A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I rented ‘An inconvenient truth’. This is the documentary by Al Gore about global warming. In it, Mr. Gore presents pretty compelling arguments that we are headed towards great peril unless we immediately take steps to avoid it. I have long thought we were not doing right ‘by the earth’, but didnt think the effects would be evident as soon as he expressed. Fifty percent of the info I read are rebuttals to his claims and the other fifty are in support of it. After my own investigation (Google-o-rama) it seems that there is no doubting the ‘rapid trending’ in the negative direction over the last 30 years, to the degree to which it hasn’t been historically detectable over the past several hundreds of thousands of years. This affects me personally and professionally, doesn’t it?
Personally, this is disturbing. In the documentary one thing he said transcends the so-called facts thrown around… and that is something along the lines of when your grandchildren ask you how you could have ignored this issue how will you answer them. That resonates in me for some reason. I’m not a big wasteful turd, but I’m certainly not the most responsible steward of human resources. Based on this thought… and whether it has any truth to it or not, I’m going to make an effort to be more responsible to the earth. I will recycle as much as I can… I will print less… I will turn lights out when they aren’t necessary… etc. So, Mr. Gore, whether I would vote for you or not, and whether you speak the truth or not, the concept has touched me and I will reduce my carbon signature.
I wonder if clock cycles could matter. In twenty years will there be so many lines of code running inefficiently that there is some stat that says “if all the code in the world were 50% more efficient we wouldn’t be facing the dilemma we’re facing now”. I don’t normally have to deal with detailed code level issues, let alone clock cycle issues, but I wonder if this is possible. I’m not starting an efficient code crusade, I’m just wondering.
mikewitters.com 
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