Digital Dim Sum » Can virtualization save the real world?
The Big Prize goes to the right person
Congratulation to Al Gore for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the climate changes. Apple pays tribute to its board member. (Don't think I've forgiven you over the iPhone update debacle yet, Apple. I have not!)
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Gentlemen – Let’s start your smear campaign!
I am surprised that it lasts as long as it did. So finally the personal attack started on Al Gore. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research accuses Al Gore of hypocrisy over energy usage at his mansion.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh)
per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured
nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
20 times the national average? OH MY GOD!
Hang on though, I believe his 20 rooms mansion is rather large and the national average home is a lot smaller than his. May be not 20 times smaller, but certainly not comparable.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than
twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses
in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s
average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.
WOW this is getting worse!
Again, let's take the figures from this paragraph. 22619 X 12 = 271,428, which is comparable to the 221,000 kWh annual usage mentioned before.
This just shows how statistic can be phrased to make you think the figure is worst than it is. And remember, by definition 'Average' implies there are less and more in the whole data set, so picking up on the extremes are like claiming everyone is average. Life doesn't work this way.
The more important omission from their short report are:
- How many people occupy and use this mansion? How does the energy consumption per person at Al Gore's mansion compares to the 'national average'?
- How is Al Gore's mansion compares to other similarly sized, private properties?
And the question for all the people out there (critics and proponents): Even if Al Gore is a hypocrite, what have you done or been doing to reduce your carbon emission?
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Top 50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming
Global warming is a dramatically urgent and serious problem. We don't
need to wait for governments to solve this problem: each one of us can
bring an important help
adopting a more responsible lifestyle: starting from little, everyday
things. It's the only reasonable way to save our planet, before it is
too late.Here is a list of 50 simple things that everyone can do in
order to
fight against and reduce the Global Warming phenomenon: some of them
are at no cost, some other require a little investment but can help you
save a lot of money, in the middle-long term!
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Save the energy, Save the world
Typical bulb = 100w, a Compact Fluorescent Light bulb that outputs the same amount of light =
23w, a difference of 77w. Multiply that number by total # of US
Households (~120 million) & you can see that if every home switched
out 1 bulb, then we would save about 9.24 Billion watts of electricity
per kw/hour – Enough energy to curb emission levels of nearly 800,000
cars.
(via Digg & Energy Star)
Lost in Colonisation 