Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.
While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”
Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern.
Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches – Times Online — Even taking a crap creates global warming. Take less!
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Where is the BS meter now that we need it?
Al Gore very recently said that the northern polar ice cap will be completely gone in five years. To view the video, visit my site and click on the picture of Al Gore holding up five fingers.
http://www.hootervillegazette.com
It seems like a rather risky prediction on his part. In five years, if it doesn’t happen, he’ll either have to admit he was wrong or take credit for saving the planet. Hmmmmmmmm, wonder which one he’ll do???
#35, Dash,
Why on earth do I want to see Gore holding up his fingers? Why not Bush illustrating what he has done for the ecology.
The polar ice caps are receding. That is a fact. Next summer look for the North Pole to be virtually ice free for the first time in recorded history.
It must be terrible to live in a Bitter Small Town. Why not move to a Bitter Large Town?
I’m only guessing here: that if you “don’t” google, no energy is saved and the pollution is exactly the same as when you do google?
#35 – Dash
>>http://hootervillegazette.com
That’s a pretty lame web site. A story in the Anchorage paper about how Palin’s hand-picked State Personnel Board did not find that she abused power in using her office to settle family squabbles (after the independent special investigator found she HAD), a YouTube video of Palin explaining why she didn’t really spend $150,000 on new clothes even though she did, a link to a partisan website trying to dissuade us from believing that Palin cut funding for special needs kids, ad nauseum.
Jeez, it’s no wonder all those small-town folks cling bitterly to guns and religion, if that’s all they have to read. Me? I’d go the Inuit way, and drink myself to death!!
Some smart things were said The first of which is that the claim is BS because nobody has a clue what it costs in electric energy.
The other is that if they are using hydroelectric, nucular power, wind, or solar or some mix of the above the answer is none.
Last and not least they don’t make enough to cover the cost if it took that much electricity to do one blinking search.
#41, deowll,
So once we agree. May this be the start of many.
#40, Mustard,
I have long since stopped viewing videos someone posts as part of an argument. Almost single every one is really just a one sided hash, and you can include An Inconvenient Truth to that list. (Good movie though)
Some may have merits, such as video of crimes like the BART shooting or Israeli troop abuses, but they are the exception.
Another thing I haven’t done in a long time is visit someone’s site just because they invited us to view the truth. Same thing, inevitably another overly biased rant.
Gawd I am getting really sick and tired of this environmental bullshit. When did all of a sudden CO2, a NATURAL substance, suddenly become bad? It’s natural isn’t it? Isn’t everything that’s labeled “natural” supposed to be good, healthy, help you lose weight and fight cancer? It’s needed for plants to survive, but some how it’s killing plants at the same time?
All this “Global Warming” hype is just something new to scare people around the world as a whole, and make it seem like what you might be doing will effect others, implying a guilt trip.
A lot like how “secondhand smoke” ended up being more lethal to the people near a smoker than to the smoker, which laid another guilt trip on the smoker.
Yes we all know pollution is bad, but stop with the fucking guilt trips you environmentalist douche bags. They must be Catholic.
Some people willnot be happy until we arte all reduced to hunter gatherers. Even then – does anyone know what the carbon footprint is of chipping sherds of obsidian into arrowheads?
#27 – No, because they didn’t try to quantify manufacturing and constructions costs for the google datacenter, the cost of the routers at the Telcos, etc, either.
#30 – My server is drawing 42.6 Watts right now, not 100. Where’s my 57% cardbon credit? To be fair, my gaming machine is not so efficient. ><
#37 – That’s going to prove a faulty prediction. No doubt. Global Climate change is real. But we can’t pretend that even the top scientists can account for all the variables involved, and the effects will be more subtle than that kind of claim. You do the “green” argument a disservice saying things like that. When it proves untrue, less sophisticated people will ignore the real claims because the alarmist ones proved untrue.
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I think the costs of having access to centralized information sources like google are outweighed by the benefits. How much carbon per year is saved by google maps? How many scientific discoveries that save power, allow for renewable, clean energy, etc — are made possible by the environment that all this information gathering and sharing helps create?
#37, I thought the North Pole was supposed to be ice free already. Why are you now saying next year? What happened to that prediction? And what does ‘virtually ice-free’ mean?