Climate Change and Calculating Carbon Footprints

  • Publication date January 7, 2025

Jaycie Martell

Introduction/Rationale:

I teach in a school where ninety percent of the students live below the poverty line. This makes things like carbon footprint unimportant because they are in survival mode. This means they are worried about where their next meal is coming from or where they’ll sleep at night. Your carbon footprint isn’t essential when concerned about your basic needs. A unit like this will give them information about the environment they probably wouldn’t have heard about normally. Things such as thrift shopping have become more popular in recent years. That is one thing that students might already be doing to help the environment, whether they know it’s good for the environment or not. This unit will give them an idea of what the world will look like in the future if we don’t all start making changes. It will also help them realize that they have a voice and give them an avenue to use their voice for something they believe in. I hope that during this unit, the students will find one or more ways to lower their carbon footprint or talk to their parents about how they can reduce their carbon footprint as a household.

Unit Content:

Acronyms to know when you’re looking into carbon footprints:

GHG: Greenhouse Gases

CF: Carbon Footprint

LCA: Life Cycle Assessment

CO2: Carbon Dioxide

N2O: Nitrous Oxide

SOC: Social Organic Carbon

CE: Carbon Dioxide Emissions (1)

Carbon footprint is the measurement of greenhouse gases that a person or group of people emit into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are impacting global warming and harming the atmosphere.(2) You can calculate your carbon footprint by adding up the carbon emissions from your lifestyle choices.(3) For example, if you use a single-use water bottle every day, you will have a higher carbon footprint than someone who uses a reusable water bottle. Greenhouse gases are emitted in all of your decisions, big or small. When you drive your car, you are raising your carbon footprint. When you buy a pair of shoes, the factory that made them emits carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere to make the shoes and if you get them delivered to your house that is even more gases that are emitted because of the plane or car it took to get the package to you. Even decisions that you don’t make directly affect your carbon footprint. The box the shoes came in also plays a part in producing carbon emissions. It is impossible not to have a carbon footprint, but there are a lot of ways to lower your carbon footprint or offset your current carbon footprint. The easiest way to find out your carbon footprint is to find a carbon footprint calculator online. It is impossible to figure out your exact carbon footprint, but an online carbon footprint calculator will let you know a ballpark of where you are with your greenhouse gas emissions. One of the leading greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide, but other gases are used when calculating a carbon footprint.

An important thing to remember is the life cycle assessment. The life cycle assessment shows everything items go through and at what stages they impact the atmosphere. The life cycle assessment starts with raw material extraction, then the materials are transported to a different location to be processed.(4) That transportation emits carbon emissions from the gasoline needed to make the car run. After the materials are processed, the processed materials are transported to a factory that will produce them into a product. You used to be able to see the greenhouse gases being emitted into the air, but a lot of factories stopped emitting the gases in such an obvious way, the gray/white smoke coming out of the top of the factory. However, this does not mean fewer greenhouse gases are emitted; companies are finding inconspicuous ways to release them. Factories use different types of filters to stop the greenhouse gases from being visible to everyone who drives by. The product is transported to a store where it waits to be bought. The store uses electricity and heating/cooling equipment, and the employees most likely drive to work, which results in extra carbon emissions.(5) After the product is purchased, the person who bought the product will more than likely drive the product home. When the product has been used as much as possible, the buyer throws the product away. The trash trucks come to pick up the product and transport it to a different location. A lot more goes into a product making it to your house than you might have originally thought. Carbon emissions are put out into the environment with each stage. Not to mention that the buyer might get tired of the product and throw it out prematurely to go buy another product like that original one.

Many different gases make up greenhouse gases. Methane causes the most warming damage even though it is found in small amounts within greenhouse gases. Methane has twenty-five times the warming effects as carbon dioxide. Nitrous Oxide is another major greenhouse gas.(6)

Past:

A lot of the greenhouse gases from the 1800s were from harvesting crops and raising animals. However, in the 1900s, factories and cars were the highest contributors of greenhouse gases. As the machinery got lighter and more efficient, it was easier to gather the materials, and it didn’t take as much time and energy to make the machinery. This caused the greenhouse gas emissions to decline. Later on, it did end up producing more and more greenhouse gases because the demand for machinery, whether household technology or vehicles, increased quickly. If you were to graph the greenhouse gas emissions of the 1900s, it would create a U-shape because of the hard work to get the materials that got easier as technology became more efficient. Emissions then rose as the demand increased for those items.(7)

Present:

Carbon emissions have increased over one hundred and fifty times where they were one hundred and seventy years ago.(8) However, during 2020 commuting emissions went down seventy-two percent because of the global pandemic. (9) Though, many different factors contribute to the increase in carbon emissions. Some of these factors include factory production, changing lifestyle choices, transportation, and the increase in population. Burning oil, coal, and natural gas is where over half of greenhouse gases come from.(10) This is why transportation is a big contributor to carbon emissions. Electricity and heat account for about a fourth of all greenhouse gases. Forest fires are another way we are producing too much carbon dioxide. Not only does the burning of the forest produce carbon dioxide, but it also eliminates the plants that absorb carbon dioxide. Forest fires are not only creating greenhouse gases but some forest fires are caused by climate change. (11) The more greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere the worse climate change becomes. Climate change causes drier and hotter weather. This weather is perfect for fires to not only start but to spread rapidly.(12)

The way to get our greenhouse gases under control is to work on our carbon management. The first step is to commit to managing our carbon emissions then we need to figure out where we are at with our greenhouse gases. The next step is to set our targets and develop a plan to reach our goal. Once someone has the plan, they need to communicate the plan with everyone so we can all be on the same page. If everyone commits to this plan, we can measure our progress over time and communicate the results to everyone. Finally, we can set a target for improving our ideas to help lower carbon emissions and then repeat the whole process over again.

The Paris Agreement is a perfect example of the larger scale of the process described above. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding agreement between countries.(14) The countries who sign the agreement agree to produce only a certain amount of greenhouse gases as a country.(15) If a country notices that they are going to produce more greenhouse gases than it agreed upon, it can buy the right to produce more greenhouse gases from a country that isn’t producing as much greenhouse gases as it agreed upon. For example, suppose the United States is noticing they will produce more greenhouse gases than they originally thought. In that case, they might pay Mexico to not produce as much greenhouse gas to offset their usage. This helps the whole world to watch how much greenhouse gas we are producing. However, not every country has signed the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement has been signed by one hundred and seventy-five out of one hundred and ninety-five countries.(16) The majority of the world has signed the Paris Agreement, but the whole world needs to agree on one plan for us to see some real change. On the bright side, the countries that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions have signed the agreement.

There are ethical ways to get things done without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We can use wind, solar, and hydroelectric power to produce energy for households instead of burning fossil fuels.(17) We can also buy products that are local or have already been used and can be used again safely. This doesn’t produce greenhouse gases because it was already made and it didn’t need to be transported anywhere but from the store to your home. Recycling may cost more money but it produces less greenhouse gases than making an entirely new item. The way to fight off greenhouse gases is to think about what we are buying and how the products we buy are harming or helping the environment.

One of the movements that has been started to stop global warming is called Zero Waste. The zero-waste community’s goal is to have exactly that: no waste. This community follows the four R’s: refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle.(18) Some of the strategies that this community uses are growing their food, buying second-hand, and finding a new use for a product that they can no longer use. Many people in this community will show all their waste for a whole year in a mason jar to show that they didn’t produce much waste. This is something to strive for, but not many people can accomplish something as extreme as that and it stops many people from trying in the first place. Although this movement has great intentions there are some issues that many people don’t think about. A lot of the community can only participate because they come from a position of wealth.(19) It costs a lot of money to buy quality items that will last a long time. This takes quite a lot of time to research ethical and eco-friendly companies. That also goes for researching places to take recycling, compost, and non-compostable items. Anyone who is below the poverty line doesn’t have time to research everything they need to know about the zero-waste movement and they are too busy trying to make money to cover their basic needs let alone paying for quality items.(20) This is a prime example of a movement that has good intentions but has an extensive amount of flaws that stop people from participating.

There are two different types of emissions that are put into the atmosphere. These are called direct and indirect emissions. Direct emissions account for driving your vehicle and turning on your heat. Indirect emissions account for deforestation, transportation of gasoline to the gas stations, and manufacturing of the technology you are reading this on. Indirect emissions are things you don’t think about but still create greenhouse gases. Everything has a carbon footprint, whether big or small.

Carbon offsetting is a method of trying to offset the carbon emissions that someone puts into the atmosphere. (21) There are two different ways this is done. One way carbon offsetting is used is by companies that pay money to offset the greenhouse gases that they are putting out into the environment. The other way carbon offsetting works is through individuals who want to offset their carbon footprint. (22) A great example of the individual use of carbon offsetting is when you buy a flight and they will sometimes ask you if you want to pay a fee to offset your flight. This is an easy way to help offset your carbon footprint because all it takes is some money and a few clicks. For almost all other carbon emissions you are letting off you must first find a carbon offsetting company then you can use an online calculator to find out how much it will cost to offset your drive, shopping trip, putting out your waste, etc. They will then use that money to plant more trees, look into more renewable energy sources, or help companies find ways to reduce their carbon footprint.(23) If actively working towards lowering your carbon footprint sounds like a lot of work, you should look into carbon offsetting. It is an indirect way to help the environment when you don’t have the time or energy to do so. In Oklahoma specifically, the majority of carbon offsetting companies focus on wind energy and preventing soil erosion. I encourage you to look up what your state or county does when it comes to carbon offsetting. 

There are many ways you can keep your carbon footprint down. One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to walk or ride a bike when making a short trip somewhere. For longer trips, you could take public transportation such as buses or trains. If public transportation isn’t your thing, you could always carpool with someone who is going to the same place as you. Driving emits quite a lot of carbon dioxide, but when you carpool, the emissions are split between you, which cuts carbon emissions in half for that trip. Ensuring your house is well insulated can help your carbon footprint because it will keep the heat/cool in the house. A simple way to help reduce your carbon footprint is to ensure lights are turned off and devices are unplugged when not being used. Heating water and purifying your water contributes to your carbon footprint. With this being said, taking shorter showers and turning off the water when washing your hands or brushing your teeth can help not only your carbon footprint but also save you money. Buying less can help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases you produce. Also by researching for good quality items, you won’t have to buy those items as often. When you are looking to buy an item try to find it second-hand or trade items with a friend. When you do go to buy anything, bring reusable bags instead of using the plastic bags that are provided. Shopping online is a greener way to shop, however, when shopping online you need to make sure you aren’t buying so much that you have multiple boxes with plastic wrap inside coming to your house every day. Using your phone gives off its carbon footprint; talking on the phone uses more greenhouse gases than sending a text message. However, using your phone less will help your carbon footprint. The same thing goes for all of your technology, computers, televisions, etc.

Future:

Plenty of changes are being discussed for the future of the environment. Food production is currently responsible thirty-four percent of greenhouse gas emissions; therefore, it would be good to focus on this when making changes.(24) In a Macdonald Research Farm of McGill University study, they focused on what changes need to be made to lower the carbon footprint of food production. They looked at multiple scenarios to find the best impact of climate change and clean energy. These scenarios include a historical scenario (HD), and future scenarios (FD, FB, FBE1, FBE2). They looked at how the food was made and the whole Life Cycle Assessment, as seen in the image below.

Fig. 1. The research system boundary and processes considered in the maize production system. Red arrows indicate carbon emissions and green arrows indicate carbon sequestration. The upstream section includes CO2 equivalent emissions (CE) from the production of maize seeds, fertilizer, energy, and herbicides. The transportation section is the CE generated by the energy consumed when transporting the products and residue. The CE for the in-field section comes from soil respiration and the use of agricultural machinery. (25)

The historical scenario (HD) describes everyone using fossil fuels for transportation and any machines used for agricultural operations within the time frame of 1991-2013. One of the future scenarios (FD) describes everyone using fossil fuels for machinery and transportation within the time frame of 2044-2066. Another future scenario (FB) describes everyone switching to biodiesel for transportation and any machinery needed for agricultural production. A different future scenario (FBE1) describes everyone switching to battery-powered trucks, but everything else remains the same as FB. The final future scenario (FBE2) describes using a battery-electric trolleybus instead of a regular vehicle, but everything else remains the same as FBE1. This study used two functional units for carbon footprint accounting. The farm carbon footprint was used to find the carbon dioxide emissions per unit in the area of the field and the product carbon footprint was used to find the carbon dioxide emissions per unit mass of the field. They found that it was hard to compare using diesel and biodiesel when transporting because when burning diesel you can easily find the carbon footprint but when burning biodiesel the carbon dioxide produced is absorbed by photosynthesis. However, to put both choices in the same playfield, they assumed that each fuel type came from the closest supplier and was shipped to the nearest treatment plant. They found that without using a different energy that would be considered clean climate change will continue to get worse and will eventually end the life on Earth. They also found that energy for machinery in scenario FD produced more carbon dioxide emissions because biomass would need more energy for agricultural machinery in the future. FBE2 had the cleanest energy. The carbon footprint from production in FBE2 was reduced by 490.5kg. When they looked into why it would produce the cleanest energy they found that using BET for all transportation carbon dioxide emissions would reduce 44.8kg alone.

Fig. 2. (a) shows the farm carbon footprint and production carbon footprint of maize under all scenarios. (b) shows the reduction of CO2 equivalent emissions in each part of the future scenarios compared with the HD scenario. (26)

To achieve the lowest carbon dioxide emissions, they recommend implementing a way to manage fertilizer and make changes to use clean energy. Finding the optimal changes to create cleaner energy will be the most important challenge for our future. However, today we should start by finding ways to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. The most interesting thing about this study is that it not only examines the carbon footprint but also provides ideas that policymakers should take into consideration. I highly recommend reading this entire study to get more background knowledge about the steps we need to take as a people to ensure a healthier environment.

Teaching Strategies:

The essential question that students will focus on for this unit is “Who has a greater impact on their carbon footprint you or a big company?” In this unit, the students will learn about carbon footprints, graph, and compare different carbon footprints that they find. They will research a big company of their choice and calculate the company’s carbon footprint to compare it to their carbon footprint. The students will understand their contribution to climate change through their carbon footprint and find ways that they can reduce their carbon footprint. We will then talk about how they can implement these changes as teenagers who don’t have control of all aspects of their lives. They will write and mail letters to the company they compared carbon footprints with.

Classroom Activities:

When teaching this unit, the main idea I want the students to take away from this is “What will our world look like if we don’t try to change our habits?” The unit should start with a discussion about what a carbon footprint is and what it means for individuals. The students should come up with their thoughts before you tell them the official definition of carbon footprint.

Activity 1: Calculate Your Carbon Footprint

The students will calculate their carbon footprint. It might be more accessible to give them a worksheet with all the categories they need to input into a carbon footprint calculator. The students can Google a carbon footprint calculator or provide one. After finding their carbon footprints, the students will research ways to lower their carbon footprint. You can challenge the students to implement one or two of their ideas into their lives for the duration of this unit.

Activity 2: Research A Company’s Carbon Footprint

With this activity, you can let your students choose any company to research or provide them with two or five companies to choose from. The students will need to use a different type of carbon footprint calculator that is meant to find the carbon footprint of companies. After they find the carbon footprint of their chosen company, they will share their findings with the rest of the class. This should lead to a discussion about the impact on the environment compared to how big the company is. The student should research ways their chosen company can reduce their carbon footprint.

Activity 3: Graph And Compare Carbon Footprints

During this activity, the students will compare the two carbon footprints (theirs and their chosen company’s). They will need to graph both carbon footprints on the same graph based on carbon footprint and time assuming neither they nor their chosen company made any changes to reduce their carbon footprint. The student should choose the time portion. They should have a past, present, and future on their graph, but the time of the past and future does not matter. When everything is graphed, the students should graph both carbon footprints to show what would happen if changes were made to reduce the carbon footprints. They should share their findings with a group or the whole class and discuss what changes should be made to help their environmental impact.

Extra Activity: Write A Letter to A Company

When the unit is completed, the students might feel like there is nothing they can do to help change the current situation of the environment. This activity is to help give a positive ending to the unit. The students will take their knowledge of the company they researched and what that company can do to reduce their carbon footprint and write it in a letter. The letters the students write should give specific ways that their chosen company can help the environment that won’t cost the company a bunch of money. The ideas they give should be practical and fairly easy to implement.

Resources:

Bank, European Investment and European Investment Bank. Carbon Footprint Report 2020: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Resulting from EIB Group Internal Operations European Investment Bank, 2021.

Franchetti, Matthew J., Defne Apul, and ProQuest (Firm). Carbon Footprint Analysis: Concepts, Methods, Implementation, and Case Studies. 1st ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2012;2013;. doi:10.1201/b12173.

Aguilera, Eduardo, Gloria I. Guzmán, Manuel González de Molina, David Soto, and Juan Infante-Amate. “From Animals to Machines. the Impact of Mechanization on the Carbon Footprint of Traction in Spanish Agriculture: 1900–2014.” Journal of Cleaner Production 221, (2019): 295-305.

Treu, Hanna, Maria Nordborg, Christel Cederberg, Thorsten Heuer, Erika Claupein, Heide Hoffmann, and Göran Berndes. “Carbon Footprints and Land Use of Conventional and Organic Diets in Germany.” Journal of Cleaner Production 161, (2017): 127-142.

Davis, Raymond, Zhiqiang Yang, Andrew Yost, Cole Belongie, and Warren Cohen. “The Normal Fire environment—Modeling Environmental Suitability for Large Forest Wildfires using Past, Present, and Future Climate Normals.” Forest Ecology and Management 390, (2017): 173-186.

Juang, C. S., A. P. Williams, J. T. Abatzoglou, J. K. Balch, M. D. Hurteau, M. A. Moritz, and Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). “Rapid Growth of Large Forest Fires Drives the Exponential Response of Annual Forest‐Fire Area to Aridity in the Western United States.” Geophysical Research Letters 49, no. 5 (2022): e2021GL097131-n/a.

Rogelj, Joeri, Michel Den Elzen, Niklas Höhne, Taryn Fransen, Hanna Fekete, Harald Winkler, Roberto Schaeffer, Fu Sha, Keywan Riahi, and Malte Meinshausen. “Paris Agreement Climate Proposals Need a Boost to Keep Warming Well Below 2 °c.” Nature (London) 534, no. 7609 (2016): 631-639.

Martin. “List of Parties That Signed the Paris Agreement on 22 April.” United Nations Sustainable Development (blog), April 20, 2016. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/04/parisagreementsingatures/.

Kollmuss, Anja. Handbook of Carbon Offset Programs: Trading Systems, Funds, Protocols and Standards. 1st ed. London;Washington, DC;: Earthscan, 2010.

Müller, Ruth and Sarah Maria Schönbauer. “Zero Waste––Zero Justice?” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6, (2020): 416-420.

Zaman, Atiq Uz and Steffen Lehmann. “The Zero Waste Index: A Performance Measurement Tool for Waste Management Systems in a ‘zero Waste City’.” Journal of Cleaner Production 50, (2013): 123-132.

Tsai, Wen-Hsien. “Carbon Emission Reduction—Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, and Carbon Offset.” Energies (Basel) 13, no. 22 (2020): 6128.

Wu, Qingguan, Yong He, Chandra A. Madramootoo, Zhiming Qi, Lulin Xue, Melissa Bukovsky, and Qianjing Jiang. “Optimizing Strategies to Reduce the Future Carbon Footprint of Maize Under Changing Climate.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 188, (2023): 106714.

Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016.

Li, Mingqi, Shiliang Liu, Yongxiu Sun, and Yixuan Liu. “Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Increased Carbon Footprint on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau during Past Three Decades.” Journal of Cleaner Production 278, (2021): 123963.

Appendix:

A1.A.4.4 Translate between a graph and a situation described qualitatively.

A1.F.1.4 Given a graph modeling a real-world situation, read and interpret the linear piecewise function (excluding step functions).

A1.A.4.1 Calculate and interpret a line’s slope and the x- and y-intercepts using a graph, an equation, two points, or a set of data points to solve real-world and mathematical problems.

A1.D.1.3 Interpret graphs as being discrete or continuous.

G.RL.1.1 Understand the use of undefined terms, definitions, postulates, and theorems in logical arguments/proofs.

G.RL.1.2 Analyze and draw conclusions based on conditions using inductive and deductive reasoning. Recognize the logical relationships between a conditional statement and its inverse, converse, and contrapositive.

G.RL.1.3 Assess the validity of a logical argument and give counterexamples to disprove a statement.

G.2D.1.5 Use coordinate geometry to represent and analyze line segments and polygons, including determining lengths, midpoints, and slopes of line segments.

G.RT.1.1 Apply the distance formula and the Pythagorean Theorem and its converse to solve real-world and mathematical problems, as approximate and exact values, using algebraic and logical reasoning (including Pythagorean Triples).

A2.A.1.8 Represent real-world or mathematical problems using systems of linear equations with a maximum of three variables and solve using various methods that may include substitution, elimination, and graphing (may include graphing calculators or other appropriate technology).

Notes:

  1. Franchetti, Matthew J., Defne Apul, and ProQuest (Firm). Carbon Footprint Analysis: Concepts, Methods, Implementation, and Case Studies. 1st ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2012;2013;. doi:10.1201/b12173, 22.
  2. Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016, 4.
  3. Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016, 6.
  4. Franchetti, Matthew J., Defne Apul, and ProQuest (Firm). Carbon Footprint Analysis: Concepts, Methods, Implementation, and Case Studies. 1st ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2012;2013;. doi:10.1201/b12173, 10-11.
  5. Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016, 8.
  6. Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016, 7.
  7. Li, Mingqi, Shiliang Liu, Yongxiu Sun, and Yixuan Liu. “Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Increased Carbon Footprint on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau during Past Three Decades.” Journal of Cleaner Production 278, (2021): 123963.
  8. Bank, European Investment and European Investment Bank. Carbon Footprint Report 2020: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Resulting from EIB Group Internal Operations European Investment Bank, 2021.
  9.  Bank, European Investment and European Investment Bank. Carbon Footprint Report 2020: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Resulting from EIB Group Internal Operations European Investment Bank, 2021, 23.
  10.  Bank, European Investment and European Investment Bank. Carbon Footprint Report 2020: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Resulting from EIB Group Internal Operations European Investment Bank, 2021, 21.
  11. Davis, Raymond, Zhiqiang Yang, Andrew Yost, Cole Belongie, and Warren Cohen. “The Normal Fire environment—Modeling Environmental Suitability for Large Forest Wildfires using Past, Present, and Future Climate Normals.” Forest Ecology and Management 390, (2017): 173-186, paragraph 1.
  12. Juang, C. S., A. P. Williams, J. T. Abatzoglou, J. K. Balch, M. D. Hurteau, M. A. Moritz, and Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States). “Rapid Growth of Large Forest Fires Drives the Exponential Response of Annual Forest‐Fire Area to Aridity in the Western United States.” Geophysical Research Letters 49, no. 5 (2022): e2021GL097131-n/a.
  13. Franchetti, Matthew J., Defne Apul, and ProQuest (Firm). Carbon Footprint Analysis: Concepts, Methods, Implementation, and Case Studies. 1st ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group, 2012;2013;. doi:10.1201/b12173, 14.
  14. Rogelj, Joeri, Michel Den Elzen, Niklas Höhne, Taryn Fransen, Hanna Fekete, Harald Winkler, Roberto Schaeffer, Fu Sha, Keywan Riahi, and Malte Meinshausen. “Paris Agreement Climate Proposals Need a Boost to Keep Warming Well Below 2 °c.” Nature (London) 534, no. 7609 (2016): 631-639.
  15. Rogelj, Joeri, Michel Den Elzen, Niklas Höhne, Taryn Fransen, Hanna Fekete, Harald Winkler, Roberto Schaeffer, Fu Sha, Keywan Riahi, and Malte Meinshausen. “Paris Agreement Climate Proposals Need a Boost to Keep Warming Well Below 2 °c.” Nature (London) 534, no. 7609 (2016): 631-639.
  16. Martin. “List of Parties That Signed the Paris Agreement on 22 April.” United Nations Sustainable Development (blog), April 20, 2016.
  17. Dickmann, Nancy. Leaving our Mark: Reducing our Carbon Footprint. St. Catharines, Ontario; New York, New York; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2016, 9.
  18. Zaman, Atiq Uz and Steffen Lehmann. “The Zero Waste Index: A Performance Measurement Tool for Waste Management Systems in a ‘zero Waste City’.” Journal of Cleaner Production 50, (2013): 123-132.
  19. Zaman, Atiq Uz and Steffen Lehmann. “The Zero Waste Index: A Performance Measurement Tool for Waste Management Systems in a ‘zero Waste City’.” Journal of Cleaner Production 50, (2013): 123-132.
  20. Müller, Ruth and Sarah Maria Schönbauer. “Zero Waste––Zero Justice?” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6, (2020): 416-420.
  21. Tsai, Wen-Hsien. “Carbon Emission Reduction—Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, and Carbon Offset.” Energies (Basel) 13, no. 22 (2020): 6128.
  22. Tsai, Wen-Hsien. “Carbon Emission Reduction—Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, and Carbon Offset.” Energies (Basel) 13, no. 22 (2020): 6128.
  23. Tsai, Wen-Hsien. “Carbon Emission Reduction—Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, and Carbon Offset.” Energies (Basel) 13, no. 22 (2020): 6128.
  24. Wu, Qingguan, Yong He, Chandra A. Madramootoo, Zhiming Qi, Lulin Xue, Melissa Bukovsky, and Qianjing Jiang. “Optimizing Strategies to Reduce the Future Carbon Footprint of Maize Under Changing Climate.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 188, (2023): 106714.
  25. Wu, Qingguan, Yong He, Chandra A. Madramootoo, Zhiming Qi, Lulin Xue, Melissa Bukovsky, and Qianjing Jiang. “Optimizing Strategies to Reduce the Future Carbon Footprint of Maize Under Changing Climate.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 188, (2023): 106714.
  26. Wu, Qingguan, Yong He, Chandra A. Madramootoo, Zhiming Qi, Lulin Xue, Melissa Bukovsky, and Qianjing Jiang. “Optimizing Strategies to Reduce the Future Carbon Footprint of Maize Under Changing Climate.” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 188, (2023): 106714.