Anthony-Vazquez-Artifact

• In this document I will be going over the basis of my idea for my artifact, and the sorts of work, research, and development it will take to complete this project. This will include but not be limited to: my motivation/reason for completing this project, different works or studies that may be closely related to mine, any details that pertain to my work for this artifact, and my plans for this project in the future.

What is my Artifact?

• I wanted to create something where I could help people further understand their impact on not only their immediate environment in their surrounding community, and possibly also on a national, or even global scale if possible.

  • The general population doesn't always know the direct impact that they may be having on the environment through the things that they use every day, and further so, they don't always understand the amount of a carbon footprint they are leaving, or really even the extent of what type of energy they are using and how its being produced.
  • We use energy and technology every day but do we really understand how it works and what makes it work? Understanding what goes into the things we utilize on a daily basis and giving a visual of what that leads to for your carbon footprint over time may help to make people more conscious about the things they do each day, and even down to the products they may use.

• It would have the ability to show a person how their community contributes to the overall carbon footprint of their city, county, or state and what types of services are the biggest contributing factors to that.

  • I would like to add functionality where the user can interact with a map of either the united states, their state, their county, or their city. The data provided at each of these levels would be the carbon footprint that area has on the county, state, or country, and what the major types of energy use and services are being used there. The types of energy that are available in an area is directly correlated to the type and the amount of pollution that is output.
  • Later functionality might even be links to services or products that help combat the pollution output. Possibly even adding a personal section where the people are able to add in their information and what types of appliances they use/how much they use them, and then providing them with a report on what their carbon footprint is and how it is compared to others in their area.

Why do I want to create this artifact?

• Ultimately, I want to invoke change.

  • Whether people like it or not we are facing real threats to our climate and environment, and whether or not humans are the direct cause, we are certainly not helping. However, being humans, we do have the capability to help reverse this problem and even to create a healthier place to live overall.
  • This doesn't happen overnight unfortunately, and every small step that is taken towards realizing, acknowladging, and finally acting on a crisis helps to get us to the end goal overall. Realizing that climate change is natural regardless of humans, acknowledging that humans have peaked the extremes of the climate changes that we have been facing, and acting on those changes before it actually becomes irreversible, because at some point with enough neglect, it will come to that point.
  • Starting anywhere helps the end goal of environmental betterment, if we can get people to understand how they impact the environment that gets the world one step closer to creating a better place for the future civilizations to thrive. I believe one of the biggest problems with the longterm climate change debates is the knowledge gap that exists between the experts and the general population, in order to believe in something they must know that it is true and understand how they factor into the situation.

What studies or works are similar to my idea?

• "Outdoor Air Pollution" by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser - https://ourworldindata.org/outdoor-air-pollution

  • This article on outdoor air pollution and measures its volumes and affects on the environment, mostly putting the natural order of countries industrializing to blame. Includes many statistics on the negative affects of air pollution on humans, specifically the elderly, and how many deaths per year are likely to have occured from air pollution. This work directly concerns the bigger picture of what my project will be trying to get at, and is a great template for displaying a message in an environmental aspect which I can implement into my website.

• "CO2 Emissions Dataset: Our Sources and Methods" by Hannah Ritchie - https://ourworldindata.org/co2-dataset-sources

  • This is where I actually got the data for my artifact, so naturally, it has quite a close relation to the work that I will be doing in my comp. This report explains the methods in which were taken to record and manipulate the data gathered on global emissions, and where those datasets came from in the first place. The methods that are taken in this report are almost the exact same that I will have to be taking in order to not only record the data that I'll be working with, but to also understand how I should implement it into my own research project.

What is the sort of work that I will need to complete?

• The bulk of my project will consist of data collection and implementaion.

  • The three data sets that I have collected for my artifact only display the impact portion of my project idea, but the whole of the project will include data on what types of activities and businesses are creating those emissions, as well as what types of energies(renewable versus non-renewable) are being used in a given geographic region. This will take diligent searching for every type of data on emissions and energy that I can find, and will even take plotting these areas with coordinate systems in the mapping portion of my website.

• The use of Streamlit will be vital for my project, and this is where Python comes into play...

  • The code that I have to display my data, charts, and maps is only a portion of the data that I will be displaying in my website. I may end up trying to create some sort of function for my mapping and charting that will have the ability to complete multiple different charts or maps so that my code is less crowded.

• Bringing my website to life.

  • After I have succesfully implemented my mountain of data correctly and efficiently, I will have to publish my website to the streamlit servers so it can be accessed for public use. Once this is complete, I, along with anybody else who is curious, will be able to access the data and see for themselves what carbon emissions and energy use really means.

• On paper, these are three simple steps, but thes steps will be taking places over months of research and implementation that will eventually lead to my final product.

How do I plan to use this application in the future? Where will I take it?

• I would like it to be open for public use.

  • I want anyone to be able to look for themselves what my project is about, and hopefully, it can inspire people to be more mindful about the things that they use every single day. Ultimately, I would like my project to include a feature where people will be able to add in their own profiles of appliances, vehicles, and services that they use so that they can see how their carbon footprints anfd energy uses compare to averages in their area. This holds people directly accountable for what they are doing, and since they can see exactly how much they would be affecting things themselves, hopefully that would invoke change.

• It will be a project I will likely follow up on and enhance as much as possible.

  • If I would like this project to have the impact that I envision, then it will need more time for development and hopefully future use. Hopefully it could one day even help hold coorporations accountable for the emissions and toxins that are being put into the air every single day. There is endless room for improvement for this project as it can be applied on multiplw geographic or environmental levels.