As a precursor to the PSI reunion, we would like to get you thinking about the impact that your research/work may have both on the climate and on climate science. For this reason, we invite you to answer this interactive anonymized survey (~15 mins) which will generate an estimate of the carbon footprint that your research/work has and will also give you some ideas on how your research/work could be valuable to climate science. Based on your own numbers as you go through the survey, you will be able to estimate your annual carbon emissions in kg of CO2. On our side, we will also be able to collect some anonymized data about the contributions and impacts of our community, which will be displayed as part in our project presentation during the PSI reunion.

In this first section, we provide some food for thought about our professional carbon footprint. We here aim to collect anonymized data regarding the environmental impact of the way we currently do science and stimulate thinking to identify ways to optimize our approaches to research/work with respect to climate as well as productivity.

On the next page an estimate of your carbon footprint will be shared with you based on your answers here.

This is calculated using reported estimates of CO2 footprints, which may not exactly reflect your true footprint based on a variety of local factors.

One espresso has an average carbon footprint of about 0.28 kg CO2, but it could be as little as 0.06 kg CO2 if grown sustainably [1].

[1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/jan/analysis-heres-carbon-cost-your-daily-coffee-and-how-make-it-climate-friendly

Transportation accounts globally for approximately one quarter of energy related CO2 emissions [2], but videoconferencing is not without its own impacts [3]. 

On average, fossil-fuel-powered vehicles emit around 0.17 kg CO2/km. Intra-city bus transportation is estimated to have a per passenger footprint between 0.08 - 0.10 kg CO2/km, and intercity bus around 0.027 kg CO2/km per passenger, with local tram and rail estimated at 0.029 kg CO2/km per passenger and intercity rail between 0.004 - 0.035 kg CO2/km per passenger.

A video call over Zoom is estimated to cost at least 0.150 kg CO2/hr per attendee (with each attendee's camera on).

[2] H. Ritchie (2023) - “Which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint?” Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint' [Online Resource]

[3] R. Obringer et al., “The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing Internet use”, Resources, Conservation and Recycling Vol. 167 105389 (2021).

A laptop computer typically consumes 50-100W, depending on the tasks it is performing. A desktop computer consumes a bit more, between 100-150W. Here, we estimate your daily energy consumption from computer use.

A 100W computer uses the equivalent of 0.043 kg CO2/hr emitted from electricity consumption.

Approximating the footprint of each core to be on the order of a lightweight desktop (~100W), then each core hour has an associated emission footprint on the order of 0.043 kg CO2/core-hour.

The energy cost to store and access data locally on your own disk drives is on the order of 0.005Wh per GB, and it does not need continuous input of power to maintain your data. On the other hand, the energy cost to send and store data on cloud servers is on the order of somewhere between 3-7kWh per GB [4], enough to power several hundred light bulbs for the time it takes to copy the data. This leads to a carbon footprint of around 2 kg CO2/GB just from storing files on the cloud! [5]

In fact, global digital data storage is currently responsible for greater carbon emissions than the commercial airline industry [6,7,8], due to heavy reliance on fossil fuels as energy sources. And that doesn’t estimate other collateral environmental effects due to the amount of cooling water required in data centers.

The average carbon footprint of an email is 0.3g CO2. The numbers go up, however, if it's a long email that takes ten minutes to write and three seconds to read (17g CO2), or if it's got one image or an attachment (50g CO2) [9]. Unsubscribing from e-newsletters or promotions that you don’t read can therefore also make a contribution to reduce your carbon footprint. Deleting email that isn’t needed can also reduce your storage footprint.

[4] https://stanfordmag.org/contents/carbon-and-the-cloud 

[5] https://clevercarbon.io/carbon-footprint-of-common-items 

[6] https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud 

[7] https://www.grcooling.com/the-plane-truth-about-environmental-sustainability 

[8] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions 

[9] https://www.pawprint.eco/eco-blog/carbon-footprint-email 

As a result of those business trips, how many kilometers do you estimate to travel in a year by...

Short-haul flights have the highest per km impact, estimated at around 0.246 kg CO2/km. A long-haul international flight typically generates 0.150 kg CO2/km [2]. 

Recall that, on average, fossil-fuel-powered vehicles emit around 0.17. Intra-city bus transportation is estimated between 0.08 - 0.10 kg CO2/km, and intercity bus around 0.027kg CO2/km, with local tram and rail estimated at 0.029 kg CO2/km and intercity rail between 0.004 - 0.035 kg CO2/km.

Do you join events online that you could cross the campus to join in person? Recall that a video call over Zoom is estimated to cost at least 0.150kg CO2/hr, with potentially higher footprints involved if there are many participants and all participants’ cameras must be on all the time.

Based on your answers in Part A, we have been able to estimate your annual work carbon footprint:

We will now gather the data and in the reunion we will give the statistics.

In case you want to compare your footprint with others in advance, or to learn more about carbon footprints, you can take a look at the following resources:

 

What's Your Carbon Footprint? | Center for Science Education (ucar.edu)

Find out the Carbon Footprint of Common Items - clever carbon

Comparateur carbone | Impact CO₂ (impactco2.fr)

Our training as physicists and even our research/work may be useful in areas relevant for climate science or to mitigate the effects of climate change. In this second part of the survey we want to get you thinking about the ways your research may be useful to climate issues, or at least tell you about some interesting ways in which the work of physicists has been useful so far in climate science-related research.

In 2015 all UN member states agreed to a series of collective goals in order to facilitate development of a more equitable world, free of conflict and with prosperity and abundant resources for all. These are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs), which you can read about on the UN website: https://sdgs.un.org/goals 

There are many physicists that have shifted and are deploying their knowledge and skills in research topics that are directly climate-related.

Even if your work isn’t directly focused on climate science, the techniques you may be learning/developing/using can be applicable to solving different problems in climate science or related issues.

If you have answered yes to any of the above, then your research is related to climate science research!

Maybe you can take a look at what other researchers are doing and get involved to the extent you are able to help.

What Can Mathematicians Do About Climate Change? | Azimuth (wordpress.com)

The Mathematics of Climate Change 

Climate change is physics | Communications Earth & Environment (nature.com)

The Physics of Climate Change: Lawrence M. Krauss: Apollo (bloomsbury.com)

 

It is possible that as part of your job, you engage in teaching or mentoring activities. Even if you do not engage directly in climate science-related research/activities you could be key in motivating others to do so. The next few questions can be taken as suggestions for how to improve our impact on our teaching/mentoring.

Many teaching resources about the science of climate change can be found online. If you teach students at the high school level, you may be interested in the following:

Perimeter's Outreach Team: "Evidence for Climate Change"

Teaching The Future's collection of educational games on climate change

Thank you very much for your time. We hope that this survey has been interesting for you and we are looking forward to the reunion!

Have you learned something about your research and will try to get involved with climate-related research (to the extent it is possible)? Do you feel we left some important aspects out of this survey? If you have any comment, please feel free to share it: