Green crap, that is! If you’ve been reading Deceiver for a while, you know that supposedly Earth-conscious Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are fond of things like private jets, private space travel, and who knows what other carbon-spewing activities that aren’t available to you and me because we didn’t start Google. You know that Google is, in the words of Harper’s Magazine, an “energy glutton.” You know that they’re fond of “energy-saving” stunts that probably use more energy. When it comes to buying into the green movement, Google seems content to merely… browse. (Get it?)
But are you and I complicit in these planet-punking peccadillos? According to the Times Online, you might be killing us all just by reading this:
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.”
No way, dude! I’ve already done three Google searches over the course of writing this post, but that’s okay because I don’t even like tea.
Anyway, Google is super-pissed, and they’re firing back on their official blog:
Google is fast — a typical search returns results in less than 0.2 seconds. Queries vary in degree of difficulty, but for the average query, the servers it touches each work on it for just a few thousandths of a second. Together with other work performed before your search even starts (such as building the search index) this amounts to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search, or 1 kJ. For comparison, the average adult needs about 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds…
In 2007 we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a group which champions more efficient computing. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 — reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That’s a lot of kettles of tea.
Mee-ouch! Take that, physicist Alex Wissner-Gross. Or as you will now be called after getting pwn3d by Google, Alex Gross-Wussy.
So, how many pizzas would I have to order on the Internet to burn off all the calories from eating all those pizzas I had to order on the Internet? I really stink at math.
Update: Gross-Wussy explains.
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Good God I hope no one calculates all the environmental damage I do looking at all that porn.
I mean… SHUT UP! STOP HURTING MOTHER EARTH!
*whew fooled ‘em! Suckers.*
Man, now I’m conflicted… Google is evil, but angering Al Gore is a lot of fun. Wonder if Yahoo gives as much.
Why do these people even try?
Huh.
I wonder how driving a 1973 Buick Riviera fifteen miles to the library to use a card catalog index compares to boiling a kettle of tea.
But just think of all the trees you’re saving, Pasta, by not getting your porn the old-fashioned way.
I’m greatly comforted by the fact that despite Wissner-Gross’s impressive credentials, he still makes calculation errors just like Joe Schmoe. Or me. Of course my calculation errors generally don’t reach quite as large an audience…
I wish you people would do more Google/porn searches or take up burning coal or something. It’s supposed to be -11 around here tonight. About 11 degrees colder than the typical household freezer. I can hardly even walk around outside in the nude anymore. Well that and my neighbors. What else are you supposed to do with a body this fabulous? Prudes.
So, wait, what happens to millions of users who tap in to Google *after* considering the enviromental impact and then do it anyway? Is that better?
I like how a kettle of tea is the standard for environmental damage, much like eating a cow is a standard for how dangerous Pirannah are.
Personally, I want us to use a new standard: compare everything to how much carbon dioxide Al Gore belches out during an average “we’re all gonna die” speech.
Good article. And good thing that I still use Altavista, heheh. Huh?
Anyway, if the greenie-weenies really want to make a case against computers, why don’t they take a look at how they’re made? The massive amounts of toxic chems and acids used in semiconductor production, the energy consumed on the 24/7 manufacturing lines, and the tons of daily consumables-waste would make their heads explode. I guess that would take too much research, it’s easier to make an attack against the front end application.
Um, not that the Googleguys aren’t talking out both sides of their faces, I do agree with that.
If boiling tea is making it so that WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE™!!! then we’ve been screwed way before Google ever came onto the scene, and we’re going to stay screwed long after we’ve left…
I drink at least five cups of green tea a day and two cups of SleepyTime tea at night. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
Uh oh, Chronic, I just had a cup of Earl Grey Decaf.
[Cue panic mode.]
MC Mom, when WE ALL DIE, it will be our fault.
Ladies, I’d be very happy to sell you some Tea Offset Credits…
Minnow, it works for Al Gore…
Ha! At least I don’t drink tea.
Wait, what’s the enviromental impact of a cup of frozen espresso?? Is it a lot? (If so, well, barista, keep–it–coming!)
Now, I drink all that tea throughout the day after I stop drinking coffee. I’m going to eco-hell, aren’t I? Good!