There's quite a scandal involving Google's carbon footprint, since the London Times reported Sunday that Two Google searches produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle.
Google itself claimed that the number was "many times too high" and one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2.
Their blog states:
Not long ago, answering a query meant traveling to the reference desk of your local library. Today, search engines enable us to access immense quantities of useful information in an instant, without leaving home. Tools like email, online books and photos, and video chat all increase productivity while decreasing our reliance on car trips, pulp and paper.
And they go on to list the many things they are doing to reduce their energy usage, like building the most energy-efficient data centers in the world.
In a nutshell, Google says, "in the time it takes to do a Google search, your own personal computer will use more energy than Google uses to answer your query."
Harvard professor Alex Wissner-Gross provided new details on his energy research, in a TechNewsWorld article yesterday. He said his study never mentions Google. "For some reason...the Times had an ax to grind with Google," Wissner-Gross told TechNewsWorld. "Our work has nothing to do with Google. Our focus was exclusively on the Web overall, and we found that it takes on average about 20 milligrams of CO2 per second to visit a Web site."
And the example involving tea kettles? "They did that. I have no idea where they got those statistics," Wissner-Gross said.
The article later notes:
In between answering reporters' e-mails and appearing on CNBC, Wissner-Gross has had a lot of time to think about why the Sunday Times focused on Google in its story. "The short answer is, it's a really easy way to sell papers. Google is a very successful company and it's a very easy way to get readership by making grandiose claims about them."
Just when it seemed like Google was doing a fine job of spinning the story back in their favor, I noticed that a Techworld commenter accused them of extreme greenwashing, stating that Google's "feel good programs" (that include electric vehicles and bikes on campus) pale in comparison to the CO2 used by the Google founders' private jets. The commenter also took them to task for keeping its server infrastructure private, not publishing its audited CO2 emissions, and not pledging to become CO2 neutral in a public, transparent fashion.
What's your take?
No comments:
Post a Comment