And you think you can be stringent with your carbon footprint while looking up the meaning of the buzzword over Google, eh? Making at least two searches via the search engine comes up to 14g of CO2 or that which you will use to boil water in an electric kettle. There you go. So, if you’re acutely aware of how much you destroy the environment, more than entire China does, you may need to choose between looking up your horoscope for the day over the Internet and making a cup of instant coffee.
A Harvard professor says that carbon emissions come from both the electricity that your computer runs on as well as the power needed to run Google’s massive data centers. There’s a price to pay for Google’s ability to turn up results quickly. It uses several data banks simultaneously, thus consuming more energy to not make you wait a long time. Your search results report that says ‘Results 1-10 in 25,630,453 for will I be rich, will I be pretty someday (0.02 seconds)’ does lead to the gradual but guaranteed demise of this planet we call home.
Google though isn’t unique in this regard. It was probably singled out because of its reputation for really quickly search results. All data center operators are as guilty as Google in using up more power with producing faster results. This can very well bring us to the conclusion that Internet speed isn’t the most covetable premium of our lives online – not anymore.
