SSI Carbon Study

This file is intended to carefully and publically document the stages of data analysis and visualization that contributed to this research project. The following R code, output and annotations accompany a study of the University of Maine's Sustainability Solutions Initiative's carbon emissions between 2009 and 2011. This project was the result of work by Mark Anderson, Mario Teisl, and Eva Manandhar in School of Economics at the University of Maine. The published research is available at timwaring.wordpress.com. #### Abstract > This paper presents new data on the carbon emissions generated by travel undertaken for a major sustainability science research effort. Previous research has estimated CO2 emissions generated by individual scientists, by entire academic institutions, or by international climate conferences. Here, we sought to investigate the size, distribution and factors affecting the carbon emissions of travel for sustainability research in particular. Reported airline and automobile travel of participants in Maine’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative were used to calculate the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to research-related travel over a three-year period. Our methodology is simple and with planning can be applied at any scale. Carbon emissions varied substantially by researcher and by purpose of travel. Travel for the purpose of attending academic conferences created the largest carbon footprint of all types of travel. This result suggests that alternative networking and dissemination models are needed to replace the high carbon costs of annual society meetings. This research adds to literature that questions whether the cultural demands of contemporary academic careers are compatible with climate stabilization. We argue that precise record keeping and routine analysis of travel data are necessary to track and reduce the climate impacts of sustainability research. We summarize the barriers to behavioral change at individual and organizational levels and conclude with suggestions for reducing climate impacts of travel undertaken for sustainability research. The data and code are provided as is, and may contain errors or imperfections. The data for this project is in two datafiles. There is no g ood reason for this fact, I just haven't had the time to merge them appropriately. They both come from the same source data. Like I said, no good reason. This analysis document was compiled in RStudio using the R Markdown functionality to intersperse code, results, and text. This R code uses knitr, plyr, and ggplot2.

本文件旨在正式、公开地记录为本研究项目提供支撑的数据分析与可视化全流程。以下R代码、输出结果与注释，配套呈现缅因大学（University of Maine）可持续解决方案倡议（Sustainability Solutions Initiative）2009至2011年间的碳排放研究。本项目由缅因大学经济学院的马克·安德森（Mark Anderson）、马里奥·泰伊斯尔（Mario Teisl）与伊娃·曼安达（Eva Manandhar）共同完成。已发表的研究可于timwaring.wordpress.com查阅。
#### 摘要
本文呈现一项重大可持续性科学研究项目中，差旅产生的碳排放相关全新数据。既往研究多针对个体科研人员、完整学术机构或国际气候会议的二氧化碳排放量进行估算。本研究则专门针对可持续性研究相关差旅的碳排放规模、分布特征及其影响因素展开探究。研究依托缅因大学可持续解决方案倡议参与者上报的航空与自驾差旅数据，测算出三年间与研究相关的差旅所对应的二氧化碳排放量。本研究方法简便易行，经规划后可适配任意规模的研究场景。不同科研人员及不同差旅目的对应的碳排放量差异显著。各类差旅中，参加学术会议产生的碳足迹规模最大。该结果表明，亟需开发替代型交流与传播模式，以取代年度学术会议带来的高额碳排放成本。本研究进一步丰富了相关学术文献，这类文献旨在探讨当代学术职业的文化要求是否与气候稳定目标相容。我们认为，精准记录差旅数据并开展常规分析，是追踪并减轻可持续性研究对气候造成影响的必要前提。本文梳理了个体与组织层面行为变革面临的阻碍，并最终提出了降低可持续性研究相关差旅气候影响的相关建议。
本研究提供的数据与代码均按原样交付，可能存在疏漏或瑕疵。本项目的数据分为两个数据文件。此举并无合理缘由，仅因笔者尚未有足够时间将二者妥善合并。二者均源自同一套原始数据源，如前所述，此拆分并无合理依据。本分析文档基于RStudio平台，依托R Markdown功能实现代码、结果与文本的混排呈现。本R代码依赖knitr、plyr及ggplot2工具包。