Energy Use, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Quality of Life

Patrick J. Applegate, http://sites.psu.edu/papplegate/
20 April 2016

Energy use and carbon dioxide emissions: short-term benefits, long-term consequences

  • Most energy worldwide is produced by burning fossil fuels.
  • This energy allows people in industrialized countries to enjoy very high standards of living.
  • However, global mean surface air temperatures will probably go up as a result of fossil fuel use.
  • These temperature increases may have important negative consequences for future generations.

Shiny app

Here, I describe a simple Shiny app that lets users explore the relationship between per capita energy use (plotted on the \( x \)-axis) and several other variables (plotted on the \( y \)-axis):

  1. per capita CO\( _2 \) emissions
  2. per capita gross domestic product
  3. life expectancy

Users can choose which variable to plot on the \( y \)-axis, as well as which of various country groups to highlight on the plot.

The app is available online at https://papplegate.shinyapps.io/energy_co2_quality_of_life/

A sample plot

plot of chunk unnamed-chunk-1

References and useful links