Resources for Sustainability: Highlighting Carbon Emissions Data with CAIT Climate Data Explorer

Often mentioned among harmful components impacting the planet’s climate, measuring and mapping the quantity of carbon emissions aids in focusing technology initiatives and solutions.

With industrialization, a growing population, and the prevailing methodologies with which human life is fueled, carbon emissions have grown in relevance when dealing with broader-scale consequences of our daily lives. While this topic can branch into a variety of subjects related to economics, the environment, and more, the purpose of this article is to present gathered information in order to benefit and maintain a healthy Triple Bottom Line.

Custom solutions should be tailored to most effectively cope with carbon emissions of different regions. For example, areas in which agriculture contributes most to carbon emissions will benefit particularly from technologies like Anaerobic Digesters and Combined Heat and Power Units (refer to Sustainable Agriculture)—this combination can take detrimental waste from livestock, forestry waste, and more, and turn it into electricity and thermal energy. Additional add-on technologies can expand the output to resources like biofuels, compost, and fertilizer (refer to Bio Refinery). In this process flow, the inevitable waste created from agriculture becomes a sustaining resource for the industry itself, as opposed to contributing solely to pollution and other detrimental outcomes.

This entry in Team Gemini’s ongoing “Resources for Sustainability” series will complement several maps found among the tools from our Resources compilation; in particular, information from this entry can be coupled with the EPA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator for an added layer of context.

The following interactive graphic—one of many found at the CAIT Climate Data Explorer—focuses on data relevant to the U.S.

Feel free to explore more on our Resources page, or contact us if you’d like to recommend others.

For a full listing of Team Gemini sustainability tools and resources, please visit our resources page at http://teamgemini.us/resources/.