Absolute Truth Network

Ecological cost of Googling

Two Google searches produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle. Making two internet searches through Google produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle, it has been estimated. Googling has a very definite environmental impact according to research conducted by a physicist from Harvard University. A typical search through the online giant’s website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g. The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user’s computer and send their request to servers around the world.

The discovery comes amid increasing warnings about the little-known environmental impact of computer and internet use. According to Gartner, an American research firm, IT now causes about two per cent of global CO² emissions and its carbon footprint exceeded that of the world’s aviation industry for the first time in 2007.

Dr Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist from Harvard University who is leading research into the subject, has estimated that browsing a basic website generates about 0.02g of CO² for every second it is viewed. Websites with complex video can be responsible for up to 0.2 g per second, he believes. On his website, [http:\\co2stats.com CO²stats.com], Dr Wissner-Gross wrote: Websites are provided by servers and are viewed by visitors’ computers that are connected via networks. These servers, clients and networks all require electricity in order to run, electricity that is largely generated by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change.

Dr Wissner-Gross believes that Google’s unique structure - which sees it send searches to multiple servers around the world and give which ever response is returned quickest - causes its searches to produce more emissions than some other sites. He told a newspaper: Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power.

More Statistics

“A Google search has a definite environmental impact. Google are very efficient but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy. A separate analysis by John Buckley, of carbonfootprint.com, a British environmental website, put the CO² emissions of a Google search at between 1g and 10g. Chris Goodall, the author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, said that assuming the user spends 15 minutes on their computer, the carbon emission of a Google is between 7g and 10g. Google claimed that the number was many times too high and one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO².

Vedic Observer

This is age Kali Yuga is called as iron age, it signifies not only the degraded nature of the people who inhabit but also the technologies used. Science and its cousin the technology has provided umpteen comforts to human civilization, absolutely beyond any doubt..but at what cost? Technology when combined with capitalistic consumerism is having a almost irreversible changes to our ecology.

All these technologies that we have invented after the Renaissance era although had given a perceivable change in the life style and comfort of people but has definitely made the world an increasingly dangerous place to live in. Mainly because these technologies are not what the nature gave us but are what we thought would make our life comfortable and hence they are not sustainable and leads to increased complex amendments in our life style.

For example a typical farmer in a Indian village would have had his farm a 100 m away from his farmhouse and he used to get everything he required within his self sufficient village. But an average citizen of a metropolitan city needs his cereals imported from half way across the globe and has to travel 50 km’s to his work place. Is this sustainable? All these artificial necessities facilitated by needs facilitated by this technological advancement has resulted in more negative effects like pollution, dissappearing greenery and a list of health ailments and addictions.

In the previous ages of Vedic times people had technologies many times advanced than the present civilization, like the Pushpaka vimana which can fly to any destination directed by the mind. The basis of the technolgy were more on the finer faculties of human capabilities like the mind and mantra which can manipulate the force of the material nature to do the desired task as compared the soot and smoke of modern technology. These technologies have become inacessible because people of Kali Yuga have lost the intellectual power and purity to harness those techniques.

So the conclusion is that we should minimize our dependence on these technologies which are making us more dependent on them, rather we should promote usage of natural technology using natural forces and lead a less complicated life.

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