Google & Greenhouse Gases

This entry was posted by harry s truman on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm.

On the heels of revelations that the entire IT industry generates an amount of carbon that is comparable to that of the entire airline industry, Google’s been on the defensive because of a Times Online article claiming that each query submitted to the search giant has a quantifiable impact. According to the Times article, two queries performed on a desktop computer generate about the same amount of CO2 as boiling a cup of tea.

In an attempt to debunk the claim, Google published rapid response on the corporate blog:

Google takes this impact seriously…In terms of greenhouse gases, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. The current EU standard for tailpipe emissions calls for 140 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, but most cars don’t reach that level yet. Thus, the average car driven for one kilometer…produces as many greenhouse gases as a thousand Google searches.

Despite the fact that the Google appears to be comparing apples to the Times Online’s oranges, it sure seems like 1,000 searches=1km in a car is better than 2 searches=cup of tea. I think it’s laudable that Google is trying, and I’m glad that they disagree with the researchers’ truly alarming findings.

At the same time, though, the entire thing remains disturbing to me. The fact that 1,000 Google searches use the same energy as driving one kilometer still doesn’t strike me as a particularly good thing. I mean, how many Google searches does any given person do in a week? How many ‘miles’ are we unwittingly driving?

Maybe we all need to cut back on our Internet usage.

Side note: at least we have hilarious comedians like Greg Gutfeld to not ignorantly reject science and let us know that humans are great, unequivocally, and that therefore there’s no problem. Thank god for Greg Gutfeld. Maybe someday he can work for Pajamas Media as a science correspondent.