Children of men

January 29th, 2007

Friday, on David’s suggestion, we went to the theatre to watch the movie Children of men. In the movie, it is presented the world in 2027 and in particular London and the south of England. A future in which humans can no longer procreate. A future without future. A future in which soldiers are deporting all not legal citizens. Something that remainded me what happened in the Second World War.

Besides many small signals and connections with our present, the interesting thing about this movie is that, even if it is in the future, it is not focusing on hi tech special effect but on something that sadly could be considered a realistic scenario (even if probably for different reasons). Well, let’s hope not that much.

Boston winter

January 23rd, 2007

I landed in Boston yesterday afternoon. Today I had many meetings. At 8pm, at the end of the Semantic Web meeting at Stata, I went out and…. surprise… snow!!!

Boston winter

Yeah, this is the same old picture… but, as you can see the water is frozen and the snow covered the ice.

Some charts… on temperature changes

January 9th, 2007
12 Thousands Years of Temperature
(Courtesy of Global Warming Art. See source for details on the various reconstructions tangled above.)
Last 2000 years of temperature
(Courtesy of Global Warming Art. See source for details on the various reconstructions tangled above.)

Global Warming/Warning!

January 7th, 2007

Reading the “Financial Times“, I realized that European Community is going to publish an “exhaustive” European Commission report on the effect of climate change on the continent (Europe… obviously). A few hours later all the Italian news websites were publishing the news (some examples here, unfortunately in Italian [1][2][3]).

Meanwhile, a bear and its two cubs, which were supposed to sleep, were walking on the ski tracks in Madonna di Campiglio (Italy)… the grass is green… and the temperature is really warm all around Europe…

I wonder how many citizens are going to change their habits in the next years… and how many countries…