'Virtual' meeting takes up climate ideas
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Democrat Barack Obama endorsed the use of a carbon auction to reduce air pollution, one of several ideas offered by presidential candidates at a forum on global warming.
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(InfoWorld) - In a Silicon Valley speech urging businesses to push clean technology, environmentalist and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said the United Nations report on climate change released Friday makes it a near certainty that global warming is real and needs to be addressed immediately. "The degree of certainty, which was already very high, is now as close to certain as scientists are ever willing to say something is certain," Gore said in an address to Silicon Valley business and community leaders in San Jose, California. The International Panel on Climate Change's fourth report on the subject since 1990 says human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, is the primary cause of global warming. Gore implored his audience of 1,500, many of them executives and employees of technology companies in Silicon Valley, to use their collective knowledge and resources to promote green technology that causes less pollution and can reverse the effects of climate change. "The world faces an unprecedented challenge, and Silicon Valley can make an unprecedented contribution to meeting that challenge," Gore told them. "You can chart a course and change the future of civilization." Technology companies recently have been focusing more on green technology, such as designing computer processors that generate less heat, building systems that better manage electricity use in data centers, improving manufacturing processes, and recycling old computers. Gore urged them to do more. He criticized the George Bush administration's reaction to the U.N. report, which was to restate President George Bush's opposition to mandatory reductions in greenhouse emissions. "It's not as if the oil lobby has too much influence in the White House. The problem is the oil lobby is the White House," he said. Gore also describe as "unethical" a lobbying tactic by oil companies and other critics of climate change to pay $10,000 for each scientific paper produced that disputes the potential harm of global warming. "(Gore's speech) was a stirring challenge," said Russell Hancock, chief executive officer of Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network, which hosted the event. "We need to organize and mobilize so that Silicon Valley can keep doing the kind of innovation that made us famous." Chip maker Cypress Semiconductor incubated a startup that makes solar power systems, said Eric Benhamou, chairman of Cypress. SunPower is now a standalone company. "I think we are a unique center of technology innovation in Silicon Valley, and I think we have the best research universities relevant to the climate protection challenge," said Benhamou.
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Blog: At an event at the MIT Media Lab, IBM executives and virtual world experts sketch out the potential and pitfalls of virtual worlds for business and society.
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This year&#39;s meeting on the UN Climate Change Convention is deadlocked over a proposal to start informal discussions over the next year about the future of the climate-change regime.
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Going Green: One professor is rallying college kids to pay attention to global warming. After all, it's their world we're messing with
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The UK public is being invited by the government to have its say on the future of science and technology.
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Arts & entertainment: Organisers plan to make greater use of renewable energy
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An eco-entrepreneur says climate control will be very expensive and a new approach is required to spread the costs of action.
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Delegates from 150 countries meet in Vienna to discuss progress on steps to tackle climate change.
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Compromise deal on saving the planet has been hammered out at climate change conference
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With tales of rising seas and talk of human solidarity, world leaders at the first United Nations climate summit sought Monday to put new urgency into global talks to reduce global-warming emissions.
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Billionaire Richard Branson hopes to entice researchers to seek methods to contain climate damage. By the Associated Press.
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By Justin Harper, Daily Mail, London  Feb. 17--One of the key themes in politics and business this year is  saving the planet. The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos focused on the  need for governments to fight climate change. Big businesses are starting to  take heed.
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Carbon dixoide storage -- rather than grapes and vintages -- was on the agenda at a wine-makers conference in Barcelona Saturday, as vintners mulled ways to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions.
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Scientists will step into a feud between Washington and its allies over global warming at a British-sponsored meeting this week.
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A U.S.-sponsored meeting of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters aims to support the U.N. process on climate change, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, but some participants and environmentalists were skeptical.
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The third annual Second Life Community Conference features plenty of hopeful talk about lofty new possibilities for the virtual world.