January 12, 2009 by Matt Thomas
That title felt kind of strange to type. I’m used to writing articles about how Google is unveiling a new, worthy strategies to save the world. However, it would seem that Google searches are a wasting huge amounts of energy, which, as we all know, leads to global warming and the eventual destruction of the human race… Thanks a bunch Google.
In all seriousness, according to Harvard physicist, Professor Alex Wissner-Gross, two Google searches generates as much CO2 as boiling a kettle. If you think of the searches you do very day that’s quite a lot of energy being wasted. Predictably Wissner-Gross’s finding are being disputed though there’s no denying that as Internet searches become more regular this has the potential to become an issue for Google, despite the fact that they already do more than most to combat global warming.
Quite what they can do about it, without compromising search speeds is another matter. One thing’s for certain however, there is a Google genius somewhere around one of the company’s international offices pondering that question as I type. Expect Google Green-Search or something like that in the near future.
Related posts:
