oiworld / carbonfootprint

A Google Chrome browser extension that displays carbon footprint information in Google Maps.

Carbon Footprint for Google Maps

A browser extension that displays carbon footprint information in multiple map services.

Downloading and Using the Latest Stable Version

To download and install the extension to your favorite browser, visit Carbon Footprint's page in your browser's extension/add-on gallery/store:

• Google Chrome Web Store
• Safari (Coming soon... In the meanwhile, you can download a pre-built beta version from the "Dist" folder, or follow the instructions below to build it yourself.)
• Firefox Add-On Gallery

Building and Using Beta Versions

• clone this repository

• run npm install

• run gulp group or gulp groupFirefox or gulp groupChrome or gulp groupSafari or gulp groupWebext

• add flag --debug to keep all debug statements and comments.

• for chrome, load the unpacked extension from the Build/Chrome folder

• for firefox, run jpm runFirefox and use the -b flag to point to a non extension verifying version of Firefox like the Developer Edition

• for WebExtension, run web-ext run -f firefoxdeveloperedition to use this extension in Firefox(Developer Edition).

• for safari, load folder with extension .safariextension into Extension Builder Develop -> Show Extension Builder. To show Develop menu go to Safari -> Preferences -> Advanced. Change extension metadata as required from the Extension Builder. To package the extension for distribution, get an extension certificate from Apple.

Licenses

• GNU-GPL-3.0

• CC-By-NC-ND

Contributions

If you would like to contribute to the development of this extension, please contact the developers.

• Google Summer of Code grants are available every year. If you would like to apply, it is never too early to contact us.

carbonfootprint's Issues

No Download links in the README

we should re add all available download links to the README or a link to the github.io page so people know they don't need to do a local build just to use the extension.

CarbonFootPrint as a mobile app

CarbonFootPrint as a mobile app would help people to get awareness how much amount of Carbon they are emitting while travelling.

Yellow Colour makes links hard to see in the "Know More" pages

Wrong input type for id="emission" in options.html

Sir, I have made a pull request #18 regarding the issue.
please review it.

Strange Loading of Carbon Emission Rate in the Options page

When the options page is loaded, the input field for the carbon emission rate firstly displays the default value and only after a few seconds it displays the value that has been stored. It should show the stored value immediately.

Replace 'Gasoline' term with 'Petrol' based on their location.

As in India also in some countries like UK Gasoline is referred as Petrol.
So replacing the term based on their location would ease people in understanding.

Improve the design of the options page

The current options page is too ugly for modern web design standards. It needs to be improved.

Localize/Internationalize KnowMore page

... as currently done in the options page.

The Carbon emission values shown on map are not synced with options page

Hi,
I pulled the latest code and loaded the extension.But the carbon emission values are not changing with changes in the options page.

I changed the value from 100 to 200 but map showed the same content.
The reason which I found was
var carbonEmission = 217; -> GoogleMapsCarbonFootprint.js file

the variable was set to constant and not taking the values from option page.

Installing CarbonFootprint error -bash: gulp: command not found on Mac Os

I've run the commands as instructed in the README file.

But when I run gulp groupChrome it says gulp command not found.

Also, I tried to install gulp using npm install -g gulp
command.
So even after installing gulp it gives me the same error.

pulling precise time from maps

The issue we are facing presently is that we are pulling the total time of journey from maps. This however isn't the best way to get accurate emissions for public transport since:

1. The total time includes the time taken to actually walk to the Bus stop or a transit station.
2. It also includes the time idled in waiting for the next connection. Sometimes this waiting time can be very long owing to the operating times of the public transport.

Note in the above picture that time spent in walking is more than 25% of the total time of the journey. Therefore, this directly offsets the calculated emissions by 25% from the true value.

An extreme example of the time spent in idling can be seen below.

Firefox add-on URL is unavailable

I tried following the instructions in README.md for installing the Firefox addon. However, the link to the Firefox add-on, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/carbon-footprint/, is unavailable. See the detailed error message below.

Oops! We can’t find that page

If you’ve followed a link from another site for an extension or theme, that item is no longer available. This could be because:

• The developer removed it. Developers commonly do this because they no longer support the extension or theme, or have replaced it.
• Mozilla removed it. This can happen when issues are found during the review of the extension or theme, or the extension or theme has been abusing the terms and conditions for addons.mozilla.org. The developer has the opportunity to resolve the issues and make the add-on available again.

Try visiting the page later, as the theme or extension may become available again. Alternatively, you may be able to find what you’re looking for in one of the available extensions or themes, or by asking for help on our community forums.

Take speed into account

The CO2 emissions (and fuel consumption) of a car depend significantly on its speed. For example, a car driving at 150km/h on a highway consumes more and emits more CO2 per kilometer than a car driving at a low speed in a city without traffic jams.

The options page should allow the user to specify the emissions or fuel consumptions for 2 or 3 different speeds. The actual average speed of a route suggested by Google Maps can be calculated by dividing the route's distance by its time. Based on the average speed and on the emissions/consumptions for the speeds provided by the user, we can calculate more accurate estimations.

Negative values for Fuel Efficiency, CO2 Emissions and Fuel Consumption

Its possible to enter negative values in input fields in the extension settings page.

I have done the necessary changes in PR #49 as a quick fix to the problem.

Estimate CO2 emissions of flights in website that sell flight tickets

This image from Aeroflot may be useful to find out the parameters for calculating the emissions per passenger for flights.

Replace "Know More" link by a question mark icon

Be more precise about CO2 emissions on combustion and total life-cycle CO2 emissions

List products in Google Shopping

https://admin.freewebstore.org/GoogleShopping.aspx?cl=1

http://www.google.com/merchants/newfeed?country=US

http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188494#BR

http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160567

Allow the user to choose other measurement units

The user should be able to choose between kilograms and pounds, kilometres and miles, litres and gallons, and so on...

Mozilla claims extension won't work on Firefox versions 43 and above

Calculator of CO2 emission by airplanes is not working.

Calculator of CO2 emission by airplanes is not working properly .It need improvements for the User Interface . Further , list lags while loading the airports . Further , Carbon emission can be added for flight option in google maps search rather than particularly calculating it on page.

Localize this extension to other languages and regions

Add translations of the description of this extension here:
https://github.com/OiWorld/CarbonFootprintGoogleMaps/blob/master/Description.md

Migrating Safari port to a Safari App Extension

Apple has come up with new platform called Safari App Extension. It's a native macOS app that can work as an extension to Safari and could also interact with the macOS itself. The benefit of this would be that we could list our app directly on the macOS app store instead of the Safari Extension Gallery. This could help in reaching out to more users. Also, some extra features (such as a menu bar preference pane) can be added since it would a native macOS app.

The official guide to build a Safari App Extension can be found here

Estimate travel cost

It would be easy to generalize this extension to estimate not only the CO2 emissions of a route but also the fuel costs (in money). This is interesting information, since a high cost is another incentive for the user not to use his car.

The options page should allow the user to specify the price of fuel per litre (or gallon) and choose whether he wants the travel cost to be displayed together with the CO2 emissions.

Support public transport, biking and walking

Right now, the extension always assumes that Google Maps suggested routes are for cars. Therefore, it gives wrong estimations when the user has actually asked for biking, walking or public transport directions. This should be fixed. At least, no estimation should be shown for these other modes of transportation (or it should be made clear that the estimation refers to prevented emissions in the case of walking or biking). Ideally, we should also provide good estimations for public transportation. However, the CO2 emissions per passenger may vary greatly depending on the city, on the average number of passengers, on the time of the day, on the type of public transportation (bus, electric bus, tram, metro,...) and so on... Therefore, such parameters should be configurable by the user in the options page. Nevertheless, we should provide good default values for the parameters. For that, we need good sources of information about emissions from busses, trams, metro, train. Some cities (e.g. Helsinki) seem to have public data available about this. We could use the same data (possibly an average of the available data from many cities) for all cities, to simplify the estimation.

Calculated GHG emission is inconsistent with calculated CO2 emission

Port this extension to Safari

The port should be done in a way that both versions (Chrome and Safari) share as much code as possible, in order to facilitate maintenance.

Port this extension to Firefox

The port should be done in a way that both versions (Chrome and Firefox) share as much code as possible, in order to facilitate maintenance.

CO2 Emissions not showing

@rohankatyal29 noticed the following issue:

I am not being able to run the extension on chrome. It gets installed perfectly fine, but I don't see the carbon emissions next to the total distance. This happens even if I install the extension from chrome store. Any particular why this might be happening?

Thank you for noticing this!

The extension performs the following major steps:

1. it finds the route's distance in Google Maps webpage
2. it calculates the emissions
3. and, finally, it inserts the emissions back into the webpage.

For steps 1 and 3, the extension needs to navigate the DOM of the webpage. The problem is that, from time to time, Google restructures the DOM, and this breaks the functionality of Carbon Footprint.

It seems that, unfortunately, this has just happened again. It has happened twice before in the last 4 years.

To fix this issue, one needs to look at all lines in the code where we are traversing the page's DOM elements and inserting new DOM elements to the page. These are lines containing "document.getElementsBy...", for instance. It is also necessary to look at the new source code of Google Maps's page, to see which tags, ids and structures they are using now, in order to know how to traverse the new DOM correctly.

This is an excellent puzzle for GSoC. Solving it definitely shows mastery in the necessary skills to work in this project.

Improve Javascript style

The current code does not adhere to typical Javascript style conventions. The code should be improved according to Google's Javascript Style Guide (e.g. https://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/javascriptguide.xml) or other well-know style guide.

The code should also be properly commented, also according to style guides.

Improve manifest

See the discussion in this pull request: #43 (comment)

A new version compatible with the new Google Maps beta is needed

Notify 林雍傑 when ready.

Chrome extension should ask for the necessary permissions only

When I click "Add to Chrome" in the Chrome Web Store, I get the following request for permissions:

Add "Carbon Footprint for Google Maps™ and Others"?

It can:
Access the page debugger backend
Read and change all your data on the websites that you visit
Display notifications
Detect your physical location

My understanding is that the extension really only needs to access some of the websites, not all of them. I know that the access can be restricted in the extension settings of the user's browser, but it would be better if only the necessary permissions were asked for in the first place.

Allow the user to input consumption/emission in other measurement units

It should be possible for the user to input the car's fuel consumption (in litres per km, or kilometres per litre or miles per gallon) and the extension would calculate the CO2 emissions (in g/km) automatically.

Code for such calculations can be found here: http://www.oiworld.org/map

Update: The link above is broken. See code below.

Air quality map stopped working