Would it be possible to calculate the total (historical) carbon footprint of a big festival, like Glastonbury?

Submitted by AllThingsAreReady t3_y1dva4 in askscience

Taking into account the vast amounts of power they use, the millions of tonnes of equipment being transported and all the petrol being used in the logistics, the millions of people who’ve travelled to a long-running festival like Glastonbury over the years, and so on. Is there a format for working that out?

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HonestArabe27 t1_iry3s9j wrote

I don't believe so, festivals despite looking like they are organized by one entity outsource things to different suppliers. This makes it super hard to track the different metrics needed to calculate carbon footprint.

Direct emissions might be feasible but the indirect ones is where things get super fuzzy. If I hire company X to drop off équipement and material to à specific location, then hire company Y which installs the needed infrastructure using the équipement delivered and so on... You find yourself with a Tree branches of data that needs collecting ( not to mention quality of it).

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TownAfterTown t1_irywpsv wrote

You can. People calculate the carbon footprint of big complicated things. But you end up balancing accuracy with effort.

You might be able to calculate some stuff using a bottom-up approach. Like you said, direct emissions wouldn't be too hard. Travel emissions would be a bit trickier, but maybe you have location data of ticket pruchasers that can be used or maybe you make some assumptions around travel distance and travel mode (assumptions could be based on a surveyed sample of attendees or something else). Similar with logistics. Some data might be available, some you might to assume. For all the disposable stuff, you might be able to get total volume or weight purchased and then use some general emission factor for plastic production/shipping. For things that are particularly challenging bottom-up, you can use top-down economic input/output models (e.g. $X of spending in this sector results in Y tonnes of GHG emissions).

TL;DR: Yes, it is possible but for things that complicated there are tradeoffs between accuracy and effort to quantify.

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[deleted] t1_irzlw0i wrote

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AllThingsAreReady OP t1_irzrkkg wrote

Comments like this always make me laugh. You’re not actually answering the question, you’re just using it as an excuse to repeat an opinion. What do you mean by “minimal”? Compared to a giant volcano? I’d imagine a festival produces rather a lot more than say, an individual human? A car? A house? So there is a scale, and unless you believe that human activity contributes nothing to climate change and/or it’s a hoax, then it’s important to know what human activities are the most polluting, right?

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VezurMathYT t1_is04sco wrote

Super volcano eruptions are major events that can affect the global climate in massive ways. Think mass extinction levels.

Even if humans are not producing as much as that, it doesn't mean we don't produce an insane amount of CO2. And it doesn't mean that our production isn't fast and affecting the climate.

Your comment is irrelevant and just an absurd comparison. It's like saying "Billybob isn't a serial killer, he only killed 5 people. I heard of a guy that killed 500 people." You see, both of them are serial killers. Both super volcanoes and human emissions can and do affect climate, and we can reduce our emissions.

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