back to article Al Gore: Stop using the atmosphere as 'an open sewer

According to former US vice president and climate activist Al Gore, the world faces "a climate crisis of unprecedented proportions," and the data center industry can – and should – make a tremendous contribution towards averting climate-change disaster. Speaking at Google's "How Green Is the Internet? Summit" at the company's …

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  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Don't make me say it!

    1) Pick up phone to the Mr. Hopey Changey who happens to be in the same bleeding heart party.

    2) Talk to him about cutting the military budget by 50% like Ike did and to get his White Burdened Community Organizer-cum-Lawyer Controlfreak Arse out of sandy lands

    3) ????

    4) Instant savings on Global CO_2 production, not to mention enfeeblement of the crony capitalists.

    "It's a way we had over here with living with ourselves. We cut 'em in half with a machine gun and give 'em a Band-Aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw them, the more I hated lies." [Cap. Willard]

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't make me say it!

      To quote:

      Turkish: Yeah, that's perfectly clear, Mickey. Yeah... just give me one minute to confer with my colleague.

      Turkish: Did you understand a single word of what he just said?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't make me say it!

        He's saying slash the military budget and get them out of the middle east I think.

        Which is probably fair, I'm pretty sure the US military are heavy contributors to carbon emission

      2. joeW

        Re: Don't make me say it!

        So you're saying that Al Gore's ma is terrible partial to de periwinkle blue?

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: Don't make me say it!

          Turkish speaking about Al Gore:

          "What you mean he's fucked, like proper fucked."

    2. GrumpyOldBloke

      Re: Don't make me say it!

      Military activities may be exempt from emissions trading schemes therefore no planet saving profit to be made there. Those who suffer murder death kill at the hands of the globalists do not go on to consume, pollute or breed so war may be carbon negative if looked at over the longer term. However, Al's focus is the rest of us; those who are not yet scheduled to die in some pointless activity for banker profit and who still have a few coins left after all the other shake downs. A net worth of ~$300M is just not enough for some people and we need to rally around Al and others like him to show our support to these unfortunate individuals who suffer poverty amidst so much wealth. So Mister D.A. Monsters, ask not what Al could do for himself but what you can do for Al. Just $10M may help Al to buy a more efficient corporate jet or another property a little bit closer to his next speaking engagement or shares in a water company to bring privatised water to people who might otherwise get it for free. It all adds up and we help to save the planet at the same time.

  2. imanidiot Silver badge

    Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

    I don't know how fast mister Gore is driving on the highway, but assuming a normal 60 mph, it would take nearly an hour to get out of the atmosphere and into "space". (Depending on your definition of "the atmosphere", it could take significantly longer, or 10 minutes if you make a really weird definition)

    Claiming that greening data centers is going to do much to halt the CO2 exhaust is kind of missing the point. It's small potatoes compared to MANY MANY other poluters and probably not worth the effort. (And more importantly, most companies don't need an extra incentive to "green" their datacenter as lowering power consumption is a goal in and of itself.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

      "It's small potatoes compared to MANY MANY other poluters and probably not worth the effort. "

      Your right, i won't switch of my light bulbs when not in use, and I'll leave the taps running when cleaning my teeth, after all, I hadly make a difference. While I'm at it, i'll chuck litter on the floor and piss in alleyways, it won't make a difference, I'm only a tiny part of the probelm.

      Butteflies and all that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

        Well you will as it will effect your electricity and water bill, not to mention the tap running noise will just be annoying.

        1. solidsoup
          Joke

          MBP is here

          Why won't any one listen to him? He's super serial.

      2. imanidiot Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

        AC at 08:09

        There is a very good reason for you NOT to do any of those things and its exactly the same incentive the data center guys have. Lowering your utility bills. If you want to keep the tap running, be my guest,most of the UK won't run out of water soon. Especially not if it's just your little pipe that's leaking a bit. (Compared to most industrial users, even at full blast, your home tap uses a TINY amount of water)

        If you really think people keeping a 60 watt light bulb burning is going to matter much in the grand scheme of things then go ahead and ignore the industrial complexes whose consumption is measured in MegaWatts running 24/7/365 for several decades.

        It WILL make a difference to you as a person. Your electricity and water bills will be through the roof. Which is exactly the RIGHT incentive to get people to use less resources.

        1. The Serpent

          Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

          Though I'm in favour of everyone playing their small part, ultimately it won't make a difference to your utility bill. Now matter how little we use, the utility companies keep putting the bills up to retain their profit levels, er, cover increased costs I mean..

          1. Fatman

            Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

            Now matter how little we use, the utility companies keep putting the bills up to retain their profit levels, er, cover increased costs I mean..provide for larger executive bonuses

            FTFY

        2. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

          "...If you want to keep the tap running, be my guest,most of the UK won't run out of water soon. Especially not if it's just your little pipe that's leaking a bit. (Compared to most industrial users, even at full blast, your home tap uses a TINY amount of water)..."

          This statement betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the water cycle, and resources generally.

          The UK won't EVER 'run out of water'. Even if everyone turns on their taps full blast all the time. It might run out of storage and processing capacity if people did that, but the water isn't lost and will be there to be re-used again and again.

          Thinking that resources such as energy will somehow 'run out' and that we must cut back on usage is a green fallacy, intended to get us to de-industrialise. What we need to do is consider what resources we need, how to provide them most cheaply and effectively, and how to mitigate any downsides of that provision. What we must NOT do is pretend that using resources is evil, and we must give it up, or cut back on them for no apparent reason and punish those who do use them...

          1. The Serpent

            Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

            There's always a balance to be head. Consider the water in your taps; it has already gone through all the energy consuming processes of storing, cleaning and pumping it back for delivery. If it is there right behind the valve in the tap, surely it is just as wasteful not to use some as it is to use it to excess?!

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Straight up and out in 10 minutes??

          Where were you last summer, during the summers of the last several years, when the UK went into hosepipe lockdown due to lack of water??

          Your individual tap may only leak a tiny amount of water, but you're overlooking that there are over 60 million people in this country, and between them they own/use an awful lot of taps. If only a fraction of them leave taps running, that still amounts to very significant amounts of wasted water.

          Oh I'm sorry I forgot, I'm supposed to be thinking ME! ME! ME! in the current climate of enlightened thinking ... silly me.

    2. Professor Clifton Shallot

      probably not worth the effort

      "Claiming that greening data centers is going to do much to halt the CO2 exhaust is kind of missing the point. It's small potatoes compared to MANY MANY other poluters"

      Perhaps, but he was speaking at Google's 'How Green is the internet?' summit so I can see why he wasn't talking about cement plants or whatever.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Al Gore is still alive? Today will be full of surprises.

    It makes sense for Datacenters to be as self sufficient and efficient as possible as it drives down one of their largest costs - electricity, so it's kind of preaching to the converted.

  4. brudinie
    FAIL

    Why does he bother?

    LENR is now a scientifically verified fact with working systems available for purchase. If we have a solution to energy production and CO2 output then why aren't politicians promoting it? Maybe it's because Al Gore would lose millions in the carbon trading he is engaged in.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why does he bother?

      LENR is now a scientifically verified fact with working systems available for purchase.

      if there's anything to make the various sides of the AGW debate appear rational, it would have be cold fusion proponents.

  5. Turtle

    Concern.

    The only "open sewer" with which Al Gore need concern himself, is his own mouth. If he does something about that, and if he then wants to help the world a bit more, he could also do something about that other "open sewer": Eric Schmidt's mouth.

  6. wowfood
    Trollface

    Wow

    He sounds super cereal. If we don't stop the climate change and stop polluting the atmosphere then ManBearPig will take over the earth.

  7. weevil
    FAIL

    Doesn't he realise that when people move their data into the cloud, they are decommissioning old, inefficient servers that are being housed on-site? So by building more energy efficient data centres, its actually reducing electricity usage?

    Al Gore is a tool.

    1. hplasm
      Big Brother

      Re:Al Gore is a tool.

      Yes he is. But whose tool is he...?

      1. weevil

        Re: Re:Al Gore is a tool.

        Lets go tin foil hat mad! He's the tool of Phoebe.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

    "He went on to describe such recent extreme weather events as the current 500-year flood in southern Germany and fatal flooding in Prague's city center, flooding in the US states of Illinois and Missouri, storm surges in New York as a result of Hurricane Sandy that added to the $110bn in climate-related US disasters last year, recent floods in Pakistan that displaced 20 million people, and a storm in Queensland, Australia, that dropped 48 inches of rain in "24 hours or thereabouts," he said."

    Cmon you guys all together now- 'weather is not climate!'

    I expect to hear it as clear and as loud as when anyone makes a weather observation countering the theory. To be honest I would have assumed people would start laughing as soon as this guy gets on stage assuming that he is the entertainment for the night.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

      "weather is not climate!'

      Only applies to "deniers". For fully paid up AGW subscribers, weather is climate. Remember how at the time of Katrina, the same people promised us a decade of worsening hurricanes? Instead it's been pretty quiet. Ahh, then that must be caused by global warming.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

        Maybe you missed the annual flooding which has been hammering most of Europe and South America ever since then.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

      The floods are happening because a longer than usual winter and cold spring has prevented any early snow melt. Instead of the snow melt occurring over March and April you are now getting March, April and May's snow melt happening at once.

      Combine this with the traditional spring rains and what you get is bigger than usual floods.

      So the cold has caused this "global warming event"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

        "The floods are happening because a longer than usual winter and cold spring has prevented any early snow melt. Instead of the snow melt occurring over March and April you are now getting March, April and May's snow melt happening at once."

        What, every year for most of the last decade ... and also in countries which don't even have snow ... ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

          Floods in Europe 1995:

          21-Jan Central and NW France

          01-Feb Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemboug, UK, Ireland

          27-Feb SW France

          05-Mar Dagestan

          25-Apr NW Italy

          24-May Romania

          02-Jun SW Germany, SE Norway

          22-Sep NE Albania

          13-Oct Azerbaijan

          28-Dec E,N,NW Romania

          Spring and Summer floods are normal in Europe. I picked 1995, but you could pick any year you want and it would be the same.

    3. A K Stiles

      Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

      I am wondering slightly (but not enough to actually type it in to Google at the moment) when the last 500-year flood was in southern Germany...

      1. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

        roughly the same amount of flooding maybe a decade ago afaik.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

        Just because it is called a 500-year flood does not mean that it last occurred 500 years ago.

        The 500-year flood is a statistical estimate that a flood has a 1 in 500 chance of occurring. This estimate is only as good as the underlying data and the understanding of all the factors involved.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

          The 500-year estimate is always calculated after the fact. There are enough different events and enough different places in the world that you can probably guarantee that at least one 500-year event happens every year.

          "Wow, every day in July had exactly average temperature! That is a one in 10,000 year event!!"

    4. scarshapedstar
      Thumb Down

      Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

      "Remember how at the time of Katrina, the same people promised us a decade of worsening hurricanes? Instead it's been pretty quiet."

      Uh... I'm assuming you don't actually live in Murica, because you may recall this little thing called Sandy that leveled fucking New Jersey, which is rather unusual.

      1. scarshapedstar
        Trollface

        Re: I expect to hear the MMCC co2 believers now

        Must be a hell of a lot of sunspots to have the #1 and #2 worst hurricanes ever in the same decade, just like those annoying liberal eggheads predicted - because it's unpossible for scientists to know what the fuck they're talking about, amirite?

  9. Chris Miller

    Come on guys, give Al and Eric a break

    Private jets don't just buy themselves, you know.

  10. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Coat

    So...

    A butterfile flaps its wings in a google server, and we get a hurricane?

    <-- the one with the butterfly net in the pocket, if you'd be so kind.

  11. Stefing
    Holmes

    Let's drive a 4x4 up a mountain

    And out come the Clarkson-esque climate-change denying ostriches in 3... 2... 1...

  12. s. pam Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Quit polluting the planet with hair gel you moppet!

    Mr. Gore,

    If you are going to scream, yell, moan, present and expect compliance on your initiative, you should quite wearing petroleum based products in your hair and just get a hair cut and be done.

    You're walking around with chemicals seething out of your hair polluting my air.

    Colossal Fail!

  13. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    WTF?

    Save the Planet!

    Yes, lets cut that awful CO2!

    After all, our great enemies the plants breath it in. They already have hardly enough. If we can completely eradicate it they will all die!

    Ah, but there is a problem. The total human output of CO2 is rather small compared to that of microbes and insects. In fact, together, they put out about 100 times more than we do. Never mind - kill all the microbes and insects as well....

    1. scarshapedstar
      FAIL

      It's called math

      You do realize there's a difference between an ecosystem that's solely in equilibrium between autotrophs and heterotrophs, and one in which we're constantly adding to the atmospheric carbon side by burning coal, oil, etc. right? Or were you dropped as a baby?

      1. mhenriday
        Pint

        Re: It's called math

        He was indeed dropped as a baby - which is why he's a dodgy old geezer now, like those others scientific illieterates who seem to believe that any increase in the level of carbon dioxide would necessarily be of benefit to the plants on which we depend. They probably also believe that increasing the proportion of molecular oxygen in our atmosphere by 25 % or more would help us to breathe....

        Henri

  14. Beachrider

    Sometimes Gore show useful insight...

    This guy is pretty smart, but he is losing his edge. He was always borderline superficial, yet he could be a good listen. It's clear that he doesn't understand how it reads when he speaks, anymore. He needs to think more and speak/wite more judiciously. He will be missed when he is done.

  15. jnffarrell1
    Stop

    Eliminate Kerosene Burning, Not Diesel Backup

    Large Diesel Engines on Ships, Trains, Heavy Trucks put toxic particles in lungs of living people. Burning LNG in Diesel engines eliminates particulates and the toxic petroleum byproducts from the lungs of people living near ports, rail hubs, rail lines, heavy truck routes. Save the people now, not in 500 years.

  16. Mikel
    Devil

    Hey Al

    If you want to do something about CO2 emissions how about you feed your Gulfstream private jet into a chipper?

    1. silent_count

      Re: Hey Al

      Fair go, mate! How else is the poor bloke supposed to get around to harangue people for creating this PLANET DESTROYING CO2 stuff?

  17. James Pickett
    Unhappy

    "It's obvious that we have to make a change."

    Who's this 'we'? Not the Goracle, whose own lifestyle must be responsible for a significant amount of CO2, even when he's resting (which hardly ever seems to happen).

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Potentially the worlds first Carbon Billionaire

    It's hard to trust anyone who stands to make so much money from scaremongering:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

    Don't get me wrong, it's good practice to avoid pollution when you can, and try and save resources. But that is of course not Al Gore's real agenda....

  19. Elmer Phud
    Alien

    So --

    We melt the ice caps and expose more land for plants that use the CO2.

    Sorted.

    Selfish, these humans.

  20. haloburn
    FAIL

    Didn't....

    Al Gore’s family fortune come from farming tobacco? Hypocrite, much?

  21. aelfheld

    The 'Wrong Way Corrigan' of climate

    Is there any aspect of climate science that Al Gore hasn't been wrong on?

  22. mIRCat
    Headmaster

    "It's worth remembering that on a daily basis we now put 90 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet every single day"

    Is that what daily means?

    " He went on to describe such recent extreme weather events..."

    I'm more worried about our impact on rerouting rivers, damming them up, and draining marsh lands have on flooding. Realistically though all the damage we could do will have only minor long term (in the millions of years) effect on the planet in comparison to the effects on us.

  23. Mark 85
    WTF?

    Follow the money

    Before anyone ever takes Al Gore seriously on the environment, they should follow the money. He's profited more from the Global Warning and CO2 "problem" than anyone else.

  24. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Within seven years there will be 50 billion intelligent devices connected to the internet... Those devices will, of course, require their own data infrastructure, pollution from data centers will increase...

    How does that follow? A significant portion of the predicted growth in the number of devices are of a different class than currently call for big data centers. Sure, there will be more mobile phones, tablets and smart watches. However, a larger proportion of growth is likely to come from smart appliances. Even if they do connect to the cloud in some manner (which may not hold true), there is no reason to assume at this point that they will require the same amount of support at the data center level. A browser running on a smart phone is a lot more demanding than a fridge putting out a heartbeat every hour.

  25. Jim O'Reilly
    Holmes

    Al needs a new bandwagon!

    Al is getting out of touch. Even the blow/diehards on the climate disaster side are talking about much reduced and delayed warming, and unexplained lack of any warming for 20 years.

    It appears that Gaia understands us better than we do, so the world is actually not on the edge of imminent extinction. So Al is just looking for donations or something (once a politician always a politician!) Maybe he's hoping Jeb Bush runs in 2016 so he can oppose and beat him! The only thing Al would win right now is a weigh-in!

  26. Alan Firminger

    Wrong target

    Surely the server farm total power will be about 5% of the the power down stream. That is in front of our eyes.

  27. sdfdasfd

    and the good news, too, is that Al is going to help make it all better for a price, of course. What a liar. What a huckster, flim-flam man, snake-oil salesman, denier....he's a denier of his own sickness. How does he address that water vapor makes up almost all of the necessary greenhouse gases we require to survive and man made CO2 amounts to only about .001% of all CO2? That's why it's a trace gas. Wake up, people of the world, read the science. It is scientifically impossible that .001% CO2 made by man is the driving force of every other variable that makes up the earth's climate. In other words, it overrides solar storms, subatomic particulate matter in the atmosphere, various ocean currents that have their cyclical patterns, El Nina and El Nino, overrides all of nature's negative effects and has only positive effects. You should also do some reading about the IPCC being rife with conflict of interest. Lovely how Pachauri runs a campus golf course and sells memberships when the land was given to his group for public purposes, lives like a king in a mansion in India, and leaves a personal carbon foorprint the size of a crater!

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