A Parting Shot

I'm off on holiday tomorrow. That, in combination with a high workload in a profession renowned for inextensible deadlines, and the fact that our firm's financial year end* is today, is the reason for the dearth of posts recently. If you miss me while I'm away, pop over to my photo site. It will keep going.

Actually, that's not true. Truth is, I'm in a champagne-induced haze for reasons connected with this list and the new badge that is (as a consequence) currently being displayed proudly at the top right of this blog. Seriously, I am extremely flattered that a significant number of you have enjoyed reading this enough to actually get up and email Mr Dale, nominating me in your top ten. I honestly did not expect to figure in the list at all, and am delighted to be there. Thank you for the vote of confidence.

By way of a thank-you, here is a news report that made me laugh today. The most polluting public building has been identified - a building that (entirely on its own) consumes 1.2 megawatts of power, enough to supply a small town. It emits 12,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. Assuming an average mileage of 12,000 pa and a 110g/km CO2 figure, that is equivalent to over 5,000 cars. What would Greenpeace do to eliminate that number of cars from our roads?

So; what is this building? What does it do?

It is (wait for it) the building which houses the Met Office computer. Why do they need such a huge and powerful computer? To churn out predictions of climate change, of course.

I wonder; how would the predictions change if we stopped making them? And how would we find out?

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*In case you're wondering, I've done quite nicely this year after all. Several of my partners have suffered quite badly, though, so my income will be well down this year despite my workload (and output!) staying at the same level. Such is life.