Ecological Footprint 2 Google searches = 1 cup of hot tea?

[Rob Dizzle]

Physicist at Harvard University, Alex Wissner-Gross has calculated that a single query on Google generate the equivalent of 7g carbon. Both Google and queries we would mount the counter to 14 g, almost the footprint of an electric kettle to boil scope (15 g).

Two Google searches therefore amount to a hot tea. Googlers and compulsive (I am) concerned about the effects of diuretics mania ... An article in the Times identifies other studies in that direction, considering that request Google delivers the equivalent of 2 to 10 grams of carbon. The article explains, inter alia, that the computer industry at large represent 2% of emissions of greenhouse gases, rising in 2007 to the aviation industry. Consultation with a simple web page would use approximately 0, 02 g of carbon per second, and this figure is multiplied by 10 (0, 2 g / s) for an enhanced video or images. The Times concluded quite oddly with examples of Twitter and Second Life (maintaining an avatar in the year in SL consume as much energy as a Brazilian way - a true), emphasizing the relative utility of such applications. Under course: for twitter of nonsense and look at everything is in Google, we had better think about the future of the planet.


The environmental concern associated with these new uses are legitimate, no doubt, but the article in the Times still raises some questions:


- The personality of Alex Wissner-Gross, first: the venerable British newspaper did not seem troubled overseas extent by the fact that the physician is also the proponent CO2stats, whose business is precisely to audit and limit the footprint of IT companies and websites. Nothing wrong with that, on the contrary, but the mix is not highly recommended on these issues and maintains the confusion on the way: rather green, or business?


- The method of calculation is also to clarify: on 7 g our request Google, the leading contributor to CO2 is the user's personal computer and the second is the computer network that allows the transfer of data, the server and data centers are now the smallest contributors. Clearly in this "chain of responsibility" the difficulty of calculating the mark of a query ... on your computer (screen size, configuration etc.). and your remote server for a given service, your mug of tea may be more or less fulfilled ...


- More worrying when the ecological argument doubles as a moral argument (in the "intellectual"), we shall dream "of intellectual-ecological footprints". What is the intellectual-ecological footprint of a ticket on vs tweeter. an article in the Times vs. a book of Foucault (Jean-Pierre) vs. a book of Foucault (Michel)? In some cases (as the last example) you can easily imagine. But the prospect - far away, the hope - of a censorship-ecological indices intelligent enough to make a simmering ...


- Finally, as is often the problem with these extrapolations ecological-statistics, it should push a little further into the metaphor, both to do ... What is the positive impact of the web (since it is finally the web is on the grill, is not it?) when considering the media and other services to which it replaces in part (mail, press and printed products, vpc ...)? And to resume frightening intellectual-ecological footprint mentioned above, what about its impact on the circulation of knowledge and ideas?

[GusFraba]

while Google protests ...

Google has not allowed it to happen and believes that the figures given by Alex are "too high". And to say that progress in energy consumption were very important since 2007, provided that the reduction of CO ². The engine rather assess the carbon footprint of a request to 0.2 grams.

On the other hand, we will not forget to mention that the physician is responsible for a company called CO2Stats, which provides support against remuneration to sites, to develop Internet cleaner. We do not hesitate to ask if the famous 7 grams take into account the user himself and his own computer, or just the energy and devoured by Google ...

[Aarif]

And even just living, it emits too much CO2. I propose that we launch an investigation to blame all these fools living beings who breathe without even thinking about the melting of glaciers will engulf thousands of young Indians in a few years.

[Abbudin]

And when compared with the CO2 emitted by car all these VRP of the old economy ... When a study that calculates the CO2 emitted by opening a door ... Especially since, let's be serious, we can not force link with power consumption of CO2 ... Of course, many potential release of CO2, but there was no secret, the real problem is that we are too many on Earth. It too will be economical, there will always be a time when it no longer function. When a policy of birth control? Nothing in our country, the population continues to grow. For what benefit?

[Aagman]

In fact, consumption and forced obsolescence programmed SIGNIFICANT property will lower our standard of living. And incidentally, generate a lot of pollution. It's like the car, we are happy because some modern cars emit less CO2. But we forget all of the CO2 that it took to emits ... to pay for and build.

[WarHammer]

Well yes, when you are breathing you releasing carbon, so you can certainly make a study taking into account the rate rejected by men in some labs long after expand the number of live and reach final staggering numbers. This worries me a bit is that this type of study tends to blame everyone else a little more ...

[Protector]

That is what we want to make you believe that you pay your taxes without thinking: consults this file for you realize that there have been periods when the rate of CO ² was much higher than what is today (10x and yet there was no fossil fuels ...).

CO ² (Carbon in Gt / year):
1. Breathing human, animal, phytoplankton 43.5 to 52.0
2. DEGASSING oceans (tropical) 90.0 to 100.0
3. Volcanoes, soil 0.5 to 2.0
4. Bacterial activity of the soil, decomposition 50.0 to 60.0
5. Deforestation, forest fires 0.6 to 2.6
Total: 184.6 to 216.6
Human emissions (2005) 7.5
Human emissions as% of total: 4.1% to 3.5%

More specifically:
it% CO ² in the atmosphere today is about 0.05%
it% CO ² in an office is often higher than 0.1%
the lethal-percentage is higher than 5%

Recognizing that the oceans regulate the partial pressure of CO ² in the atmosphere and they contain about 40,000 gigatons of carbon (against only 750 Gt in the atmosphere), I wish good luck to those who think they are going to modify the atmospheric CO ² ...

[Damin]

There are several million years there were no human or no land ...

The pb is not the quantity of CO2 in the total but the fact that we sort of fossilized carbon to add to the wild when there is no phenomenon recapture that compensates the opposite degassed or of bacterial activity.
More CO2 is not the only gas from human activity greenhouse plays in global warming (methane among others ...).

Last, the PB is not likely to reach the thresholds unbreathable but the climate is warming so fast that there will be a mass extinction of species combined with a mounted water.

The graphics with any arguments diverted by agencies comm sponsored by big energy are ready to believe but not super convenient scientific ... the fact is we do not know how it is combined, but we have a package of alarming symptoms that leave all the statistical seasonal variation.

[Dadhij]

I am very glad that you questioned the study (and not the results) compared to deficiencies or omissions volunteers (such as How much is the same kind of research if there was no net / google: imagination whether research that leads to the site of an encyclopedia, or wikipedia, Corel without the net would go to the library, so it faudrais add fuel to go (in case we do not pourais to walk), the sudden heating of the building (in hours, and the rest of the time), time spent searching, the coup of environemental / books consulted, the employees' salaries, etc ... ..) so in the end, I am not sure that their study is very relevant.

And then at best I can do further study, an oven consumes more than a kettle, then does it ban the furnaces homes? best: j'inverse conclusion: google make a request or even a dozen, costs less than a galette des rois in the oven, then it seems to use his computer and google.