A recent article in the Swiss Beobachter magazine called The Auto of the Future (in German) reviewed four examples of research in Switzerland to make lighter and more fuel-efficient autos. It's an example of technologists concentrating on one isolated problem (how to propel cars more efficiently) instead of taking the longer view (how does the steadily growing number of automobiles affect our quality of life). I wrote the following Letter to the Editor in response:

The AIMS Workshop on Volunteer Computing took place on 16-20 July 2007 at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Muizenberg, South Africa (a suburb of Cape Town). Roughly 35 students from over 200 applicants from across Africa were selected. They came to learn about using BOINC, Open Source software for distributed computing, for projects in Africa. (Although I call the workshop attendees "students," back home they are predominately graduate students, researchers and professors.)

The workshop was funded by the Africa@Home project, whose goal is to promote distributed and Open Source computing in Africa. This was also a good match for the goals of our hosts at the AIMS, which during the academic year offers a nine-month post-graduate program in advanced mathematics, attracting students from the entire continent.

We hear a lot about the benefits of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and how they will improve our lives. We hear less about the consequences for the greater environment, and the long-term viability of solutions involving GMOs. A prime example is a Newsweek article by Lee Silver entitled "Why GM is Good For Us."

Silver begins by writing, "Farm-raised pigs are dirty, smelly animals that get no respect. They're also an environmental hazard." He explains that pig manure contains phosphorus that runs off into lakes when it rains, killing fish and promoting algae. His suggestion is to genetically modify the pig's DNA to reduce the phosphorus levels of its manure.

In reality, it is not pigs that are a hazard. The hazard is man's practice of keeping more pigs on a plot of land than it can sustain.

On opening day of the 2006 Geneva Auto Show, I happened to see special sections on the auto show in two local newspapers. Each special section had a prominent article about how the auto show was reflecting trends towards environmentally-friendly cars and technologies. Intrigued, I also browsed through two French language auto magazines that were highlighting the auto show, one of which also had a prominent article about how the auto show was reflecting the "greening" of the industry.

But when I paged through the publications, I found that gas-saving models or those using new technologies either didn't get much exposure, or they were relegated to the back pages. The kind of vehicles getting star billing were more likely to be luxury cars, high-performance sports cars and SUVs.

I then looked at the official Geneva Auto Show Web site, reasoning that the best way to try to detect a trend was by looking at the proportion of green cars among the new models being introduced.

One nice feature of online shopping is that many Web sites can show you items similar to the one you are looking at. You might ask an online bookstore to show you books similar to a certain book. Or you can ask an online music store to display CDs in the same genre as the CD you're viewing.

Little did I know that Google offers much the same service. You can enter a site or page, and it will show you other sites or pages that its sophisticated search algorithms think are similar. You do this simply by going to www.google.com and entering related: followed by the URL of the site or page of interest.

For example, if you want to find sites similar to that of British journalist and altermondialist George Monbiot, just enter related:www.monbiot.com. If you're interested in Peak Oil you can search for sites similar to the Post Carbon Institute. Or you can look for sites dealing with sustainability similar to the Irish FEASTA Web site.

Then I happened to notice that Google does not find any sites similar to www.jimrudolf.com. Is that because this site is in a class by itself?

There is no shortage of news about pro-technology advocates who suggest that technology will solve our environmental problems, implicitly assuring us that we won't need to make any lifestyle changes in order to reverse global warming.

Last week at the G8 summit in Scotland, President Bush placed his hopes in new technologies to address environmental problems; anything else might harm the economy. (Recall George Bush Sr., who proclaimed back in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that "The American Way of Life is not negotiable." Like father, like son?)

In the same vein, a Newsweek article in the run-up to the summit analyzed the opposing positions held by the Bush and Blair governments, pitting "technology optimists" versus "environmental pessimists."

Now that flat computer screens are becoming affordable, it's possible to reclaim part of the working surface that you once called your desktop... where you used to be able to work, at least until you tried to put a computer on it. Replacing that old cathode ray tube (CRT) screen with a new energy-efficient flat screen frees up a considerable amount of space.

But that's only one part of the problem solved; then there's the computer itself to deal with. Desktop computers come in a number of sizes, the most common being what's called a "tower." They may be called desktop computers, but once you put such a computer on your desktop, there isn't much room left for anything else.

Why do those boxes need to be so big? If you've ever opened one up, you'll see that there's a lot of unused space in there. Or more precisely, it's space that is available if you want to add another disk or an additional card for graphics or networking or something along those lines.