
to davis-low-...@googlegroups.com, Mitch COD
Hi Chris -- Thanks for the detailed reply. Having the buttons for organic would be good.
You say that "services don't contribute very much relative to other consumption items." But for our household, with relatively low goods consumption and only one car, a hybrid, they're a bit higher than for the average household. Also, one of the scenarios I'm running is our lowest possible emissions, and in that scenario services becomes the second highest category, after household. So figuring out how to reduce it becomes important. And there's not much way, given fixed expenses for health care and day care, and our desire to continue charitable contributions.
Having looked at a number of other calculators I want to say that I'm impressed with yours...most others aren't nearly so comprehensive.
Best wishes -- Steve
Stephen M. Wheeler, Ph.D., AICP
Assistant Professor
Landscape Architecture Program
Department of Environmental Design
University of California at Davis
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616
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