How to stop CPU based on temerature in Ubuntu

In Windows you can stop a CPU based on its temperature by using the Windows shutdown command and speedfan to monitor the temperature.

Is there any way to do the same thing in Ubuntu 12.04? eg: the CPU temperature hits 70c, and the CPU receives a command to shut down NOW.

Can you define CPU? It seems that you are actually meaning the Operating System should shutdown not the specific CPU (central processing unit). I am not aware of either OS being able to shut off an entire socket in a multi-cpu environment based on temps.

If you are looking to shutdown the computer I came across this and read over his script. Its good. Throw that in a root cron and run it every 5 minutes or so and it should be good.

Don't know if there is a UI out there that does the same thing or not

Honestly though I usually set the thresholds in the BIOS and don't rely on the OS at all