Accountants are going green. Consumers are demonstrating social consciousness by how and where they spend their money. Cost benefit analyses will need to be taken into account to determine the net impact otherwise known as ‘footprint’ on the environment. Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger passed historic AB 32, and President Barack Obama is likely to get Federal Climate legislation to pass. Given this, accounting will need to include additional line items that will reduce more specifically, a company’s carbon footprint.
Carbon resides and travels in what is known as the Carbon Cycle. Carbon cycles at various cycling intervals. Cycles of time accountants typically deal with are for example when paying wages and or salaries and or bonuses. These are usually computed as either hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly intervals of time.
Carbon cycles on a geologic scale
Geologists account for carbon that cycles from between those of thousands to millions to hundreds of millions of years. This carbon variation tends to reflect the movements of the plates as in tectonics, the science of how land masses move together and apart. Volcanoes form and explode as land masses come together and apart. Mid-ocean ridges become active and inactive. Climate patterns follow the shifts in these land masses for which reflect the ice ages and changes in sea-levels.
Geologists rely upon data such as oxygen and carbon isotopes and air bubbles preserved in ice cores from which carbon dioxide can be measured. Geologists also will utilize fossil micro fauna and flora, and pollen to extrapolate atmospheric temperature readings.
Carbon cycles on an environmental scale
Environmentalists account for carbon that cycles on time intervals for which affect human population and the species we share the planet with in generations. These data reflect expansions and contractions of biomes, industrial, agricultural, historic and economic periods and cycles. Environmentalist’s carbon data also reflects seasons, and even diurnal cycles such as how plants release carbon in the evening as dark photosynthesis and breathe in carbon during the day.
Environmentalists examine actual temperature readings from NOAA, EPA and other weather reporting data from the mid 1800s to present. Weather balloon data record carbon dioxide concentrations from famous studies such as those from Roger Revelle at Harvard and data from laboratories such as at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. Thousands of weather stations around the world track both temperature and carbon dioxide levels. Satellites monitored by NASA and other countries satellites programs also collect and monitor atmospheric gaseous concentrations and mixes.
Carbon sinks and sources simplified:
The Carbon cycle is defined as the global movement of carbon between organisms and the abiotic environment- including the atmosphere, ocean, and sedimentary rock. Below find a basic list of carbon sources and sinks as an introduction to the carbon cycle per Raven and Berg, 2006 Environment p.88 Figure 5.2. Specific guidance for accounting may be more explicit in any governing legislation.
Carbon sources /free carbon in the atmosphere
Carbon makes up about 0.038% of the atmosphere as the gas, carbon dioxide.
- Carbon in coal, oil, natural gas and wood are cycled to the atmosphere by burning, or combustion. In combustion, organic molecules are rapidly oxidized- combined with oxygen- and converted into CO2 and water, with an accompanying release of heat and light.
- Sources of such carbon combustibles are emitted by industry and agriculture, high concentration of livestock in factory farming (World Watch Institute, 2009), transportation, and of coal as in the production of electricity.
- Tectonic Activity would include gas released at plate boundaries which would include volcanic activity. Volcanic gases have been collected by courageous volcanologists. Water vapor is the main constituent of volcanic gas (70-95 percent), followed by carbon dioxide, both global warming gases (Press and Siever, 1998).
Carbon sinks /fixed carbon in the Earth
- Terrestrial and aquatic plants and trees fix carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis from the atmosphere. Aquatic organisms fix carbon dioxide dissolved in water as carbonate (C0 2-/3) and bicarbonate (HC0-3) for their tests and shells as calcium carbonate (CaCO3). This carbon may be stored for several hundred years or even longer.
- A lot of carbon is incorporated into shells of marine organisms. When they die, their shells sink to ocean floor and form thick seabed deposits. Burial and compaction from rock (limestone).
- Sedimentary rocks and fossil fuels hold almost all of Earth’s estimated 10 23 grams of carbon. For example, the soil contains an estimated 1500 x 10 15 grams of carbon. These sources can store carbon for thousands to hundreds of millions to billions of years.
References:
Press, F. and Siever, R. (1998). Understanding Earth. USA. W.H. Freeman and Company. p.119.
Goodland, R. and Anhang, J. (November/ December 2009). Livestock and Climate Change - Worldwatch Institute.
Karen Hansen - Biography Karen is currently an Earth and Environmental Sciences instructor at a private college. In the past she has worked on ...
