Proposal Raised For GNOME Software Labeling Its Carbon Cost / Environmental Impact

[theriddick]

I would like to know how many kJ of energy these programmers are dispensing on making GNOME better. This is IMPORTANT stuff kids!

[DanL]

This isn't a big deal and could lead to quantifiably better process and program efficiency. But hey, let's politicize the heck out of it, break out the tried and true "woke" and "virtue signaling" memes, and have a good old-fashioned circle jerk. Phoronix forums FTW!

[sverris]

I feel like this is a direction that will ironically increase the carbon footprint of the GNOME Foundation.

Sure. But creating awareness may help, too.

[Djhg2000]

Putting GNOME aside why the issue of global warming is an issue of politics?? I mean sure morons like Trump thinks that the climate change is a hoax but it doesn't change the fact that we humans are the main cause of that.
In other hand I've agreed that GNOME has more issues need to addressed first.

Well the "main cause" bit is up for debate. But anyways, it became political when politicians adopted it as one of their key talking points for elections before letting the science sort itself out. Any time politicians are the loudest proponents of anything it becomes a dividing issue where one side is 100% for regardless of the facts and the other 100% against regardless of the facts. The end result is that only the people who don't care about either side gets a neutral perspective and the rest just adopt the line of whatever party they vote for.

Just one more reason the majority needs to stop thinking about elections like sports games, where the home team is infallible and the opposition is stupid. They all do dumb things and democracy only works as long as people stay objective.

[oleid]

Well the "main cause" bit is up for debate. But anyways, it became political when politicians adopted it as one of their key talking points for elections before letting the science sort itself out.

Huh? Science sorted that out decades ago.

[Djhg2000]

Huh? Science sorted that out decades ago.

No it didn't. The first scientific research came up with one reasonable explanation and the politicians just ran with it. There has been little consideration for the later explanations because the first one got hammered in so deeply into western culture that very few outside of the scientific field ever questions it, and when they do they're usually given an explanation they don't have the tools, skill or knowledge to verify.

Starting recently anyone who presents a competing explanation is even censored, either explicitly or by omission. This is why those alternate explanations are harder to find online; the mainstream narrative is being promoted as aggressively as possible to suffocate the rest. It's to the point now that you can barely even search with any mainstream search engine about anything including the term "environment" or "climate" without getting at least one result relating to global warming or similar.

Seriously, try it. Search for "gcc environment" on DuckDuckGo and the first page contains results about climate change. Search for "educational climate" and the first video result, the 3rd result from the top, is about climate change. It's arguably even worse with Google and Bing, with Yahoo you barely even get anything ther than climate change. Whatever you search for which could possibly be interpreted as having anything to do with global warming gives search results which condition you into connecting global warming with everything we do. There have been several instances where I've been bombarded with search results about global warming and I've had to sit there and wonder how what I searched for could possibly have anything to do with global warming.

I'm not saying we aren't the main cause (although I'm quite sure the next few replies will be along the lines of "hurr durr y u denny climat changch huuuh dum dum" as per usual), but you sure as hell aren't getting the full picture if you think it's been properly sorted out.

[oleid]

No it didn't. The first scientific research came up with one reasonable explanation and the politicians just ran with it. There has been little consideration for the later explanations because the first one got hammered in so deeply into western culture that very few outside of the scientific field ever questions it, and when they do they're usually given an explanation they don't have the tools, skill or knowledge to verify.

.

Well, last time I searched for scientific research which try to frame global warming as a natural phenomenon, all those papers were sponsored in one way or the other by oil industry. Quite funny: AFAIR one of the first papers describing global warming was by one researcher employed by oil industry.

[Djhg2000]

Well, last time I searched for scientific research which try to frame global warming as a natural phenomenon, all those papers were sponsored in one way or the other by oil industry. Quite funny: AFAIR one of the first papers describing global warming was by one researcher employed by oil industry.

But the same goes for papers trying to frame it as a man made phenomenon; sponsored by anti-oil organizations. We need to hold them to the same standards and either dismiss or listen to both sides. Anything else is cherry picking.

[oleid]

But the same goes for papers trying to frame it as a man made phenomenon; sponsored by anti-oil organizations. We need to hold them to the same standards and either dismiss or listen to both sides. Anything else is cherry picking.

True, same standards are important. Surely you find research sponsored by environmental organizations or whatever, but also a lot neutral ones. You have a hard time finding a creditable researcher denying man made global warming.

Heck, even Exxon's own research (via James Black) concluded there is man made climate change - already in the 70s. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxo...ge_controversy).
So if you don't belive the other papers, believe Exxon's early research, before managers decided that that's bad for their business.

[Djhg2000]

True, same standards are important. Surely you find research sponsored by environmental organizations or whatever, but also a lot neutral ones. You have a hard time finding a creditable researcher denying man made global warming.

Heck, even Exxon's own research (via James Black) concluded there is man made climate change - already in the 70s. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxo...ge_controversy).
So if you don't belive the other papers, believe Exxon's early research, before managers decided that that's bad for their business.

My wording probably wasn't very clear, we're still talking about the main cause. We, just like everything else in the atmosphere, affect it and probably by a lot. But that's not the same as our CO2 being the main cause. Semantically it's a small difference but the consequences are huge; if we go in head first trying to solve it by reducing CO2 alone then we might find ourselves fighting the equivalent of a lithium stockpile fire with a squirt gun.

And the issue of conditioning still remains. It's the same effect leading to people thinking Darth Vader said "Luke, I'm your father." despite the fact that the exact line never occurs in any of the movies. What he said was "No. I am your father." which is close but not the same thing. Yet, because everyone keeps saying "Luke, I'm your father." people still believe that's what he said.