2023

The hard choices

Entry type: Single project

Country/area: Finland

Publishing organisation: Helsingin Sanomat

Organisation size: Big

Publication date: 2022-04-01

Language: Finnish

Authors: Piia Elonen, Timo Myllymäki, Boris Stefanov, Juho Salminen

Biography:

Text: Piia Elonen, Code and layout: Timo Myllymäki, Illustration: Boris Stefanov, Producer: Juho Salminen

Project description:

This gamified project shows what one individual can do to cut CO2 emissions. And what deeds are effective and what are not.

Impact reached:

We were able to obtain good data from reserach teams to actually show what is the emission cutting impact of different actions (eg. using electric car, going vegan or reducing food waste). Some of these are talked about a lot but are not that effective.

This data combined with a gamified goal (cut 75 % out of average Finn’s climate emissions) provides the readers with new point of view to a much discussed topic.

Techniques/technologies used:

The interactive part was created using Vanilla JS.

Context about the project:

This story was published when IPCC’s international climate report came out. The report once again put pressure on politicians to act: reduce humanity’s climate emissions and thus curb the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees.

If the same goal is shared with the people of the earth, our own lives should produce emissions 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

For Finns, this is a tough goal, because the average Finn now causes climate emissions of around 10 tons per year. Emissions from living should therefore be reduced to only a quarter of the current level by 2030.

What can other journalists learn from this project?

Data (about environment and climate, too) can be presented in interactive and gamified way.

Project links:

https://dynamic.hs.fi/2022/vaikeat-valinnat/index.html