The effects and threat of climate change are regularly in the news with environmental disasters now seemingly as common as political scandals. While there are still some who will argue until blue in the face that nothing unnatural is occurring, you only have to look at your own country over the past 20 years to see that there have been rapid changes in the climate and bizarre weather patterns. While this is a frightening phenomenon, you can actually use your PC to educate yourself on the dangers and even do your little bit to fight it.
By installing the BBC Climate Change Experiment software, you can contribute your PC’s processing power with other users in a remarkable experiment that attempts to predict Climate Change. The experiment has apparently concluded the first phase although you can still continue to join in with more projects at climateprediction.net. Another similar and continuing project is BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) which attempts to link your PC to other projects such as the BBC’s including those that are looking to cure human diseases. Scientists can also apply to BOINC to have their humanitarian project linked into the network.
You can also contribute to preventing climate change in a much smaller way simply by controlling your PC’s energy usage. LocalCooling optimises your PC’s electricity consumption which consequently means reduced Co2 in the atmosphere. And to remind you of how much this Earth is worth saving, install the 3D Earth Screensaver which even allows you to zoom in and out of locations across the globe.
