Google Search Generates 7g of CO2, says Study
1st April' 2009,
Search Engine
Source: searchenginejournal, by Arnold Zafra
What would you rather give up? Boiling a kettle for your tea or using
Google search? You might want to give up both, as boiling a kettle and
doing two Google searches will actually produce almost the same amount
of CO2, which is of course harmful to our environment. This was the findings
of a study conducted by Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross
which revealed that a search in Google yields 7g of CO2. This is half
the amount of CO2 generated when boiling a kettle which is around 15g.
The reason? Google’s huge data centres located all over the world which according to the study consumes huge amount of energy everytime a user conducts a search in Google. The research has already been submitted for publication the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the author has set up a website called CO2stats.com. If you want to learn more about this organization do a Google search, and then pray that the world doesn’t end because you’ve contributed the last amount of Co2 that would lead its destruction.
So, what now? Is this the end of the web search industry? Is Google only the search engine which contributes to the production of CO2? If Google produces 7g of CO2 everytime a search is conducted, can you imagine the amount of CO2 that has already been produced by all of us since the day Google become such a huge phenomenon on the web? And can you also imagine how many more CO2 we are going to produce if we continue using Google search?
Too many question, but don’t even bother to answer them. Anyway, I’m giving up my tea habit to reduce the amount of CO2 that I contribute to the destruction of the environment.
Readers Opinion?
* Chaitanya Patel
What about other search engines? Lets accept that Google produces 7g of
CO2/Search but the same amount of CO2 also generated by other search engines?
Why they targeted only Google? I think they should better need to mention
“Search Engines” instead of “Google”… What do you think on this?
* Jonathan Dingman
Chaitanya,
When you’re on of the big guys, you get picked on a lot more often.
Google has learned how to take it, deal with it, and move on. They’ve
been really good about being picked on and accepting i.
Really, the only simple way to reduce emissions is to stop doing everything we do. Otherwise we have to accept that anything we are going to use or manufacture, will produce Co2 somehow, somewhere in the chain.
Time to go and have an iced cup of tea and think on it.
