http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2809027806.html
４月３日にサンノゼの市民会館で３０００人集めた会合での
アルゴアの話です。
燃料電池などの分散型ネットワーク、Electronet, smart grid
が重要だと説いています。
Former Vice President Al Gore told Embedded Systems Conference keynote
attendees in San Jose, Calif. today that energy-efficient IT systems of the
future -- many containing embedded processors -- will be a major factor in
helping overcome the climate problems the Earth is now facing.
"Embedded systems can be the key part of this," self-styled "recovering
politician" Gore told an audience of about 3,000 at San Jose's McEnery
Convention Center Civic Auditorium this morning. "We are now embedding more
and more intelligence into everything -- with the exception of public
policy," he joked.
Change is going to come in the millions and billions of embedded systems
that will bring higher levels of performance and lower levels of power
consumption to everything we do, Gore said.
Gore envisions what he calls an "electronet, or 'smart' grid, that will
serve two functions: Instead of depending on large, 1000-megawatt
coal-firing power centers sending power to incredibly inefficient
appliances in our homes and businesses, let's have a grid made up of many
more micro-power centers that make it possible for small producers to feed
into the central power source. Then, take off any (power supply) cap for
businesses and individuals who sell into the grid."
"We might not need to build another huge mega-power system if this grid
idea can be designed and built," Gore said. "If you can build embedded
systems that feed into this micro-generator grid, we can empower
individuals to quickly identify where the wasteful streams of energy are
going, and do something about them."
Gore said that he believes that the increasing amount of CO2 in the Earth's
atmosphere, caused by so-called "greenhouse gases" from automobiles, heavy
industry, and electronic equipment is the central reason why the ozone
layer in the atmosphere is breaking up.
"The climate crisis is the most dangerous and important symptom of the
deeper underlying collision between our civilization as we now see it and
the ecological system of the planet," Gore said. "We are going to need all
the scientific help we can muster to turn this dangerous trend around."
Not only are the poles melting, but microbes that proliferate in the
tropics are moving to the higher and lower latitudes, away from the
equator, Gore warned.
"Nature is on the run [due to climate change]," Gore said. "You've heard of
the manatee? It's an animal that lives in Florida. Well, a manatee showed
up recently in Tennessee, halfway up the Mississippi River. Another one
showed up in Massachusetts, just off of Cape Cod.
"Thirty new diseases have turned up in the last 30 years -- diseases that
had been relegated only to the tropics. They are new to us in the higher
latitudes. These are other effects of global warming you don't normally
hear about," Gore said.
It is "unequivocal" that humans beings are causing this, Gore said.
"In the last 15 years, all 17 of the world's highest-regarded scientific
think tanks agreed, unanimously: Global warming is a very real problem, and
we should start trying to fix it now -- not 20 or 30 years from now," Gore
said.
"If your doctor told you that you had a 90 percent chance to have a heart
attack, would you wait around until the chance became 99 percent? If the
crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant," Gore
said.
"The earth has a fever. We all need to take care of it now, and science and
engineering must lead the way."
Gore said that the solution to all this is beyond simply engineering; it's
total system redesign and architecture.
"Engineers have a vision and put it into a real working system to fix
problems it is required to fix," Gore said. "These embedded systems that
have increasing amounts of intelligence can be the most powerful part of
the solution to this crisis. Future systems will have more power yet run
much cooler, saving energy.
"The old systems we rely on today are ridiculously ineffective. For 100
years, the internal combustion engine was really cool, but now we've got to
come up with something new and better," Gore said.
Gore said that our society needs to impress the values of good science and
mathematics education upon our children, so they can take part in helping
to overcome the climate crisis.
"Our fathers and grandfathers walked through the fire, overcame the Great
Depression, and defeated Fascism in World War II," Gore said. "And when
Sputnik went up and surprised us, we took on the challenge that President
John F. Kennedy gave to us -- to put a man on the Moon within 10 years, and
return him safely back to Earth. And we did it.
"Once we realize the challenge, we will find kids flowing into science and
engineering classes, wanting to be a part of something larger than
themselves, and more important," Gore said.
"You can lead this vision. Engineering is making visions real."