Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

Go check every morning at:

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

or just use their RSS feed.

Large Hadron Rap

Which File Extension are You?

Which File Extension are You?

What’s the worst that can happen?

Ecological Footprint Quiz

Find out how many planets we would need if everyone lived like you.

My result: if everyone would live like me, we would need 1.6 planets. I am among the 80% of the world population with an Ecological Footprint smaller than 4 hectares. In comparison, the world offers 2 hectares per person today. I was surprised not to find some questions like whether I drink bottled water or whether I do recycling. Anyway there are a few things I am going to do to lower down my score: eat less meat, use more local products and use more public transportation (although here in southern Italy public transportation, like everything which is “public”, it’s unreliable and inefficient (stops not clearly marked, very low frequency of buses, often passing later or earlier than expected, etc).

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary film about climate change, specifically global warming, presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore and directed by Davis Guggenheim.

• Official web site
• Movie trailer

The film opened in USA on May 2006. The film’s distributor, Paramount Classics, is donating 5% of the box office receipts and Gore is donating all of his proceeds from the film to The Alliance for Climate Protection (of which Gore is both founder and chairman).

Gore, who with this movie won the Oscar as best documentary in February 2007, will be in Milan the 14th of June. I am sorry I live so far from there, I would have liked very much to meet him. Although he has been accused of hypocrisy because his “mansion uses more than twice the electricity in one month than the average household does in an entire year“, I think he has made an invaluable service to humanity because with this movie he has considerably helped in bringing the global warming problem into people conscience.

The movie has been on show in Italian cinemas since March 2007 and its DVD has been recently released in shops. When it was shown in a cinema in my town I went to watch it and invited all my friends to come with me. I believe it’s crucial that as many people as possible watch this movie, that’s why I am trying to spread it by talking about it in this blog and by buying some DVD copies and lending it to friends and relatives.

If you, reader, haven’t watched it yet I urge you to do it and to invite your friends to do the same. Paraphrasing a statement by Hiro Nakamura, “Spread the word, save the world“.

WordPress

I moved from blogspot to wordpress because the latter seems to be the most widely used and features richest system. The procedure has been easier than I have imagined: I simply used the Manage/Import function and followed the instructions.

The first impression is more than positive: everything is extremely user-friendly, there is no need to read manuals or ask people how to do things. It will take some time to get used to this new environment and learn the new features. I am also thinking to move my articles from my clan web site to here…

The worst corporations

Multinational Monitor is a non-profit magazine, founded in 1980, whose primary focus is the news analysis of the activities of world corporations; it also prints articles having to do with labor issues, the environment, globalization, privatization multilateral banks, economic issues, and developing nations. They release every year a list of the 10 worst corporations, explaining in details the reasons why each corporation has been listed. They main web site is:

http://multinationalmonitor.org/

In these lists repeatedly appear big names like 3M, Absolut Vodka, Bayer, Boeing, Chiquita, Coca-Cola, Del Monte, Disney, Exxon (Esso), Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Nestle, Nike, Pepsi, Pfizer, Shell, besides (of course) all the tobacco companies. The lists, made since 1992, are available at this page.

The Miniature Earth

If we could turn the population of the earth
into a small community of 100 people,
keeping the same proportions we have today,
it would be something like this…

http://www.miniature-earth.com/

Will Ferrell impersonating Bush

I have found this funny video of Will Ferrell impersonating Bush and talking about global warming. It’s one of the funniest thing I have ever seen and, at the same time, it’s disconcerting. I wrote down its transcription to help better understand it all those non-native English speaker out there:

and now a special address
from the president of the United States
on Global Warminghello America

it’s me here
your president
your commander-in-chief of the world
and I’m at my ranch in Crawford Texas
just taking a little R&R
you know, relax and growing out my soul patch
playing a little freesbe golf
with Condi Rice and Dick Cheney
having a good time
but still keep my eye on the ball
and there is an issue that has come to my attention
the issue of the so called global warmings
that are happening on our planet
for centuries the rays of the sun
have warmed the surface of our earth’s crust
and apparently those rays’re intensifying
in such a way that it’s increasing lava flows and
cut!
… I don’t know what the hell I am talking about

global warming is an issue that my administration
is very concerned about
deeply, deeply in a deep kind of concerned way
it’s a… I don’t…
I start my day and I think about the warming of the globe
and how we can get it warmer
cut!

rest assured that the issue of global warming
is something that my administration takes very seriously
not right now Condi! we’ll play later

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard
what liberal scientists are trying to say
it seems that liberals and godless taxraisers
are trying to make me look bad
by using such things as facts and scientific data
cut!
what?
Mr. President you can’t say that they’re using facts
right
Facts are real, they’re not disputed
how do you know that?

what kind of book is this?
Jesus, why didn’t you tell me it was a pop-up book?
Those things scare the crap out of me.
I don’t think that’s the kind of science book we’re looking for
we’re talking about global warming
what kind of science book would you suggest?
there’s a lot of books
One filled with facts maybe?
Yes!
Yeah, I’d bet you’d like that

When you think back to biblical times
when Adam and Eve talked to that snake 6000 years ago
when the world was created
it was hot back then too
why do you think Adam and Eve were naked?
See what I’m saying?
I mean, I’m not making this stuff up
you didn’t hear Adam and Eve running around
talking about emissions standards or hybrid cars
in fact, Adam and Eve drove an Excursion
cut!

Let’s talk about something that really matters
like keeping steroids out of T-ball
cut!

I think the polar ice caps suck
who cares about having a place
where a bunch of penguins can have an orgy?
cut!

Global warming, don’t worry about it
we got a bead on this thing…
you know, we just need to get nature to co-operate with us
we don’t need to listen to nature
nature needs to listen to us
cut!

Mr. President, you asked me to tell you
when the Rangers game’s on?
It’s on right now.

Oh Gee… What inning is it?
It better not be past the third inning