A story in the Sunday Times of London sent Google’s public relations machine into an advanced search for answers. The Times reporters wrote about a new Harvard study that examines the energy impact of Web searches. The story’s lead paragraph: “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.” One problem: the study’s author, Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross, says he never mentions Google in the study.
This story in the Sunday Times of London shows the continuing erosion of the credibility of so called "news stories" and their reporters.
I learned early in life {I am now 74} that if a person is going to write about anything, he should strive to get his facts straight before penning them for the world to see and read.
Are the so called journalists of today so incompetent at their trade that they must resort to half-facts or manufactured 'facts' to present to their readers?
It is no wonder that newspaper companies are in trouble financially. Who will pay to read such nonsense.
Intelligent people search with Google powered www.treehoo.com that plants trees for the profit, their slogan is "You surf - we plant trees" it's great!
In the words of its own CEO, Google has helped to turn online content and services into a cesspool of misinformation... No wonder it makes a lot of CO2 in the process.
But what is even more polluting is not the searches as much as the ads that accompany the "seemingly free" indexing and the display of results.
Has anyone tried to calculate how much energy (and thus CO2) and broadband is consumed by all these "Google's sponsored" links and banner ads? And, who pays for that? I wonder if Google's PR department could tell us how much the Google Business Model costs the society in terms of the additional energy needed to transfer and display all the ads?
Well, there's lies, damn lies and statistics.
The Google server farms may well only use 0.2g CO2 PER SEARCH but they don't, magically, turn on, do the search and then turn off. They are on all the time consuming many many times the energy of a single search. I'm amazed, actually, you can measure the CO2 of a single search, this shows how enormous the overall energy consumption must be! If the good doctor is right, 7g/search and Google are right, 0.2 g/search, it just means that google have 35 times more servers than they need to service their search load. This is probably about right as google needs to respond instantly all the time. They might get away with 20 times, but probably no less to guarantee a result in a good time. Anything we do on this earth requires energy which has a CO2 impact. If we want instant search results I'm afraid you have to get used to it, either that or google your way to fusion power!
Google can try to greenwash its voracious energy hunger all it can, and pimp out a few feel-good initiatives such as the annoying electric vehicles that prowl its campus, but while its two manchild founders cavort around the world on their own private wide-body jet burning a typical individual's lifetime's worth of CO2 for quick jaunts to the Caribbean, we know that's all rubbish! The greenwash rot starts at the top and percolates down from there. If Google really cared, it would make its server infrastructure public, publish its auditted CO2 emissions, and pledge to become CO2 neutral in a public, transparent fashion. Microsoft has made its server infrastructure information public, why not Google?
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Harvard Physicist Sets Record Straight on Internet Carbon Study
Posted by: Renay San Miguel January 12, 2009 02:42 PMA story in the Sunday Times of London sent Google’s public relations machine into an advanced search for answers. The Times reporters wrote about a new Harvard study that examines the energy impact of Web searches. The story’s lead paragraph: “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.” One problem: the study’s author, Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross, says he never mentions Google in the study.
I learned early in life {I am now 74} that if a person is going to write about anything, he should strive to get his facts straight before penning them for the world to see and read.
Are the so called journalists of today so incompetent at their trade that they must resort to half-facts or manufactured 'facts' to present to their readers?
It is no wonder that newspaper companies are in trouble financially. Who will pay to read such nonsense.
Charcar682
But what is even more polluting is not the searches as much as the ads that accompany the "seemingly free" indexing and the display of results.
Has anyone tried to calculate how much energy (and thus CO2) and broadband is consumed by all these "Google's sponsored" links and banner ads? And, who pays for that? I wonder if Google's PR department could tell us how much the Google Business Model costs the society in terms of the additional energy needed to transfer and display all the ads?
The Google server farms may well only use 0.2g CO2 PER SEARCH but they don't, magically, turn on, do the search and then turn off. They are on all the time consuming many many times the energy of a single search. I'm amazed, actually, you can measure the CO2 of a single search, this shows how enormous the overall energy consumption must be! If the good doctor is right, 7g/search and Google are right, 0.2 g/search, it just means that google have 35 times more servers than they need to service their search load. This is probably about right as google needs to respond instantly all the time. They might get away with 20 times, but probably no less to guarantee a result in a good time. Anything we do on this earth requires energy which has a CO2 impact. If we want instant search results I'm afraid you have to get used to it, either that or google your way to fusion power!