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Q) your electricity is still coming from exactly the same places it did before you "switched".
A) You are simply incorrect. The supply for me is Commonwealth Edison, but the generation dollars go to renewable generators. See https://www.green-e.org/long-r... for more information.

Q) no, do not invest in Tesla which makes overpriced toys for the well-to-do. wait until the major car makers make an electric car, because they can do it profitably and at a price most here can afford.
A) If you wait for cars from the mainstream manufacturers, it will be too late. Competition from Tesla is forcing them to act. Don't let the politicians beholden to the fossil fuel industry and Wall Street kill Tesla. If Tesla goes down, the car manufacturers will abandon electric cars. The survival of hundreds of millions of people may depend on transitioning to electric vehicles right now.

Q) and no, your small contribution means nothing, China and soon India will be the big carbon emitters and so it matters not what anyone in the USA does. China is under a very tight control, that's why it matters that we consider governments and not "per capita" bullshit
A) My contribution may be small, but it is not nothing. If enough people get their head out of their ass and do something we together can make a difference. Arguments that small individual contributions are meaningless are specious. You seem intelligent so you know better.

There is no reason not to try. The time for waiting is over. Do something now.

But the thing is, it does not matter what the cause is. If the cycle continues it will certainly, without a doubt, lead to the death of us as a civilization, whether we were the cause or not.

I am fairly certain, given the existing data, that there has been and will continue to be some level of anthropogenic climate change in the past 150 years. The amount and direction of the change, and its root causes, are still far from clear (does recent warming have more to do with decreased particulate matter [soot] than with increased carbon dioxide? why have there been notable periods of cooling or stasis during this period?).

The problem I have is why this change (even if you take the higher estimates of a 4-6 degrees Celsius increase from 1950-2100) inevitably leads to the death of our civilization. It would undoubtedly be disruptive (especially in coastal areas and oceanic islands), but why would civilization collapse? Civilization blossomed during the Little Ice Age of 1550-1850, where some estimates place the global cooling at 3-6 degrees Celsius - a similarly disruptive and sudden climate change.

Higher global carbon dioxide and temperatures will likely increase crop yields. Lands lost to desertification will likely be offset by increasingly fertile areas of former tundra in Canada and Asia. Technology will undoubted advance (and at an ever increasing rate) - with 22nd century technology, power production surely be much more environmentally benign and, if needed, we'll probably have tech that will allow us to reverse the carbon trends (given real fusion power, carbon sequestration and environmental cleanup become a lot cheaper and easier).

I have no worries that climate change will wipe out our civilization. An escalating clash of civilizations, increasingly simple biotech that can be used for bad ends as well as good and nuclear proliferation are what keep me up at night. Climate change just requires some technology and willpower - once (if) it hurts enough, the willpower will be there, and I'm sure the tech will be. The important thing to do is to mitigate the damage that occurs between then and now - especially on various fragile ecosystems. We need massive biological assays (start gathering a LOT of DNA and seeds now and store them safely), protected eco-preserves and a host of other things are some things you can help do right now. I personally donate to The Nature Conservancy because they put money directly into those kinds of projects rather than activism, but there are plenty of other outlets. You could buy personal carbon offsets, invest in wind power, or buy sustainable electricity.

Stop waiting for politicians to do the right thing - do it yourself!

So again, while I can't speak for Iowa, you signing up as a customer DOES make a difference in places with deregulated energy.

Actually I just clicked on the map of Iowa that they have on the Green Energy site, and it says that Iowa is not currently deregulated. I know that the entire Northeast is now, though. So I'd say, yeah, it looks like it's not really a choice for you just yet.

Storage would be a mofo, although you might be able to sell it into the grid in your area.

funny you should mention that...i was just reading up on a regional program we have access to here that lets you receive power from renewable sources for a small rate increase. one site i was reading also discusses incentives for installing your own solar or wind equipment:

"The way you can sell your electricity to the local utility is through a process known as net metering, where the meter runs in one direction when you are taking electricity from your utility's wires and then runs in the other direction when you are providing extra electricity to the utility. Your local utility must offer net metering as long as your system generates 25 kilowatts (KW) or less, if you are a Narragansett Electric customer, and as long as all of the net-metering capacity within the utility's service area totals no more than 1 megawatt (MW)."
http://www.green-e.org/RI/RI-producingyourown.htm

neat. too bad the equipment is several thousand dollars...maybe 10 years from now. :)

See the Green-E website. Many landfills already extract their methane emissions. This is good even from a global-warming perspective, as methane is also a greenhouse gas. Finally, the EPA has tips on reducing methane emissions from livestock themselves, as opposed to their turds.

I wouldn't throw out my current servers, but I would certainly favor boxes that were otherwise equal but used less power. Why?

1) Why be wasteful? Just because you can afford to do something doesn't mean you should. I pay about 5% more to use 100% renewable power. (Before the latest crisis, I paid 20% less.)

2) It's cheaper. Even under moderate assumptions, you could save a couple thousand dollars a year for a medium-sized commercial web site. That money would be much better spent on more hardware. Or more beer.

3) It's cooler. Not in the sense of hipness, but in terms of temperature. If the Register's numbers for a dual-Itanium server power consumption are to be believed, a couple of those babies would put out more heat as a hair dryer or a space heater.

Judging by Athalon's heat output, the heat output of typical CPUs scales 1:1 with speed. A lot of server rooms I enter are already running a little warm; imagine what it will be like after a round of upgrades to faster and hotter boxes.

Maybe you can afford to pay for the electricity, but can you afford to pay for a massive upgrade to your air conditioning?

While there is additional government power regulation risk, I think the expense of
environmental regulations (particularly the impact statements) are keeping new plants from being built.

Got some evidence for this? The deregulation battle dragged on for years. Several new power plants have been approved since deregulation was finally settled, and except for one recent approval for a peaker plant near SFO, I'm not aware of a case where they lowered environmental regs. But since they take years to build, I don't think any of them have come on line.

Significant environmental de-regulation of power plants is the only real solution. Better do it carefully though.

That doesn't clearly follow. Studying the environmental impact is one barrier to entry, but it's not a huge one. Building and running a power plant is a huge affair, and the environmental work is just one of many expenses.

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Note also that lowering environmental standards may not save money overall; it can just shift costs from the people who use the power to other people. Increasing particulate emissions may save on hardware to remove it, but it increases health care costs. Why should I increase my risk of bronchitis so some bozo can fill his 4500 sq ft house with 500W halogen lamps?

Hell, I moved to California partly because of the environment. I even pay (slightly) extra for environmentally friendly power. It may be a reasonable thing for society to say "fuck the environment, I want cheap power", but that's not what voters here generally say. If citizens are willing to pay the costs of a clean environment, what's the problem?

When the topics are technical, Slashdot has a really good signal/noise ratio. Smart things get modded up; stupid things get modded down and/or stomped on.

Here, though, we see what happens when it's a topic where people don't know much about. The volume is just as high, the opinions are just firm. But most people are just talking out their asses, and moderators are giving big points to Limbaugh-like rants without a scrap of fact in 'em.

Since this article already has enough opinion, I'll just stick to a few facts and some interesting links.

I live in San Francisco, so I've been following this closely. A very interesting site for the curious is the California Independent System Operator, an organization responsible for the long-distance high-voltage lines and the power that flows over them. They have a FAQ, a diagram that shows how the power flows, and an up-to-the-minute graph showing projected and actual power load. (I say we all pick a time tomorrow to turn off everything and see if we can make the graph drop.)

Personally, I use 100% renewable power from utility.com. (I actually pay less than others, but I'd happily pay more for my green preferences.) They are certified by Green-e, a non-profit that verifies the power content. (The typical mix for California uses only 12% renewables, with 20% coal, 20% large hydroelectric, 31% natural gas, and 16% nuclear. (Yes, large hydroelectric is counted separately; it's not considered very environmentally friendly these days.)

There are several good articles in the New York Times about all this, including one on following the money. There is also one on how Texas plans to do it differently. And as subscribers to The Economist know, California's deregulation was a pretty shoddy job compared to other utility deregulations around the world.

So those of you who lay the blame entirely on environmental regs from California's own special blend of fruits, nuts, and flakes should research a little further. You'll find a picture that's much more interesting and complex: political dithering, a lack of foresight, corporate greed, and plenty of plain old stupidity are involved.