Environment, Energy & Global Warming: What does word frequency tell us

Yesterday I came across Culturomics, a project funded by Google. This project claims to analyze frequency of usages of words in books published in 7 languages, in the last few centuries. They claimed to have culled the data out of 5.2 million books, covering ~4% of all printed books.

Since language is our primary vehicle of communication, a trend in frequency of usage of words could become a proxy for prevailing cultural and/or social trends or so...you get the picture!

I took this tool (Ngram Book Viewer) out for a spin using some phrases that are frequently being used in the current debates on energy and global warming. Results were very interesting:

First the usage frequency of words in English language





Authors writing in English have been taking some interest in "solar energy" from 1860. Their interest peaked sharply around 1980 (the first oil crisis). However, it fell equally sharply once the crisis passed. Neither "nuclear energy" nor "alternative energy" fared any better. Note a small but intriguing interest in "global warming" back in 1900- 1910. Attention to Global Warming recently caused a sharp rise since 1980.
Interests in "environmental pollution" and "fossil fuel" have been almost going hand in hand.

Now the Russian language



Russian authors were mostly obsessed with "solar energy" and "nuclear energy". Note that the frequency of usages of these words/phrases peaked during the existence of Soviet Union and has been going down ever since! Note that the usage of the two peaked at different times. The volatility is probably due to uneven flow of literature during the communist regime.

German Authors had been talking about solar energy, off and on, since 1860. Note that they had started writing about "nuclear energy" before 1940 (writers in other languages picked it up after 1940). Interest in both nuclear and solar energy has been going up ever since 1990, with Nuclear taking the lead! Germany has been a recognized leader in both. Note also that with the exception of usage in Russian language, German authors have been using the word "nuclear energy" far more than "solar energy"!



Now the authors in Spanish language:




Spanish writers took note of "global warming" at the turn of the last century. They, like authors in other languages, used "solar energy" in 1980 (almost coinciding with Nuclear energy). However, the interest flagged off quickly??


French authors had their own take. They like everyone peaked on solar energy in 1980. However, their interest in "nuclear energy" had peaked around 1960 (much before others) and has been on the decline.



Does the usage patterns mirror the energy policy and choices made by the nations?

It may not be too hard to establish a strong correlation, if the sample of the word usage data is truly random, and, is really representative. Or we can just take Google's word for it.

EPA New Greenhouse Labeling: One step closer…!

EPA is releasing a new labeling system for cars that will detail out the measurement of fuel economy and will allow buyers to compare greenhouse emission of different cars. Check the new label below:

Less noticeable is EPA launching a new website fuelconomy.gov where a car owner can create his online “garage” by entering the make and model of the car and keep a track of fuel purchases and mileage. The system will calculate the mileage for your records. The website also allows you to share your data with others…

If this catches on (I am sure it is only a question of time) very soon we will have record of the distances individual car owners drive in a day, a week, a month, or a year along with the quantity of gasoline is consumed. Based on benchmarks established by EPA, it will be fairly easy to compute savings in carbon emission for the type of vehicle, distance driven, driving pattern and gasoline consumed!

Imagine the next step where a credit card issued for this purpose will automatically update the record of gasoline purchased by the vehicle owner...!

A step in the direction of recognizing individual’s contribution to carbon saving.

Individual Carbon Saving: Collective Carbon Trading

All policy prescriptions, public debates, climate discussions, and political jockeying have been ignoring the huge potential of individual contributions to carbon reduction initiatives. The broad assumption behind all such debates is based on the notion that individuals are the final consumers and thereby should bear ultimately responsibility for all carbon emissions. And any carbon reduction initiative has to transfer the burden to them whether directly (reducing consumption and lifestyle) or indirectly (via increased cost or taxation). While this is a fact there is no recognition of individual’s effort to rein in carbon consumption without dislocating everyday life or commerce too much.

Maybe it is too difficult. For how do you account for the fact that some one has started carpooling or driving less or rides a train or bikes to work a few days in a month, or has switched over to energy efficient appliances or switches off electrical devices when not in use or curbs consumption to reduce waste? There is no system at present that computes and track the day to day carbon savings by each one of us that can be accrued, or carbon savings that can be collected over the entire economy.

Now imagine a bank where a person opens a carbon account. Every time this account holder engages in any activity that saves on carbon, the amount of savings (however fractional) gets credited to this account. The bank then accumulates the carbon savings into tradable Carbon Units and starts participating in Carbon markets. The proceeds from sale of these units go back into individual accounts…and voila! the individual starts getting direct benefit (in the form of cash) from her daily carbon saving initiatives.

This would bypass the trickle down effect of the benefit from carbon saving businesses to individual (too remote and indirect).

Cannot be done? Too difficult? Think again!

Implications? Many...and far reaching...but that is a topic for another day!

Climate Bill: Not ready for a change?

The Climate Bill has gone dead in waters in the Senate. While the post-mortem continues throwing up interesting perspectives, the cap and trade part of the Bill has been characterized as "the biggest corporate welfare program". With economy still shivering and job recovery beyond the horizon any big change will not necessarily be accepted as the one everyone will believe in...

Notice that lack of widespread support for cap and trade is also due to a perception that polluting plants (coal fired power plants) will pass the cost to consumers and an individual family will have to fork out additional $15 in their energy bill.

This highlights the fact that we are not yet ready for a cap and trade that is asking individuals for sacrifices...

Before we look for any alternative approaches to garnering general acceptance to a Personal Carbon Trading system, it will be useful to list some individual actions in support of clean environment:

1. Energy saver bulbs: driven by saving on energy bill and long life
2. Energy Star or energy efficient appliances: saving on energy bill, local regulations
3. Energy efficient houses: savings on energy bill, local regulations
4. Hybrid cars: Feel good; takes over 5 years to generate ROI, concessions and rebates
5. Solar panels: Feel good and savings. However it takes longer to get ROI. Needs funding support
6. Garbage and packaging recycle: feel good
7. Carbon offset on travel: feel good
8. Car pooling: Commute convenience

I am sure I missed a few. Fell free to suggest...

Then there are other tax elements like plastic disposal charge levied at point of sale or oil disposal tax when you change the oil in your car.

There is no mechanism to recognize individual contributions in carbon saving initiatives beyond some diffused savings accrued on energy bills. No system exists today that looks towards rewarding people via market mechanism for their participation.

Clearly feel good cannot trump fear of job loss or bearing the economic burden of carbon saving programs.

We need a new approach.

Personal Carbon Trading: A Utopia?

Only 50% of American are concerned with Global warming; 57% do not believe that global warming is in fact happening. Only 47% believe that Global warming is caused by human activities.

Most American’s believe that more research into developing alternate form of energy is needed and they support increasing consumer education and awareness.

There is a lukewarm support for cap and trade scheme specially when it is seen as raising the cost of household energy bill.

“When cap and trade is explained, 58 percent support the policy, but this support drops to approximately 40 percent if household energy costs increase by $15 a month, or 50 cents a day. Sixty-six percent support cap and trade, however, if every household were to receive a yearly bonus of $180 to offset higher energy costs. In addition, 59 percent of Americans said they would likely spend the bonus on home energy efficiency improvements. This increases to 71 percent if the government offered to double the bonus if it was spent on energy efficiency improvements.”

Clearly following the taxation route to reduce carbon emissions is an uphill task.

Clearly following the taxation route to reduce carbon emissions appears to be an uphill task till the general opinion veers around to accepting the impact of our energy consumption on global environment.

Implicit in this reported opinion is a widespread perception that global warming is not my problem. With all the research going into global warming and strong leadership backing the environmental initiatives, it is surprising that public opinion has not coalesced in the right direction for any policy initiative to take off...

I believe the issue lies in lack of sense of participation. There is nothing that can galvanize everyone into action (like a war or natural calamity of mega proportions). One can argue that a carbon cap and trade could help in establishing a sense of personal responsibility. But the only perceived outcome of such a scheme is raising taxes.

Personal Carbon trading scheme?

This interesting concept has been examined in some detail by Sustainable Development Commission in UK back in 2006. The Commission has approached this from the angle of Personal Carbon Allowance (PCA) or Tradable Energy Quota (TEQ) as suggested by David Flaming of Tyndall Center, UK.

Allocating individual energy quota raises all sorts of issues that will quickly become intractable i.e. how do you decide how much to allocate to an individual, how will this allocation affect energy poor or how do you operate a scheme like this on a global level?

An alternative approach is needed to draw people in and gain their widespread support in carbon control through carbon trading.

Such an approach is not too difficult to devise given the level of sophistication in technology and a system that will provide gains to individuals for participating in carbon trading.

More about this in the next post...