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@dannym3141, I understand that you are "stepping out of the debate," but, for your edification, I'll respond here... And, for the record, I am not "funded" by Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Solar, or Big Green. Nor am I a professor of climate or environmental science at a State University (and don't have a political agenda around this issue other than to help promote sound reasoning and critical thinking). I do, however, hold a doctorate and can read the scientific literature critically. So, in response to what climate change "believers" say, it's worth noting that no one is actually taking the temperature of the seas. They simply see sea levels rising and say "global warming," but how do they know? It's a model they came up with. But far from certain, just a theory. Like Antarctica melting, but then someone finds out that it's due to volcanic activity underneath, and so on.

And also, why is the heat then staying in the water and not going into the atmosphere? So, they then have to come up with a theory on top of the other theory... So the heat is supposedly being stored deep below where the sensors cannot detect it. Great. And this is happening because...some other theory or another that can't be proven either. And then they have to somehow come up with a theory as to how they know that the deep sea warming is due to human activity and not to other causes. I'm not denying that any of this happens, just expressing skepticism, meaning that no one really knows for sure. That folks would "bet the house on it" does not serve as any proof, at all.

The discussion on the sift pivots from "global warming" to vilifying skeptics, not about the original skepticism discussed, that there is catastrophic man-caused global warming going on. Three issues yet to be proven beyond skepticism: 1) that there is global warming; 2) that it is caused by human activity; 3) that it's a big problem.

When I ask about one, they dance around to another one of these points, rather than responding. And all they have in response to the research is the IPCC "report" on which all their science is based. And most if not all published "believers" say that the heat "may be hiding" in the deep ocean, not that they "certainly know it is" like they seem to claim.

They don't have knowledge that the scientists who are actively working on this do not have, do they? It's like the IRS saying, "My computer crashed." The IPCC says, "The ocean ate my global warming!"

Here are some links worth reading:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304636404577291352882984274

And, from a different rebuttal: "Referring to the 17 year ‘pause,’ the IPCC allows for two possibilities: that the sensitivity of the climate to increasing greenhouse gases is less than models project and that the heat added by increasing CO2 is ‘hiding’ in the deep ocean. Both possibilities contradict alarming claims."

Here's the entire piece from emeritus Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, Dr. Richard Lindzen: http://www.thegwpf.org/richard-lindzen-understanding-ipcc-climate-assessment/

And take your pick from all of the short pieces listed here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/08/is-gores-missing-heat-really-hiding-in-the-deep-ocean/

And http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/ipcc-in-denial-just-so-excuses-use-mystery-ocean-heat-to-hide-their-failure/

"Just where the heat is and how much there is seems to depend on who is doing the modeling. The U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center ARGO data shows a slight rise in global ocean heat content, while the British Met Office, presumably using the same data shows a slight decline in global ocean heat content."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/10/03/the-ocean-ate-my-global-warming-part-2/#sthash.idQttama.dpuf

Dr. Lindzen had this to say about the IPCC report: "I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to a level of hilarious incoherence. They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/10/01/the-ocean-ate-my-global-warming-part-1/#sthash.oMO3oy6X.dpuf

So just as "believers" can ask "Why believe Heartland [financier for much of the NPCC], but not the IPCC," I can just as easily ask "Why should I believe you and not Richard Lindzen?"

"CCR-II cites more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers to show that the IPCC has ignored or misinterpreted much of the research that challenges the need for carbon dioxide controls."

And from the same author's series:

"Human carbon dioxide emissions are 3% to 5% of total carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, and about 98% of all carbon dioxide emissions are reabsorbed through the carbon cycle.

http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/archive/gg04rpt/pdf/tbl3.pdf

"Using data from the Department of Energy and the IPCC we can calculate the impact of our carbon dioxide emissions. The results of that calculation shows that if we stopped all U.S. emissions it could theoretically prevent a temperature rise of 0.003 C per year. If every country totally stopped human emissions, we might forestall 0.01 C of warming."

http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2013/08/01/climate-change-in-perspective/#sthash.Dboz3dC5.dpuf

Again, I have asked, repeatedly, where's the evidence of human impact on global warming? "Consensus" is not evidence. I ask for evidence and instead I get statements about the consensus that global warming happening. These are two different issues.

"Although Earth’s atmosphere does have a “greenhouse effect” and carbon dioxide does have a limited hypothetical capacity to warm the atmosphere, there is no physical evidence showing that human carbon dioxide emissions actually produce any significant warming."

Or Roger Pielke, Sr: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/20/pielke-sr-on-that-hide-and-seek-ocean-heat/

Or Lennart Bengtsoon (good interview): "Yes, the scientific report does this but, at least in my view, not critically enough. It does not bring up the large difference between observational results and model simulations. I have full respect for the scientific work behind the IPCC reports but I do not appreciate the need for consensus. It is important, and I will say essential, that society and the political community is also made aware of areas where consensus does not exist. To aim for a simplistic course of action in an area that is as complex and as incompletely understood as the climate system does not make sense at all in my opinion."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/meteorologist-lennart-bengtsson-joins-climate-skeptic-think-tank-a-968856.html

Bengtsson: "I have always been a skeptic and I believe this is what most scientists really are."

What Michael Crichton said about "consensus": "Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

Will Happer on the irrelevancy of more CO2 now: "The earth's climate really is strongly affected by the greenhouse effect, although the physics is not the same as that which makes real, glassed-in greenhouses work. Without greenhouse warming, the earth would be much too cold to sustain its current abundance of life. However, at least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player. There is little argument in the scientific community that a direct effect of doubling the CO2 concentration will be a small increase of the earth's temperature -- on the order of one degree. Additional increments of CO2 will cause relatively less direct warming because we already have so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it has blocked most of the infrared radiation that it can. It is like putting an additional ski hat on your head when you already have a nice warm one below it, but your are only wearing a windbreaker. To really get warmer, you need to add a warmer jacket. The IPCC thinks that this extra jacket is water vapor and clouds."

Ivar Giaever, not a climate scientist per se, but a notable scientist and also a skeptic challenging "consensus": http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8786565/War-of-words-over-global-warming-as-Nobel-laureate-resigns-in-protest.html

Even prominent IPCC scientists are skeptics, even within the IPCC there is not agreement: http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/08/21/un-scientists-who-have-turned-on-unipcc-man-made-climate-fears-a-climate-depot-flashback-report/

And for your research, it may be worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Skeptical-Environmentalist-Measuring-State/dp/0521010683

Department of Energy study says Fracking is Safe. Do you believe them? Also the idea that we'd allow Fracking BEFORE it's proven to not put harmful chemicals into our drinking water is absurd. Why would we conduct a mass experiment on the public, why aren't the chemicals released to the public.

I'm sorry but some of you guys are off the fucking reservation if you think that it's just ok to do experiments on humans. Let's just try shit and hope it doesn't kill everyone. Yeah that'll work. NO these corporations need to be stopped.

Remember, the SCOTUS upheld this atrocious provision of the Patriot Act in the case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. "Material support for terrorism" is what got others into jail for considerably less than what these open advocates of MEK are doing.

This guy, for instance, was sentenced to 69 months in prison for "providing satellite television services to Hezbollah’s television station, Al Manar".

But hey, if the Israelis are working with them, they can't be terrorists, right? Israel and state-sponsored terrorism? Nah, never.

Besides, members of MEK were trained by JSOC at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. So if they were terrorists, the US would be equally guilty of state-sponsored terrorism. Luckily though, being on the State Department's terrorist watch list doesn't make you a terrorist by US definition.

Opposition to US interests makes you a terrorist. Support of WikiLeaks makes you a terrorist.

This story is from July last year. I wonder why MSNBC didn't cover it - I tried to search through the news archive and came up with squat. I bet conservatives who argue that Obama has created the "food stamp" generation wouldn't want this to air, because it shows that people are desperately looking for work and not at home slack, sucking up rich benefits from their socialist leader.

Ford Motor Company didn't get a bailout, but they did receive a $5.9 billion loan from the department of energy.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/09/ford-motor-co-does-u-turn-on-bailouts/

I read the wiki article you posted, it says the opposite of what you suggest. That pre-1980, they had no ability to generate policy...they just gathered information. Do you have a link to something that talks about the freemarkety nature in the 80s?, because that link doesn't have it. Unless you are just talking about Regan doing free market stuff on the whole affecting education somehow indirectly, but the link clearly says he made it a federal government responsibility to create educational policy in the 80s. In that, I don't know that your argument fully answers @Grimm's claim that educational stardards have gone down since federal policy making has been done. We aren't talking about free markets here, even at the state level. We are talking about who makes better policies affecting children's education; federal or state. It has also been of my opinion that for important things, eggs in one basket methodologies are dangerous. Best to have a billion little educational experiments boiling around the country, cooking up information that the rest of them can turn around and use. Waiting for a federal mandate to adopt a policy can be rather tedious.

I have some friends that are educators, I will have to ask them how they feel about this. It is easy for us to have an opinion based on raw idealism of our core beliefs, but I would be interested to see what certain teachers have to say. I met a real interesting person at my friends bachelor party. He came from a union state, and moved down here to Texas, we have teachers unions and things, but they aren't as powerful as the north. He experienced a complete change in himself. He found that his own involvement in his union happened in such a way where he basically held the kids education hostage over wages. He said that is was basically the accepted role of teachers to risk children's education over pay. I am not talking about just normal pay, but he was making 50k as a grade school teacher in the early 90s. Not suggesting this is normal, but it is something we don't copy here in Texas. As for his own mind, he knows he would never teach in that area of the country again, and would never suggest anyone move their that values their children's education.

What would be interesting to me is if the absence of the DOE would break down some of the red tape and allow schools to "get creative" with programs a federal political body might not want to take a risk on. Education is to important to fail on, and applying "to big to fail" kind of logic to a failing system of education is to much politics to play for me. Empower teachers and schools, and try to avoid paying as many non-educators as possible would be one way to improve things I would wager. What aspect of the DOE do you think is successful that we need to keep exactly? I mean, I can tell you I don't like that the DOD is so huge and powerful, but I know nuclear subs and aircraft carriers can't operate themselves. What necessarily component of the DOE do you see as necessarily, beyond just talking point of either party line stance of it? I mean, the Department of Energy's main goal was to get us off foreign oil, like a long time ago, that is pretty failed as much as the DOE. Different approach needed, or a massive rethinking of the current one. You don't usually get massive rethinking nationally of any coherent nature, which is why I think a local strategy might be a good way to go here. Perhaps then, you could have that initial part of the DOE before it became the DOE of providing information to schools about what works from other schools kick in again.

This kind of talk of "Ron Paul addresses none of this" about something that isn't related exactly isn't really fair. It is like trying to talk about income tax issues and saying changing them doesn't address the issue of the military war machine...well of course not, it is a different issue. Did you see that recent Greewald video where he talks about the founders did think that massive inequality was not only permissible, but the idea...just as long as the rules were the same for everyone? What I mean to say is that there does need to be a measure of fairness, but that fairness needs to be the same for everyone, rich and poor. I still say the real problem lay in the government creating the monster first and the monster is now eating us. If legislators simply refused to accept the legitimacy of corporate entities and instead say that only individuals can deal on the behalf of themselves with the govenrment(the elimination of the corporate charter as it refers to its relationship to the government) things could get better in a day. But since the good ol USA thinks that non-people entities are people, well, I don't see much hope for restoration. Money is the new government, rule of law is dead. I liked the recent Greenwald input on this. Rant over Sorry, this is just kind of stream of consciousness here, didn't plan out an actual goal or endpoint of my ideas....just a huge, burdensome wall of text

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.
We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealthy to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)
Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).

@hpqp and @ghark The federal education department has very little to do with municipal and state run schools, directly. Once again, a false dilemma. Similar to the Department of energy, which was created to get us off of foreign oil, the ED has failed as a guiding beacon of federal funds as any number of tests will show...just as the DOE has failed to remove us from oil dependence. This isn't throwing the baby out with the bath water, it is throwing out the guy telling you to use jelly instead of water.

Seems similar to one I got a few years ago:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issed by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

LOL. Are you just trying to leverage out-of-hand, populist rage against the government to gut education funding? Hmm... I wonder what financial demographic that would benefit.

Also, I almost didn't even mention it, but DoE, at least at a federal level, usually refers to the Department of Energy.

>> ^possom:

Fear DoE
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/a
nswer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/ed-department-buying-27-shotgu.html

Normally it comes out of the science budget of the owning country. Though in this case, the Department of Energy are involved, so maybe they stumped up some of the cash.>> ^RhesusMonk:

Awesome. Anybody know who pays for this kind of facility?

Military spending by the pentagon and homeland security doesn't reflect all the money spent on "defense". There are billions in military spending through the department of energy (anything nuclear) as well as other bureaucracy such as NSA, NASA, commerce and transportation, all charged with the illusionary goal of "security". Hidden billions upon billions.

Further, there is billions in veterans benefits, and interest on loans for past spending. We also have over 450 military bases around the world, the operations of which do not fall solely within the pentagon budget. And that is before we get to the sweet tax deals given to the military industrial complex, which basically sub-contracts out work to almost every congressional district in the country, ensuring that our economy and our employment are tied to military spending, and that congressional representatives never vote against a "defense" measure, no matter how retarded. (Notice how Obama goes to India and claims to be creating jobs because the Indian government has ordered a whole bunch of C-47's? ... our own president is chief sales rep for the military industrial complex.)

Most importantly, as a factor in DISCRETIONARY spending, we are way past 50% of the discretionary budget on military spending. The US, by quite a margin, is the most militaristic nation in the world.
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

Ah yes--The Oil Pollution Act-- that's it.

here is some of the transcript from the above link:

Steve Yerrid is a trial lawyer who was appointed as a special counselor to the state of Florida last week by Governor Charlie Crist. He will advise the governor about legal issues related to the spill. And Daniel Farber is director of the environmental law program at the University of California, Berkeley's Law School.

Steve Yerrid, let me start with you. Can the government, under current law, compel BP to start an escrow fund?

STEVE YERRID, special counsel, State of Florida: Well, Ray, we're clearly on new land right now, a frontier that was created after the Valdez oil spell -- spill -- excuse me.

And what I think they're going to do is premise it upon the -- the responsible party connotation and the Oil Pollution Act, which was packed -- passed in 1990, which makes a responsible party liable for all the damages and the cleanup.

What they want to do now is front-end that and put it in a trust fund to get away from BP looking like an oversight entity and put it on the government, a government we can trust a lot better than we can trust an oil company..................

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

Pretty cool relevant link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june10/oil2_06-14.html

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/js/pap/embed.js?news01n408dqee7"></script>

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

>> ^longde:

Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.


Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.

It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.

Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.

The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.

The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)

(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

>> ^joedirt:
"because UPS is an integral part of a server."
Yeah, sure. And my spare tire pressure is a critical statistic I brag about my hotrod.
Duh, the UPS has nothing to do with server operation nor power efficiency. Look at the spare tire on that Posche!!!! Wow, that's hot.


When you get a flat tire on your "Posche", it only inconveniences you (and your passengers, if any). I'd say that's a maximum of 4 people being inconvenienced, maybe 6 if you have one of those silly "Posche" SUVs.
Now, take a look at google - a single data center has capacity for 45,000 servers, and each server probably handles 10s to 100s of simultaneous requests (being conservative). Now lets say the data center loses power, without the UPS, every request is lost.
30 seconds later the generators kick in, all the machines reboot in a few minutes, and facility is back online, but in the meantime you've just inconvenienced a million people. Not really good for PR....

So for a business like Google, a UPS IS an integral part of a server.

As far as efficiency - take a 10 megawatt data center, assume you have a central UPS (for reasons mentioned above) that is 95% efficient. That means you lose 500kW of power in the form of heat. If you replace that UPS system (as a whole) with one that is 99.9% efficient, you lose only 10kW of power to heat.

To put this in perspective, the average household in America consumes about 14,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy.
That's an average of 1.6kW per hour. So by going from 95% eff to 99.9% eff UPS system, google saved 306 households worth of electricity.

The main reason for the effeciency gain is that you aren't going AC-AC-DC-AC-AC-DC, like a traditional server room, but rather AC-AC-AC-DC.
(AC = alternating current, like power lines ; DC = direct current, like batteries; hyphen represents a conversion, none of which are 100% efficient)