brettbh

He's been watching too much Thomas the Tank Engine. "Coughs and sneezles spread diseasels ... etc., etc."

And possibly disguising himself by hiding his face under a feedbag!

BTW, you are not alone in commenting on the CoC’s lack of bite. Example: Why the EU’s ‘green’ data centre code has no teeth. But the fact is that there is no need for the CoC to be mandatory. Compliance will lead to cost reductions and what better incentive is there than that? Were the CoC to be mandatory, the EU would require an army of highly-skilled (and paid) people with experience in DC energy efficiency modelling, metrics and analysis in order to be able to monitor and enforce compliance. And, really, what would be the point when an incentive already exists? Yeah, and I'm sure that many other people would be equally surprised as it's a subject which seems to be pretty much ignored by the press. But a lot is happening. For example, the EPA has launched a number of initiatives, PG&E and other utilities are offering rebates/incentives to enterprises which use virtualization to reduce their installed server base and the Green Grid has established metrics which enable DCs to really get to grips with their energy usage.

Doing it almost killed me ;-)

The majority of Americans watching that will be probably say, "Hey, cool! Where can I buy one?" Hmmm. Actually, I suspect that there really would be a market for these (in the US, anyway). I wonder whether the idea has already been patented? Last year, we visited the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle on what I can only assume was the day of the Washington Fat Club’s annual outing. I have never in my life seen so many morbidly obese people in a single location. The place was, literally, packed with porkers, loaded with lardies and heaped high with human Hindenburgs. And all of them were wobbling and waddling as fast their fatty-fatty-two-by-four-can't-get-through-an-open-door legs would carry them (which wasn’t very fast at all) to join the exceptionally long queue at the McDonald’s outlet. It was really quite shocking. The Island is extremely close to the US border and it made me wonder whether the tremors that we sometimes experience here are really caused by earthquakes or by Americans "running" to get their next super-sized double-whopper and fries. Yes, I can definitely see there being a market for these feedbags.

Well, the CoC itself is certainly is not imaginary! TelecityGroup's announcement can be read here. What else would you like to know?

RFC 793 Section 2.10. To say that Flash is not green is really rather silly. No, it isn't green, but then neither is watching TV, surfing the internet, playing video games or staying up so late at night that you need to switch on the lights. The problem lies not with Flash, but with the way that some developers/webmasters choose to use Flash. In addition to energy concerns, there are also security and performace concerns (ever opened a number of tabs and found that your browser suddenly becomes about as speedy as molasses?). A more appropriate headline may have been, "Study spanks irresponsible webmasters and developers for abuses of power." Hmmm. But then the Flash ad at the top of El Reg's story may have made them appear to be somewhat hypocritical :-) Whatever, at the end of day using NoScript is good way to reduce energy consumption, enhance security, speed up your web browsing - and, if enough people do it, spanking developers/websmaters into becoming more responsible.

Thicker than a Kwik Fit Fitter.

What about Elvis?

Nope :-)

Yup!

No, not at all. Data centres are starting to hit the limit of their energy, cooling and space capacity and actually need to implement the practices recommended in the Code, hence it is likely to be widely adopted. Companies such as Microsoft, TelecityGroup, IOMart and Quest have already stated that they shall sign-up - in fact, TelecityGroup has already signed-up. The Code represents not only a blueprint to cutting energy consumption; it also represents a blueprint to cutting costs. UK data centres adopting the Code will save £700 million on their electricity bills over a 6 year period. That's certainly not small spuds. Additionally, the 4.7 million tonnes of CO2 that are currently generated to produce that £700 million worth of electricity will also be saved. Consider too that in 2009 the UK shall be introducing the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) which will require that companies consuming more than 6,000MWh of electricity per year buy carbon credits to offset their emissions. This will provide UK-based data centres with even more of an incentive to become signatories. Companies benefit; the environment benefits. Win-win :-)

Here! Indeed. But the telling thing is that the UK crush resulted in people being injured. The US crush, OTOH, resulted is somebody being squashed to death. Which really supports what I said above: "had this happened in any other country, the worker would probably have escaped with some minor bruising." Yup, of course they should and my comments were not meant to be taken particularly seriously :-) The Wikipedia article to which you linked mentioned that, "In 2006, the CDC estimated that 10 percent of current health care costs are due to obesity." The article also mentioned that, "A Dutch study concluded that lifetime cost of obesity are less as these individuals die at an earlier age, while obese individuals have higher annual health care costs." But, whether obesity costs society more than it saves is not the point. The obesity epidemic is, IMO, simply a reflection of the fact that people are becoming increasingly sedentary and apathetic. Too many people spend way too much time sitting in front of TV and/or computer screens while spooning in takeout food - and those things become disproportionately and unhealthily important to them. People are outraged and compain to the TV stations if a program is rescheduled (seriously, stations in the US were bombarded with complaints when they rescheduled programs because of the election) but will take no action whatsoever if a local area of woodland is zoned for construction. And why should they care about the woodland when it's not a resource which they either use or enjoy? Here's some anecdotal evidence to support the contention that obese people are less likely to be politically active: do a Google image search for "protesters", "environmental rally" or some similar form of words. How many obese people do you see among the crowds. Hardly any, right? To my mind, the problem is not so much obesity as it is the state-of-mind and apathetic attitudes that result in obesity. Did you see the movie WALL-E? Hmmm ...

The EU recently released its Code of Conduct for Data Centres. Given that the world's servers use roughly the same amount of electicity as Mexico (a country with a population of more than 100 million), this is certainly a step in the right direction. Compliance with the Code of Conduct is, however, voluntary.

I must say, I'm not sure that I could actually bring myself to vote for the Green Party. Their policies sound appealing: Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system which is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens. And this is certainly the direction in which our societies need to head, but I do not think that we can get there in one easy step. I think it would be a recipe for disaster for the Greens (or any other party, for that matter) to attempt to rapidly and radically overhaul established political and financial processes and to decentralize wealth and power. Such a move would be met with enormous resistance - so much resistance that it could well be that their policies would never be enacted. To my mind, a better option is for the electorate to attempt to initiate a process of gradual change within the main parties. The process will be long and slow, but I think that it's the only way that we can get to where we want and need to be.

Haha! Yup, after the summer we had, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Floridian 'gators decided to start heading north!

Sorry. I simply assumed that, as many Americans seem to be somewhat ... erm, challenged, they would be avid viewers Rupert Bear. I mean, what's worse? Rupert or Springer?

Yup, it's a dumb idea. Just like aluminium undies, environmentally-friendly clothes for chihuahuas and all the other completely trivial and idiotic ideas that are listed on some (supposedly) green websites.

>>Doing such small things does help save the environment.<< Yeah, and were Santa to bring MountainHiker a pair of methane-absorbing charcoal underpants, that too would help the environment by reducing his greenhouse gas emissions. But so what? Even if the poor chap suffered from an exceptionally bad case of chronic flatulence, his new undies would have no real impact on the environment at all. >>You can't say they are meaningless.<< I can and I will :-) Or rather, I'll say that they are counterproductive. Telling people wear aluminium underwear or to "Accessorize Your Vehicle with Green Bling" or to "Make Your Own Bath Bombs" or to follow the golden toilet rule (if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down) paints the green movement as a bunch of crazy, unhygienic nutcases. Encouraging people to do stupid things simply does not help. It does not help the environment and nor does it help the green movement's credibility. >>Drinking eco-beer or buying an energy star tech-o-thing is good stuff. But they are just the money-making side of the green coin. But they are just the money-making side of the green coin.<< These businesses are neither heads nor tails on the green coin. They are not committed to bettering the environment, they are simply committed to bettering their bottom lines. They are not businesses started by environmentally-minded people, they are simply the latest brainchilren of so-called serial entrepeneurs seeking to make a buck from an expanding market for green products. Green sells and that's why some business claim that products are green even when they are not. Heck, the CEO of BitTorrent even attempted to claim that P2P was environmentally-friendly. Now, I have no problem at all with people making money from providing green products/services. Should somebody be able to make a living out of helping the environment, then that's excellent. But may of these businesses are not doing that. They're making money, yes, but helping the environment? Nope, hardly at all. They are simply lining their own pockets while simultaneously trashing and trivializing the meaning of being green.

This old thread caught my attention. I do not think that there is necessarily a need for new parties, either in the US or in other countries. Party politics/policies are made in response to public opinion. The parties want votes, and they create the policies that they believe will earn them votes. If enough people make clear to the parties that they'll be taking environmental policy into account when deciding which way to cast their vote, those parties will soon realise that they need to become greener. Green should not be the domain of the left and nor should it be the domain of the right. Green needs to be the domain of both sides of the political spectrum. And it's entirely within the power of the voters to make that happen.

Indeed. And I certainly wish that there were more green resources which encouraged and helped people to accomplish something meaningful rather than encouraging them to drink eco-beer and wear undies made of recycled aluminium.

Interesting. You denied watching Rupert, but didn't deny liking his pants ;-)

What can you say? Whether it's choosing a president or choosing trousers, many Americans display exceptionally poor judgement. I mean, Americans are probably the only people on the planet to think that Rupert Bear's pants are "mighty stylish."

A small corpse of apple trees, maybe? Well, it's better than it simply being dead space, I suppose. I wonder whether the Brits shall coroner the market for cemetry-grown fruit?

... and I have a big bear to burden. Concidentally, as I was reading this post my wife pointed out that there is a bear in our garden. He's just sitting there munching on something. I was just about to head out to the store, but I think I'll wait for a bit :-)