#What is Carbon Footprint Calculation

[emmaameliamiaava]

Know how to calculate & reduce carbon footprint. Explore HCCB's commitment to achieving net zero emissions & effective strategies for reducing carbon footprint.

[elsa16744]

Understanding What Is a Carbon Footprint: Tips to Reduce Environmental Impact

A carbon footprint measures how our daily actions impact the environment. It includes everything from our commute to the food we eat. But understanding 'what is a carbon footprint' isn't just about curiosity; it's about taking responsibility for our planet. In this guide, we simplify the concept of a carbon footprint and offer practical steps to reduce it. Discover eco-friendly transportation, energy-saving tips, and sustainable choices for a greener lifestyle. Join us in the journey toward a more sustainable future.

[headspace-hotel]

data about where carbon emissions are coming from is so frustrating cause there's all kinds of huge, sprawling, just fucking vast breakdowns of What Causes The Most Carbon Emissions Out Of All Everything In The Entire World, but those are aggregations of numerous smaller but still vast aggregations of data, which are processed and polished from various aggregations of crunched numbers, which are patched and pieced together from various studies, estimates and calculations, which are sieved out of numbers crunched from various measurements, estimates and records, which have been collected, estimated or otherwise conceived through an unspeakably huge variety of methodologies with unspeakably huge variety in limitations, reliability and margins of error.

Even if some of the data was very fine-grained at the beginning, it was filtered through some very coarse number-crunching techniques for the sake of the coarse data, so the results are only as good as the wrongest thing you did in any part of this process, but the plans of action are getting thought up from the top down, which makes the whole thing a hot fucking mess.

For example. And I just made this example up. Say you want to know whether apples or potatoes have a worse impact on climate change. So you look at one of these huge ass infographic things. And it says that potatoes are bad, whereas apples are REALLY good, the BEST crop actually. So it's better to eat apples than potatoes, you think to yourself. Actually we should find a way to replace potatoes with apples! We should fund genetic engineering of apples so they have more starch and can replace potatoes. Great idea. Time to get some investors to put $5 billion towards it.

But actually. Where'd they get that conclusion about apples? Well there's this review right here of the carbon footprint of all different fruits, seems legit. Where'd that data come from? Well it's citing this study right here saying that tree-grown crops are better because they sequester carbon, and this study right here about the distance that different fruits get transported, and this study right here where different fertilization systems are compared in terms of their carbon footprint, and this study over here that sampled 300 apple, peach, and orange farmers comparing their irrigation practices and rates of tree mortality, and this study...wow, okay, seems really reliable...

...what's the first study citing? oh, okay, here's a study about mycorrhizal networks in orchards in Oregon, saying that there's a super high density of fungal mycelium in the 16 orchards that they sampled. And here's a study about leaf litter decay rates in Switzerland under different pesticide regimes, and...okay...relationship of tree spacing to below ground vs. aboveground biomass...a review of above and below-ground biomass in semi-intensively managed orchard plots...

...That one cites "Relationship between biomass and CO2 requirements...carbon immobilization in soil of various tree species...mycorrhizal fungi impact on carbon storage...

...wait a second, none of these are talking about apples, they're about boreal forests...and orange trees...and peanut farms! They're just speculating on roughly applying the non-apple data to apples. You have to go backwards...

Yes! "A review of belowground carbon storage in orchard cropping systems!" Seems like overall the studies find potentially high carbon storage in orchard environments! Walnuts...pears...oranges... intercropping walnuts and wheat... intercropping apples and wheat... wait a second, what about orchards with only apples?

Time for you to go back again...

"New method of mulching in apple orchards can lower irrigation and pesticide needs..." okay but if it's new, most farmers aren't doing it. "Orchards with high density interplanted with annual crops show way more mycorrhizal fungus activity..." "Mycorrhizal associations with trees in the genus Malus..."

...And pretty soon you've spent Five Fucking Hours investigating apples and you've got yourself in this tangled web of citations that demonstrate that some orchard crops (not necessarily apples) store a lot of long-lasting biomass in their trunks and roots really well—and some apple orchards (not necessarily typical ones) have high amounts of mycorrhizal fungi—and some techniques of mulching in orchards (not necessarily the ones apple farmers use) experience less erosion—and some apple trees (not necessarily productive agricultural apples) have really deep root systems—

—and some environments with trees, compared with some conventional agricultural fields, store more carbon and experience less erosion, but not apple orchards because that data wasn't collected in apple orchards.

And you figure out eventually that there is no direct evidence anywhere in the inputs that singles out apples as The Best Crop For Fighting Climate Change, or suggests that conventional apple farming has a much smaller carbon footprint than anything else.

The data just spit out "apples" after an unholy writhing mass of Processes that involved 1) observing some tree-grown crops and deciding it applies closely enough to all tree grown crops 2) observing some apple orchards and deciding its applicable enough to all apple orchards 3) observing some tree-including environments and deciding its close enough to all tree-including environments 4) observing some farming methods and deciding it applies closely enough to all farming methods

And any one of these steps individually would be fine and totally unavoidable, but when strung together repeatedly they distort the original data into A Puddle of Goo.

And it wouldn't be that bad even to string them together, if trees didn't vary that much, and farming didn't vary that much, and soil didn't vary that much, and mycorrhizal networks didn't vary that much, and regions that grow apples didn't vary that much, and pre-conversion-to-apple-orchard states of apple orchards didn't vary that much, and economic incentives controlling apple farming didn't vary that much, but all of these things DO vary, a Fuck Ton, and if the full range of variation were taken into account—nay, intentionally optimized—the distinction between apples and potatoes might turn out to be be MEANINGLESS GOO.

anyway big size piles of data about Farming, In General, make me so bitchy

[photoelectricseo]

Photoelectric-the use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The discretionary carbon footprints of the 1% are not only unjust on a symbolic level. They are also quite literally a material cause of the climate crisis. Researchers estimate that more than half of the emissions generated by humanity since our emergence on this planet have been emitted since 1990. But in these past 30 years, the emissions of the poorest 50% of people have grown hardly at all: They represented a little under 7% of global emissions in 1990, and they remain a little over 7% of global emissions today. By contrast, the richest 10% of people are responsible for 52% of cumulative global emissions — and the 1% for a full 15%. This means that the richest 63 million are producing fully double the dangerous greenhouse gases that half of all humanity, or nearly four billion people, emit. When scientists include the embodied emissions — or what it takes to make the products bought by the rich — in the calculation of their individual carbon footprints, the numbers become even more grotesque: That makes the average carbon footprint of the richest more than 75 times higher than that of the poorest. An estimate looking into 20 of the most prominent billionaires in the U.S. and Europe found that their carbon footprints in 2018 ranged from about 1,000 metric tons to nearly 32,000.

[...]

As Bloomberg News recently reported, the personal emissions of the top 0.001% — those with at least $129.2 million in wealth — are so large that these people’s individual consumption decisions “can have the same impact as nationwide policy interventions.” And the super-rich are not reducing their individual carbon footprints voluntarily. On the contrary. In 2021, sales of superyachts, by far the most polluting luxury asset, surged by 77%.

19 April 2022

[oediex]

Today is Earth Overshoot Day.

"Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year."

This means that from today on, we are living in an ecological deficit, or on "credit". We are using natural resources the earth cannot replenish, as well as accumulating waste the earth cannot deal with, "primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". We are using 1.7 earths every year.

The date of Earth Overshoot Days is slowly climbing forward more and more:

While what we should be doing is pushing that date back the other way. If we want to reach the IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, which is required if we are to limit global warming to 1,5°C, we need to push Earth Overshoot Day back by 19 days for the next 7 years.

World Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network (where the above graph is from), an international non-profit research organisation that provides data, insights, and tools for decision-makers to understand the ecological limitations of our world so that they can make informed decisions for a better future.

One of the best things you can do as an individual is going vegan, because meat and dairy products tend to emit more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods. It is truly one of the most effective ways for you as an individual to have an impact on the environment.

A friendly reminder here at the end that veganism is a doing what is “possible and practicable” for you - this includes access to foods, allergies, health issues, mental health issues, etc.

[beingvegan]

Related to that last post, I find people apply a kind of mathematical “proof by example” logic to veganism. Their interpretation of vegan is “any animal product is worse than any plant product across all metrics at all times” and then if they can find some kind of outlier exception to that statement, it nullifies the entire premise.

What’s problematic about this in context of veganism and a lot of other justice movements is that instead of being able to give people clear guidelines, proponents of this line of thinking are indirectly advocating for everyone to be doing a huge amount of research and work that they’re not going to do. Basically, if you go vegan, your carbon footprint will be lower in 99% of cases, but of course on the fringes you can find weird exceptions. But what’s the alternative? Do deep supply chain investigations on every intended purchase, calculate the carbon footprint of all your options, consult with multiple methods of valuing sustainability, and then, after all that, making an informed choice? Sure, that sounds great, but people aren’t gonna do that, and clear guidelines like “avoid animal products” will get you 99% of the way there. We just cannot be making it this complicated for people. Climate scientists are saying things like “eat a plant based diet” and “avoid flying” for a reason. These are clear, unambiguous directives that are easy to follow and will reduce your climate impact.

Infusing these directives with a ton of complexity is going to overwhelm people and make them check out. It’s the exact playbook of the fossil fuel companies who pushed “the science is complicated” as their primary line for decades and it’s STILL what my conservative relatives who don’t believe in climate change tell me. “Oh, some papers aren’t in agreement, so how can we really know?” “They keep changing their story!” etc.

[emmaameliamiaava]

What is Carbon Footprint - Know How to Reduce Carbon Footprint - HCCB

Know how to calculate & reduce carbon footprint. Explore HCCB's commitment to achieving net zero emissions & effective strategies for reducing carbon footprint.

[realcleverscience]

AI & Data Centers vs Water + Energy

We all know that AI has issues, including energy and water consumption. But these fields are still young and lots of research is looking into making them more efficient. Remember, most technologies tend to suck when they first come out.

Deploying high-performance, energy-efficient AI

"You give up that kind of amazing general purpose use like when you're using ChatGPT-4 and you can ask it everything from 17th century Italian poetry to quantum mechanics, if you narrow your range, these smaller models can give you equivalent or better kind of capability, but at a tiny fraction of the energy consumption," says Ball."...

"I think liquid cooling is probably one of the most important low hanging fruit opportunities... So if you move a data center to a fully liquid cooled solution, this is an opportunity of around 30% of energy consumption, which is sort of a wow number.... There's more upfront costs, but actually it saves money in the long run... One of the other benefits of liquid cooling is we get out of the business of evaporating water for cooling...

The other opportunity you mentioned was density and bringing higher and higher density of computing has been the trend for decades. That is effectively what Moore's Law has been pushing us forward... [i.e. chips rate of improvement is faster than their energy need growths. This means each year chips are capable of doing more calculations with less energy. - RCS] ... So the energy savings there is substantial, not just because those chips are very, very efficient, but because the amount of networking equipment and ancillary things around those systems is a lot less because you're using those resources more efficiently with those very high dense components"

New tools are available to help reduce the energy that AI models devour

"The trade-off for capping power is increasing task time — GPUs will take about 3 percent longer to complete a task, an increase Gadepally says is "barely noticeable" considering that models are often trained over days or even months... Side benefits have arisen, too. Since putting power constraints in place, the GPUs on LLSC supercomputers have been running about 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler and at a more consistent temperature, reducing stress on the cooling system. Running the hardware cooler can potentially also increase reliability and service lifetime. They can now consider delaying the purchase of new hardware — reducing the center's "embodied carbon," or the emissions created through the manufacturing of equipment — until the efficiencies gained by using new hardware offset this aspect of the carbon footprint. They're also finding ways to cut down on cooling needs by strategically scheduling jobs to run at night and during the winter months."

AI just got 100-fold more energy efficient

Northwestern University engineers have developed a new nanoelectronic device that can perform accurate machine-learning classification tasks in the most energy-efficient manner yet. Using 100-fold less energy than current technologies...

“Today, most sensors collect data and then send it to the cloud, where the analysis occurs on energy-hungry servers before the results are finally sent back to the user,” said Northwestern’s Mark C. Hersam, the study’s senior author. “This approach is incredibly expensive, consumes significant energy and adds a time delay...

For current silicon-based technologies to categorize data from large sets like ECGs, it takes more than 100 transistors — each requiring its own energy to run. But Northwestern’s nanoelectronic device can perform the same machine-learning classification with just two devices. By reducing the number of devices, the researchers drastically reduced power consumption and developed a much smaller device that can be integrated into a standard wearable gadget."

Researchers develop state-of-the-art device to make artificial intelligence more energy efficient

""This work is the first experimental demonstration of CRAM, where the data can be processed entirely within the memory array without the need to leave the grid where a computer stores information,"...

According to the new paper's authors, a CRAM-based machine learning inference accelerator is estimated to achieve an improvement on the order of 1,000. Another example showed an energy savings of 2,500 and 1,700 times compared to traditional methods"

[yhancik]

The authors are arguing that generative AI is more green than humans writing or creating visual art.

They reached that conclusion by comparing dubious estimates of the carbon footprint of tools like ChatGPT... ... WITH THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF A HUMAN JUST EXISTING.

For instance, the emission footprint of a US resident is approximately 15 metric tons CO2e per year, which translates to roughly 1.7 kg CO2e per hour. Assuming that a person’s emissions while writing are consistent with their overall annual impact, we estimate that the carbon footprint for a US resident producing a page of text (250 words) is approximately 1400 g CO2e.

These four - supposedly sane - individuals thought it up, spent time researching all kind of data and calculations, wrote this down, proofread it a hundred times, published it, without questioning at one point whether this was any kind of meaningful comparison.

Found via a very good thread by L. Rhodes to whom I leave the conclusion because he words it better than I ever could:

it's dangerous on multiple levels. Dangerous first of all because they'll use it to greenwash a practice that, by any truthful measure, is increasing the amount of carbon emissions. Those 300 million monthly queries don't displace the carbon emissions of the people making them—they add to them. And I suspect they add significantly more than is reflected by the calculations of that paper. But the comparison is also dangerous because it implies that we would be better off, environmentally speaking, if you COULD replace artists—not just their work, which the paper doesn't meaningfully distinguish from their actuarial carbon footprint, but the people themselves—with generative AI. And from what we've seen and heard of their ideological commitments, that's a conclusion some AI enthusiasts would readily embrace.

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 210 Trivia

This is it everyone. We're going to get Ruri and the others back finally. I haven't been this excited for the next chapter since chapter 209.

Two people are using drills of some sort since they have wires leading away from them, but Yo is stuck using a pick-axe and hitting things wildly, spinning like the other fighters do when mining.

To make bauxite into aluminum, you need two processes: the Bayer process, to turn it into aluminum oxide, and the Hall–Héroult process to turn that into aluminum. Both are energy intensive, and even these days use hydroelectric power to reduce costs and carbon footprint.

The Hall-Héroult process involves dissolving the aluminum oxide in cryolite, which is a compound that contains the fluorite they acquired in Spain.

Duralumin (DURable ALUMINum) is an aluminum-copper alloy that has been age-hardened (heat treated) in such a way that gives it better strength at higher temperatures, perfect for the rocket. In addition to copper, it usually contains manganese and magnesium.

Once again we have proof of the big, happy family that is the Kingdom of Science: using each others' words.

I couldn't find where the power cost for Apollo's aluminum came from, (it's possible Kurare calculated it?) but I can convert 3 billion yen to USD: 27,309,975$ or about 27.3 million dollars.

Kaseki not reacting because he doesn't know the value of a yen is pretty funny too.

The timeline is still fairly vague at this point since we don't know how much time has passed after October 1st, but if this bird here is an eastern great egret, we can at least say it's not March yet, since the bird has a black beak during the breeding season (March-May).

There's several cities with arrows here but there's also two extras, and the Rubber City one is still missing…

I'm wondering if the top unlabelled arrow is somehow for the moon, as that's possibly where the medusa came from?

What a way to find out that you're immortal… Poor Ukyo. He's probably heard a lot of secret things this chapter because of people yelling…

I'm wondering how they got up there since there's no visible access hatch and I'd be concerned about falling from that height if they climbed up out the windows.

Rooftop bonding is always nice though :)

"You say 'amateur' as if it was a dirty word. 'Amateur' comes from the Latin word 'amare', which means to love. To do things for the love of it." - Mozart in the Jungle

(I know that's not really trivia, I simply think the quote suits Chrome and that he should hear it. Not that Chrome knows what Latin is, haha!)

Somehow I don't think this endeavor will be kept a secret for long, since he's yelling on top of a tower in the direction of the boat Ukyo is currently on.

Also he's known to not be able to keep secrets, yet can also keep them when needed?

We don't know Sai's age, but if we compare it to Ryusui's timeline (the racetrack flashback) and Senku's ages (the rocket flashback and petrification), he couldn't have been away from Nanami Corp. for longer than 5 years.

Assuming Sai hadn't already graduated high school, he wouldn't have really had enough time to become a professor, since that takes 6-8 years.

There's no age limit on being a professor, but Sai would need to have a Master's degree to be eligible, and then still need to take other tests and training. He may have been a tutor or a teaching assistant instead.

Chrome has written absolutely nothing down, but Suika has several pages full on her desk already. It's also amusing how Suika, the one who needs glasses and is significantly shorter, is sat behind Chrome.

I believe "Mathematics by Sai" may be the first properly bound, hardcover book in the Stone World too.

[vodam46]

have an essay about the environment, because i dont wanna waste this writing i did in english class

"The Environment" can mean a thousand things, and yet, when we hear it in the current age, all we can think of is the environment of nature, the wilderness, the place where we as a species came from. How is The Environment doing currently? How do we treat our mother nature from which we all came? Do we live in harmony, taking ony as much as we need, and giving back as much, or do we greedily sprint forward grabbing everything we can just so we can have a little more?

Sadly, as we all know , the latter is the case. The rich march on with their bags of money, and we, the normal people are supposed to live where they had stomped. Is this right? Is this justified? Why can't we all just share what we have left and let our planet, the only environment we have access to, heal?

"Oh", you say, "we do let it heal, do you not know? Have you calculated your carbon footprint? Do you use paper straws? Have you considered switching to an EV?" And while these points are passable, they completely ignore the true cause and instead attempt to shift the blame upon the customer, the humble human.

The "carbon footprint", for example , was created by petrol companies to allow them to ignore their mistakes and instead throw it on the rest of humanity.

The paper straws, while hated by many, are a step in the right direction, with the destination being reusable straws, but many ignore the reason why the original was sucha problem, and that being our unsustainable way of getting rid of plastics.

And this all is ignoring the way that EV companies (specifically battery companies) abuse third world countries to mine lithium, and the damage these processes cause.

And so, I ask of you: Do you care for the environment? If no, continue on, if yes, ask yourself what the real problem is.

[lemonhemlock]

Tbh maybe Aemond walked into that room because he noticed the vibes in the Red Keep were off and wanted to ask his mom (or any other members of his family, if that is the designated room is where they hang out) what the heck was going on, and then he sees her face and is immediately like "ohhhh." To me his facial expression reads as him silently realizing that his father is dead and the gravity of the situation setting in. Although I do love the idea of Alicent's room just being the living room of the Green family (including Criston), and that Aemond was casually walking in to spend time with Helaena and her kids. Just sitting together in comfortable silence, maybe sometimes with Alicent on the side, watching the kids play and occasionally waxing poetic about the world or talking about philosophy and politics (they discuss ecosocialism).

And Helaena's face when Aemond walks in... Ohhhh there's so much going on there, so many things that could be said. This is why we need an interview with Phia Saben ASAP. I need to know her thoughts and what she was doing!!!

I am SNICKERING thinking about meandering & confused Aemond turning to Alicent: "Mummy, the vibes are so off around here I can't write my essay on the plight of women and the marginalized classes. Hug me so I can draw inspiration from your struggle for liberation? 😭"

Alicent: "Honey, I'd love to calculate Rhaenyra's carbon footprint with you, but I'm kind of in the middle of something, be a good dear and pick up your brother from his environmental degradation book club, will you?"

Helaena: "Alright, children, repeat after me: if Rhaenyra becomes queen, the emancipation of women will be pushed back decades."

Criston: "My Queen, I'm afraid Prince Aegon has passed out from exhaustion after spending the entire night drafting new climate legislation."