I see the BBC have been generous with the amount of publicity they have given to a US academic who believes that two search requests on the internet website Google produces as much carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle. There is no discussion on the science that has led to this conclusion but that’s not important since the BBC objective in pushing this story is to further crank up the hysteria about man made carbon emissions. That’s why all this little quirky stories have a danger, they are all part of the mega-narrative that pushes AGW.
GOOGLE MELTS THE POLES?
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Whether that’s true or not, don’t you have to balance it against how much energy shopping on the internet saves?
BBC ‘experts’ should realise that every 11 years there are storms on the surface of the Sun called flares or sunspots. These, together with changes in the ellipses of the earth’s orbit, are what cause our planet to warm from time to time. Gases and other pollutants are nasty, evil, filthy substances that should be cleaned up for that reason, but no evidence really exists to say they are the cause of so-called global warming. Once again the bbc is superficial, sensationalist, and out of context.
Could it be that Google has incurred the wrath of the ecomentalists?
Google is a prime example of the new mass information media, people simply enter a term and tonnes of diverse information is ready in an instant and guess what? lots of this information does not tally with the AGW/MMCC narrative!
You see control of the flow of information is critical to the AGW/MMCC narrative/propaganda and while the MSM is largely ‘on message’ the web is a different matter altogether, free information is the enemy of propaganda as it allows a free method of knowledge aquisition and dissemination.
The attack on Google is an attempt to control that media and close off a new avenue of free information, sad and pathetic it may be but dangerous it certainly is.
It would be very interesting to know what threats and blackmail has been going on behind closed doors between the ecothreateners/AGW believers and Google executives.
In the interest of preventing MMGW the BBC has no choice but to reduce carbon emissions by shutting itself down. Why today I have made at least three Google searches of the BBC site (and I boiled a kettle!)
For the mathematically minded among us BBC-GW=STFU
I read that story and laughed my head off. How an earth a Havard academic could come up with that figure I don’t know. Clearly it is quite wrong, because the cost of providing free searches via Google would be enormous to Google and they would be in desparate financial problems by now. The story also goes on to say that Google burns so much energy because it uses lots of search engines working in parallel to return rapid results – it doesn’t say why that burns more energy than having, say, one search engine taking a long time to return a result.
This Havard academic is an “Environmental Fellow” which I presume means “has given up doing hard maths in favour of cheap tabloid style headlines in the worlds press”. In fact it seems he has taken this to another stage and given up easy maths too.
The question is why isn’t there a proper rebuttal of this nonsense? Clearly Google haven’t had access to the details of this chaps calculations as it would be easy to dismiss. The Beeb obviously has no interest in permitting an open discussion. Shame really, because if the Beeb was really that bothered by the environment and not merely banging the drum for environmentalists it would have realised that the internet saves energy by reducing the need for transport.
Yes why is the BBC spouting on about this bollocks when we’ve seen huge amounts of global freezing in the UK Europe and USA over the last few weeks.
AS I’ve pointed out many times, the BBC will always look for some shite story to back up their man made climate change shite.
Snow in Moscow anyone?
Good.
So now can we expect Harrabin and his eco-freaks to keep off the internet?
Excellent.
More bandwidth for the rest of us.
“The Harvard academic argues that these carbon emissions stem from the electricity used by the computer terminal and by the power consumed by the large data centres operated by Google around the world.”
Where are these terminals ? I last used a “computer terminal” in about 1996 – it’s been 100% PCs since then. Has he been watching old episodes of Star Trek ?
Just a simple thought experiment will rubbish this claim.
Just think how hot a kettle gets. Now imagine the same amount of heat in the Google data centre for every 2 searches. You would only need a small number of simultaneous searches and the server would just melt or burst into flames.
And the cost as well. Google would be bankrupt.
Tom: I doubt it. Harrabin spend more time flying around the world than most other beeboids. clearly the idea of cutting back on flying only applies to the plebs and not the intellectuals at the BBC.
Mind you, some of the searches I do late at night are enough to melt anyone’s pole.
Every Harvard environmental fellow produces more carbon dioxide than a planeload of pilgrims going to the haj.
Discuss.
Of all places, from Pravda:
Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0
At the BBC, eyes will swivel…
just got up and made a brew resulting in a lot of water vapour comming out of the kettle.
did Al beeb mention that water vapour is the biggest grenhouse gas, or did they just stick to CO2 because its the oil industry they really hate, like all lefties, they hate big business cos its capitalism
effin bloody beeboid scumbag warmaholics
I bet that now the icy cold snap is over for a while we see Harrabin on the BBC this week or next spouting on about global warming from some remote part of the world.
The whole warming debate is about Government centralisation of power and money.
If the government can convince enough idiots that the “End is Nigh”, then we all be paying a great deal more to drive, fly, water our gardens, empty our bins,holiday abroad etc etc, all nobly justified by half truths and hysteria.
The “Green Tax” era is going to kick in
I love the Daily Mash – (bad language warning)
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/scientists-unveil-energy-efficient-porno%11kettle–200901121506/
Jack: you used a terminal to post that comment. It’s a technical term still in common usage referring to anything that allows you to input data to or receive output from a computer.
As for your ‘thought experiment’, the claim is that it produces the same amount of CO2, not heat. The amount of heat generated in a given time is probably much greater than a kettle – the processors are all designed around heat dissipation and the server farms have absurdly powerful air-conditioning units to prevent anything from melting.
On balance, if Google does produce more CO2 than other search engines, then I’m pretty sure it would be willing to offset it as they are quite into the whole GW thing. I’m not sure the Dr. in question has taken into account the enormous amount of caching they employ to speed up user interaction either.
If I understand the thrust of the argument. The problem is that there are too many people for the finite amount of resources. So reduce the number of people so we can have more resources each.
If you actually believe this pile of ordure then for the good of the planet you must kill yourself immediately. Greenies first!
Then the rest of us will get some peace. V8’s all round lads
bbc news got some climate change “expert” opposing heathrow expansion.
The beeboid and this oik keep mentioning climate change -no opposing view,no one saying that climate change is bogus…….
Cameron – repeat a lie often enough and it lodges in the public consciousness. Even people who’ve never given the subject a moment’s thought simply assume it’s true because no one ever contradicts it.
Did the BBC tell us how much CO2 is used by people watching television, and how much CO2 is used to make the programmes ?
Will the BBC suggest that computers should only be given to the rich? Or how about population control?
Better still how much CO2 is produced by the crap pumped out by the BBC?
Experts, experts more experts, the BBC is quick to push ay pro-AGW story, yet the BBC is so slooooooow to correct these articles once they are found to be incorrect/false.
And as for the Academic, I would recommend ‘Googling’ his academic background, you will not be surprised about his political leanings.
Sorry forgot to add the link
http://www.alexwg.org/
Evidently he used to be a boy soprano before embarking on his enviromental crusade
Save the planet – light a fart! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/12/google_kettle_green_it_cobblers/
Oh, good. More neo-Marxism from Harvard.
I checked the extreme weather records for all continents, not one continent has recorded higher temps in the last 50 years. Paradoxically nearly all of them have recorded record low temps.
Where does the above narrative fit into the global warming hysteria that the greens and the BBC keep pushing?.
In the interest of preventing MMGW the BBC has no choice but to reduce carbon emissions by shutting itself down.
deegee | 12.01.09 – 9:23 am
Indeed. In 2007 Peter Allen went to Greenland to report on global warming. Scroll down to see a photo of him on his flight home:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/drive_iceland.shtml
That’s a mighty carbon footprint for a little guy.
Today, I have mostly been searching “Global warming” on google, aren’t I naughty…
DB: Peter Allen is a leftist prat.
Bishop Hill has found an interesting story related to the BBC distortions on climate:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/1/12/a-tangled-web.html
Excellent link, InterestedParty! Good to see the BBC being caught out at an act of blatant propaganda. Once again.
Poor BBC cannot get its head around the fact that it is a major polluter – paid for by the licence fee.
No licence fee = no BBC = no CO2 (if that floats your boat) = a few billion to fill brown holes in the economy and a 140 quid per annum tax break for “hard working families”.
How many boiling kettles does production of a TV licence equate to?
InterestedParty: nice one. Cheers!
Gentlemen, start your search engines and your tea kettles:
Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979
There’s something else about 1979 that Beeboids don’t like, but I can’t quite remember….
Ippreferred
“Jack: you used a terminal to post that comment. It’s a technical term still in common usage referring to anything that allows you to input data to or receive output from a computer”
I’ve now worked an IT for over 25 years and havn’t heard that term since the demise of “big iron” mainframes and green screen “dumb terminals” – I assume that term is still used in your “data processing” department
David Preiser (USA): Roger Harrabin will take no notice. He simply moves on around the world looking for some other lame excuse to blame ‘man made climate change’
Perhaps Budgie’s in Australia are losing their feathers quicker than 30 years ago. This must be as a result of climate change.
roger will be on the case.
@Geoff,
Yes – the word “terminal” was very common in those old days. We worked in the “Data Processing” (DP) department.
The terminals were vt220 types. We had 400MB disk drives the size of a washing machine.
Most of us have moved forwards since those days.
I’m not sure about the rest of the “ipreferred” stuff. My kettle is rated 3kW. My PC isn’t. The servers at work aren’t.