Kilograms or cups of tea: Comparing footprints for better CO2 understanding

Individuals are now often presented information about greenhouse gases in their everyday life. However, there seems to be a gap between this increase in the exposure to carbon dioxide information and the understanding of how to interpret it, making behavioral change difficult. This article presents examples of how different applications have dealt with this problem by representing the carbon dioxide information in different ways. Based on the existing examples, an application called carbon.to was developed and released. This service tries to improve the understanding of carbon dioxide information by simulation in a playful way. Feedback from the users points towards that the gap in understanding existed and that carbon.to was successful in helping closing it.