Giving Compass' Take:

Cool Effect, a crowdfunding campaign, is utilizing technology to film CO2 discharges. It highlights the effects of greenhouse gas emissions to encourage people to care about climate change. 

• Is this an effective way to persuade people to take action? Where else have you seen these same tactics being used for philanthropic causes? 

• If you want to get involved right now, here are five ways you can help battle climate change. 


As the effects of global warming become more noticeable, scientists tell us, public opinion has been shifting toward the importance of addressing climate change. While graphs and statistics make for good discussions, it’s often the “eyeball impact” that drives home the point that the earth’s atmosphere is being altered by the amount of carbon emissions we release.

“The vision of a huge chunk of ice falling off of a massive glacier has more emotional resonance than a spreadsheet full of yearly average of Arctic sea ice extent numbers does, even if the two are saying the same thing,” explains John Cabrer, senior systems design engineer for MoviTherm.

To advance that effort, Cool Effect, a crowdfunding platform designed to reduce carbon pollution, recently utilized advanced technology to bring a global issue into new perspective with its newest campaign: “Carbon Can’t Hide”. The goal is to help people understand the volume of CO2 discharges we are actually releasing into the atmosphere on a daily basis, and its relationship to the environmental problems the world is experiencing.

“On a very simple level, we’ve used what’s called a band pass filter to highlight the presence of the CO2 within these existing heat signatures,” said Cabrer, who pointed out that the CO2 is actually mingling with the heat source, and that allows us to see the CO2. “As a result, images will appear [on film as] brighter and darker in otherwise homogeneous areas when CO2 is present in various concentrations.”

Still FLIR technology can play a critical role in limiting global warming by both encouraging them to limit their own carbon emissions and help organizations working to help low-income, underserved communities do the same.

Read the full article about climate change by Jan Lee at TriplePundit.