Converting CO2/kwH/H20 reductions into laymen terms
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I'm doing research on effective communication and messaging to achieve behavior change on campus, and one thing I'm interested in is using "real person' terms when promoting carbon, electricity, or water reductions. Could anyone tell me some good science-based resources on converting CO2/kwH/H20 into laymen terms?
For example, switching over from incandescent light bulbs to CFLs saves 40 tons of carbon over the life of the bulb, which is the equivalent of taking __ cars off the road. I'm seeking either examples where the math is already done, or the values that would aid people in doing the conversion (i.e. Burning one gallon of gas creates 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, and the average car emits about six tons of carbon dioxide every year. Just found that by Adam Stein, VP of Marketing at Terrapass, by googling it. But that's not really citeable).
Thank you,
Swapna
MBA Candidate, Babson College
Swapna,
The Clean Energy website by US EPA may be a good source of info for your project.
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/refs.html
Good luck!
Regards, Craig
Blue Planet Energy
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Hi Swapna,
We had a blog article published on this topic last September, "What does One Ton of C02 Really Mean" that you might find helpful.
Cheers,
Niles