Where climate change is concerned, I, like many people, am a complete hypocrite. I have enough of a scientific background to know that human activity is changing the composition of the atmosphere and affecting heat transfer through the air, land and sea, and into space. Along with other humans I'm helping to bugger up the planet, to the detriment of thousands of species and, ultimately, myself.

And yet... last year I flew several times on holiday. I drive a car that is at least moderately inefficient by today's standards, and ride a motorbike that's not much better. I'd like to leave a pristine planet for the next generation, but so far I've been defeated by my inherent laziness and apathy.

So far. This year, things seem to be changing. I'm finally getting the message through to my own brain. I've flown abroad once this year. I've driven a total of 3,000 miles in the car and ridden the bike for less than a third of that. I work from home and generally make use of public transport wherever possible. I recycle fanatically and avoid buying excessively packaged, over-travelled food and other products.

But I suspect it's easier for me than for many people. I dislike waste and, even as a kid, found it annoying and stupid to throw anything away. And I've never had any desire to keep up with the Joneses, wear designer clothing, buy pointless gadgets, regularly upgrade my car or waste money on grossly power-draining plasma screens.

Having no TV helps enormously in avoiding advertising-induced consumer addiction. Even so, it's taken me this long - probably 20 years since I first heard about 'global warming' - to change my lifestyle. How much longer will it take people who believe that their 'status' is judged by their possessions (i.e. their marketing gullibility)?

And I still can't completely kick the carbon habit. In particular, a few energy-saving light bulbs don't really compensate for the computer, which is on pretty much all day, nor for the small part of an Internet server on which this site is hosted. I hadn't thought much about PCs in this way before, until I read recently that some UK data centres consume as much power as a large city.

That's obscene, but not entirely surprising. I'd imagine that about half of that consumption goes into powering the servers themselves, while the rest goes into air-conditioning and refrigeration systems to cool the rooms in which they're housed.

This is a problem that's crying out for two solutions. First: a method of transforming waste heat into usable energy, perhaps something that attaches to the exhaust vents of the servers or the CPU heatsinks and converts the heat into electricity. And second: far more energy-efficient processors, hard drives and motherboards.

The first option is difficult. My degree in astrophysics isn't useful for much, but I do recall that entropy tends to progress towards heat and that turning heat into any other form of energy is usually inefficient. Still, it's worth a try, and an inventor could potentially make millions from such a device.

But the second option is easier, since energy-efficient processors exist and are used in laptops. Some companies already make laptop motherboards for desktop PCs (we've reviewed a few on IT Reviews) and it would be nice to see more low-power-consumption desktop PCs on the market. Not everyone needs the fastest machine on the planet and not everyone plays 3D games.

Regardless of the current party political posturing, climate change isn't going away. Inevitably, either through taxes or supply limitations, the cost of energy is going to rise, so it makes economic sense to start getting into sensible habits now.

If you can switch off your PC when you're not using it, avoid leaving your PDA or mobile phone on permanent charge (try switching it off at night), wean yourself off unnecessary gadgets and do your best to only buy energy-efficient products, you'll save money and reduce energy waste. Simple, practical and everyone's a winner.

Find out more at http://www.icount.org.uk/.