Sneak was delighted to catch Dubya's recent State of the Union address and hear everybody's favourite lame-duck president finally admit that global warming might actually pose a teeny bit of a problem. But never in the wildest of dreams did Sneak imagine that anyone would come up with quite such an innovative way to tackle the problem.

Rather than inconvenience Bush’s chums in the oil industry, the US government last August decided to change time itself, extending the US daylight saving period by an additional four weeks, starting next month.

This brainwave will reduce emissions because most electrical use takes place during dark evenings, apparently. Presumably during dark mornings Americans are happy to fumble around in the dark.

Speaking of which, Microsoft has also come to the energy saving party by failing to release relevant patches for Windows 2000 and older systems. As a result the imminent time change looks set to cause countless software timing conflicts which may well see the world grind to a halt, Y2K style. Sneak can only applaud Microsoft's decision as another fine example of its altruistic desire to see plenty more electricity saved.

05 Feb 2007