Tools
The "Tools" portion of the website is still under development. Below we have included some examples of what this portion of the site might contain. Recommendations for what you would find useful are welcome.
Key Questions on Behavior, Energy and Climate Change
These questions are intended to help guide future behavioral and decision research.
Behavior Measurement Tools
Quantifying behavior change should be an essential part of any intervention. Quantification enables one to objectively validate the effectiveness of an intervention, justifying future support. It also helps improve interventions by detecting which methods are successful at changing behavior, eventually leading to "best practices."
- » Survey development readings will be available Spring 2008.
- » Fowler, Floyd J., Jr., (2002). Survey Research Methods, Third Edition. Applied Social Research Methods Series, Volume 1. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.
- » The Stanford Everyday Behavior Survey, a comprehensive survey geared towards high school and college students on climate-relevant electricity, transportation, waste, and food behaviors they perform, will be available Spring 2008.
- » Program Evaluation measurement techniques
- » The Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Survey developed by UC Berkeley's Center for the Built Environment
- » Also, see some of the feedback devices lower on this page for measurement and recording capabilities.
- » J. Mankoff, S. Fussell, D. Matthews, H. S. Matthews, and M. Johnson, StepGreen (2008), The HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon, at http://stepgreen.org/
Tools for Selecting Target Behaviors
Behavior change interventions are much more effective when they target specific behaviors, rather than raising general awareness. In order to get the "biggest bang for the buck" interventions should target behaviors based on (1) the magnitude of achievable energy reductions and (2) the malleability of the behavior. Work here may integrate existing information into an easy to read format, given that existing work tends to be decentralized and highly technical.
Carbon Footprint Resources:
- » Food
- » Eshel, G. & Martin, P. A. (2006). Diet, Energy, and Global Warming. Earth Interactions, Volume 10, Paper 9.
- » Heller, M. C. & Keoleian, G. A. (2000). Life Cycle-Based Sustainability Indicators for Assessment of the U.S. Food System. Center for Sustainable Systems, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 59 pp. Report CSS0004.
- » Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2007). Chapter 8: Livestock Production and Energy Use. In Food, Energy, and Society, Third Edition, D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, eds. 67-76. CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
- » Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2007). Chapter 9: Energy Use in Fish and Aquacultural Production. In Food, Energy, and Society, Third Edition, D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, eds. 77-98. CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
- » Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2007). Chapter 10: Energy Use in Grain and Legume Production. In Food, Energy, and Society, Third Edition, D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, eds. 99-120. CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
- » Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2007). Chapter 11: Energy Use in Fruit, Vegetable, and Forage Production. In Food, Energy, and Society, Third Edition, D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, eds. 121-136. CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL.
- » Pimentel, D. & Pimentel, M. (2003). Sustainability of Meat-based and Plant-based Diets and the Environment. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 78(3), 660S-663S.
- » Electricity
- » Transportation
- » Other transportation sites that might be useful:
- » Waste
- » General
Tools for Addressing Barriers
One of the main reasons that interventions fail is that barriers are ineffectively addressed. Examples of barriers include inconvenience, decreased safety, the tendency to get dirty, embarrassment, or misperceptions regarding barriers (e.g., the perception that an activity will be time consuming when, in fact, it is not). These tools may include:
- » Contingent branching diagrams depicting specific energy-related behaviors, barriers, and ways of addressing barriers, constructed collaboratively by intervention designers
- » Surveys that can be used to identify barriers
- » Literature on barriers
Behavior-Related Technologies and Innovations
These technologies are available to aid in behavior change, by providing feedback about energy use, by addressing barriers to behavior change, or by providing feasible lower-energy alternatives to current behaviors. The list focuses on technologies which mainstream culture is unlikely to be aware of, or which may be difficult to find.
Automobile Feedback
Calculators
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