Planetary Ruin

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the production, operation and disposal of computers is to be the aim of a new government taskforce.
Computers and other IT equipment have been blamed for causing as much global warming as the airline industry.

The taskforce will oversee the piloting of a “green PC” service in which individual machines use 98% less energy than standard PCs.

IT equipment is thought to generate 35m tonnes of harmful CO2 gas each year.

Data centres

The public-private “Green Shift” taskforce will be led by Manchester City Council.

The “green PC” service works by hosting functions such as office applications, email and internet surfing on data centres rather than on individual computers.

The data centres will be energy efficient and can be accessed through a small desktop box.

The Green Shift programme will also aim to use 75% fewer resources in the production of PCs.

Local Government Minister Phil Woolas said: “Cyber-warming is a massive issue and that is why we have taken decisive action with the appointment of the taskforce.

“The new taskforce is the first of its kind in the world and is a sign of how serious the UK is about tackling this issue.

“Innovative proposals like the green PC service are essential if we are to tackle climate change.

“Only if all of our communities are engaged in action to tackle climate change will we be successful.”

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Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group.

Several shelters operated by a national adoption organization called Pets Across America reported a 30 percent increase in intakes of cats and kittens from 2005 to 2006, and other shelters across the nation have reported similar spikes of stray, owned and feral cats.

The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world’s warming temperatures, according to the group, which is one of the country’s oldest and largest animal welfare organizations.

“Cats are typically warm-weather, spring-time breeders,” said the group’s president, Kathy Warnick. “However, states that typically experience primarily longer and colder winters are now seeing shorter, warmer winters, leading to year-round breeding.”

“Basically, there is no longer a reproduction lull with cat breeding cycles, and unfortunately, it seems more people are bringing boxes of kittens into our agencies during winter now,” she added.

Studies have shown that global warming is altering the breeding seasons of other animals, such as migratory birds and penguins.

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The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview, according to a video of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in the closed-door meeting Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that “unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it.”

“All I can really do is apologize to all you guys…. I feel badly that I caused this amount of controversy over something like this,” he said.

Griffin made headlines last week when he told a National Public Radio interviewer he wasn’t sure global warming was a problem.

“I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin said on NPR. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”

The radio interview angered some climate scientists, who called his remarks ignorant.

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The Green party wants Canadian drivers to pay an extra 12 cents a litre at the gas pumps as the price of averting environmental “catastrophe.”

Leader Elizabeth May is boasting that her party is the only one politically brave enough to call for carbon taxes that would discourage automobile use and finance other tax cuts that would allow consumers to make smarter environmental choices.

“Right now, the Green Party of Canada is the only Canadian political party prepared to state this obvious reality,” May said yesterday. “We will use those carbon taxes to reduce taxes elsewhere.”

May rolled out her party’s environmental plan yesterday in part to coincide with the G-8 meeting starting today in Germany, where Canada’s action on this issue – or lack of it – is a major story.

The Green leader had harsh words for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his announced intentions to be a “bridge” between countries that have signed on to the Kyoto air quality accord and the United States, which hasn’t.

“If we stop being with the rest of the world and start siding with George Bush, we are global saboteurs and that’s what Mr. Harper is doing right now in Germany,” May said.

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Debate raged on Friday after NASA chief Michael Griffin said he was unsure global warming was a “problem we must wrestle with,” drawing the ire of his own agency’s top climate change expert.
Griffin, who has come under fire in Congress for cutting programs aimed at monitoring climate change, said in a US radio interview Thursday he had “no doubt that a trend of global warming exists.”

But, he told National Public Radio, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”

James Hansen, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s top official on climate change, expressed shock at Griffin’s comments in a later interview with NPR.

Asked his response, Hansen said: “I almost fell off my chair.”

“It was a shocking statement because of the level of ignorance it indicated with regard to the current situation,” Hansen told NPR.

“He seemed unaware that 170 nations agreed that climate change is a serious problem with enormous repercussions, and that many people will suffer if it is not addressed,” he said.

Griffin said it was “NASA’s responsibility to collect, analyze and release information,” according to a statement issued later.

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George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a striking about-face on global warming, calling on the world’s leading economies to join the US in agreeing a global target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the end of his term in office.

The US president was speaking just ahead of a G8 summit at which climate change was expected to be high on the agenda of European governments. He explained that his apparent conversion – which follows almost seven years of having rejected precisely the road he outlined – was prompted by new scientific findings.

But Mr Bush made no pledge on the size of emissions cuts that the US would be prepared to sign up to and gave no indication of a timeframe. The White House also ruled out carbon trading as the way to cutting emissions.

Environmental campaigners accused the president of cynically seeking to circumvent the Kyoto process, which the United Nations is seeking to renew at talks in December. Others accused him of a ploy to derail tougher European proposals.

Mr Bush said: “Science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it.

“By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases.”

He said the US would convene a series of multilateral meetings involving the biggest polluters – including China and India – to seek agreement on a reduction target and how to achieve it.

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In another attempt to cause death and decease through the shear stupidity of science…. Can scientists guarantee that meat that is grown in a lab, by means other than the natural order, will have unforseen consequences?

Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals.

“We’re trying to make meat without having to kill animals,” Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University, said in an interview.

Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting meat from livestock with a process that eliminates the need for animal feed, transport, land use and the methane expelled by animals, which all hurt the environment, he said.

“Keeping animals just to eat them is in fact not so good for the environment,” said Roelen. “Animals need to grow, and animals produce many things that you do not eat.”

Developed nations are expected to consume an average of 43 kg per capita of poultry, beef, pork and other meats this year, an amount that rises around 2 percent annually, data from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation shows.

Asked whether people would be repulsed by lab-grown meat, Roelen said he believed there would be enough demand, as much of what people eat today is already extensively processed, from the feed that animals consume to the conditions under which they are raised and the preparation of meat after slaughter.

“I can imagine that some people will have problems with it,” he said. “People might think it is artificial. But some people might not realize that some part of the meat they eat is artificial.”

Research is also under way in the United States, including one experiment funded by U.S. space agency NASA to see whether meat can be grown for astronauts during long space missions.

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