Sylwester, many people don't run a computer only for WCG. For example, I'm doing my day to day work on all machines that run WCG, so I'm not wasting energy more than I do for work. Of course, you can have one or more computers dedicated to WCG alone, but that's another point.
Also, why do you think only about the energy a computer uses and not for example about energy used to make a computer physically. The latter is many times higher than what a computer will use in its entire life. The same applies to many other things such as netbooks, tablets and many other things. Also, many people dont't do anything meaningful with these devices so if I follow your way of thinking...well, these devices should not be made at all since they use an enormous amount of energy.
Have a look here: and read point 8.]power saving article[/url] and read point 8.

Hmm. If we say that there would be perhaps 3 million computers that have ever been used concurrently on all BOINC projects combined, then with a world population of 6,000 million, this represents about 0.05% running BOINC on average. The vast majority of these installations are not run as a hobby - that sector might number 1% of that total, perhaps.

Every week, vast herds of people attend "sporting events" generally to watch overpaid superegos on legs propel various kinds of ball around a paddock by means of limbs or sticks. This consumes vast quantities of fossil fuels, and there is more added by the even vaster numbers who stare vacantly at an energy-hungry screen as their participation in the ceremony. How about this energy abuse by the 99.9995% non-hobby-BOINCers?

We have built cities and five days out of seven, a great proportion of the population migrates from the suburbs to the city and back again, consuming massive quantities of these resources. In a large proportion of cases, the work could actually be conducted from home, but the "manager" class is too dull to be able to measure output and insists that the workforce be visible and tangible, otherwise the work is not done.

You seem very concerned about the usage by hobby-BOINCers who are at least trying to produce something positive. Are these gross abuses of our planet's limited resources by "sporters" and "managers" simply so overwhelming? Or perhaps it's more productive to approach those who have some awareness rather than engage the politics of self-interest in the community of mundanes.

If you really want something to worry about, try this: We started with villages which were supplied with food from the surrounding farms. As the villages grew into towns and cities, the productive land was built on to create factories and offices and accommodation.

We now have the situation that we are relying on the poorer land to produce our food while we "produce" paperwork and administration in our offices built on our most productive land.

Consequently, we have to rely on BOINC to run RICE to help enhance our food production.

And to add to the madness, we have the politicians entrenching society's financial system on the 'perceived value' of the land. If you could afford to buy a city block, society's demand for taxes would make it economically unsustainable to use the richest land to produce food.

In comparison, hobbyist BOINCers' energy use is not even crumbs, never mind the most minute of small bikkies.

See: http://boincstats.com/stats/project_graph.php?pr=wcg

This lists 188,034 active hosts from 91,868 active users. this figure will vary from day to day.

Cheers

Well, there's got to be some reason somewhere, as to why many polititians have gone around the bend

Give politicians a simple-enough measure for them to understand and before you can take your next breath, you're knee-deep in laws, regulations and standards to keep the bureaucracy occupied.

...and it costs so much in wasted resources (see, it's still on that topic...)