"climate gate" won't halt the carbon economy- by Peter Judge

Entities Mentioned

• Europe
• Peter Judge
• Climatic Research Institute

1. 

   IT people will have two questions over the leak of emails from a leading climate change research institute last week. What does it imply about email security, and does it really blow apart the consensus around global warming - and if so, can we stop worrying about building green data centers?

   The security question won't be answered for a while. The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Institute (CRU) is a leading source of climate data, and a major contributor to the science behind the political move to prevent global warming. There's likely to be an inquiry into the way the emails were leaked, but the University is wary it could turn into a media circus. 

   Since the emails surfaced immediately on climate-sceptic blogs, it seems quite possible that the leak was an inside job rather than that of an external hacker, so any IT security lessons are limited the old chestnut that any IT security is far more a matter of policy and human interaction than tech. Organisations with politically sensitive data are more at risk, end of story.  

   What about the other story, that the information in these emails undermines the science of global warming itself? Sceptics say the emails expose scientists faking data, hiding from Freedom of Information Requests, and gaming the peer-review process of scientific journals. But I don't see that. It looks to me as if the sceptics are hyping and sometimes wilfully misunderstanding anything at all they can find, in a set of what the scientists believed were private emails.  "Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues," says the Unit's head Professor Phil Jones. "I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result". 

   The Ars Technica site has a welcome reminder that the basic underlying physics of the greenhouse effect have been known for a century, and the possibility of global warming has been accepted for thirty years. Other independent bodies agree with the CRU too.  Others point out that, even if it turns out not to overheat the planet, the oil will run out shortly and we'll need to to pay more for energy or use other energy forms. 

   Which brings us back to the data center. Energy costs are already driving us all to make more efficient data centers, and regulations will surely add to the pressure. This month's COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will go ahead as planned, and will agree reductions in greenhouse emissions. That's going to follow through in laws - which are likely to take the form of cap-and-trade or carbon credits. 

   Now, carbon credits and carbon offsets aren't getting a uniformly good press right now, even without the ClimateGate conspiracy nuts. A university of Essex report suggests that  offsets have made things worse, and carbon credits are widely criticised as adding complexity and encouraging a new system which corporations will game, and which may produce unintended consequences. For instance, telecom operator BT, which was forced to cut electricity use sooner than anyone, since its demands were actually greater than the Grid could supply, has said the new rules will actually make a planned wind energy scheme uneconomic.  

   The UK is somewhat ahead of the game, with a carbon reduction regime coming into force next year, which will make the country's top energy users trade carbon credits. eWEEK Europe is hosting a web seminar to discuss how companies should be approaching the new world. Carbon accounting is a new discipline, and a lot of companies simply don't have the technology to cope. 

   One way to approach it - at least under the UK regime - will be to reduce your energy demands until you fall under the bar, so you don't have to do carbon accounts. And that could mean serious re-engineering to your data center.     

   
   

   
   

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