Global Warming in the Darnedest Places

Global warming, if it exists at all, may be a big, inescapable black hole of apocalyptic fate. It seems that even using the Internet is warming the planet at an alarming rate.

In "Greening the Internet," CNN reports that,

Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing...estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one....

A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry. Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

"Most people don't appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle," said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization. "Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable," added St. Arnaud.

People who read this and who are ecologically concerned and climatologically devoted must come to feel like young, Roman Catholic Martin Luther in the confessional. He was tormented by his inability not to sin. "I sin (produce carbon emissions) every moment of every day; I sin (produce carbon emissions) in thought, word, and deed; I cannot stop sinning (producing carbon emissions)."

At what point will these preachers of ecological doom utterly despair? Of course, when Luther despaired of his own efforts to overcome and correct his sin, he could turn to a savior: the crucified, risen, and reigning Christ who is offered in the gospel. But crusaders against global warming who find they are themselves warming the globe whichever way they turn, inescapably and ever increasingly, have no choice but suicide and to recommend the same to others.

If we see Al Gore leading streams of people to Jonestown, Guyana, it's time for intervention.

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Harold adds:

Along with the idiotic hyperventilating over anthropogenic warming and the thought that we will somehow push the climate past a tipping point beyond which we cannot survive, comes the equally lunatic list of things such global warming is in turn causing. Here is an astonishing list of consequences someone has collected in one place for your horrified reflection, and hopefully, as David suggests, to get you to confess your sins and repent your profligate carbon dioxide polluting ways. Just the "A"s on this list will have you in Luther-like despair: Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, Africa devastated, Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaska reshaped, moves, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk, anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased,