Howard Kwok
Under this rich era of the development of human civilization, the development of information technology has flourished. The exploration of networks such as the World Wide Web have become an integral section of our daily lives, made easily accessible through search engines such as Google, which allow quick queries to be made for locating suitable websites. This survey aims to explore and understand the environmental cost of using internet search engines such as Google, and hopes to encourage further contemplation upon whether using the internet truly provides a sustainable carbon footprint, and gives food for thought upon viable alternatives.
The issue was first revealed through a study made by Dr Alex Wissner Cross at Harvard University, which was submitted for peer review to further consolidate its reliability. Dr Cross’s findings, upon being published, found that websurfing “contributes to a greater global carbon footprint” than the entire aviation industry from 2007 onwards. He then went on to describe how the mere act of typing in a Google search query uses up a significant amount of energy, of which such usage gives a negative impact upon the environment.
The issue was first revealed through a study made by Dr Alex Wissner Cross at Harvard University, which was submitted for peer review to further consolidate its reliability. Dr Cross’s findings, upon being published, found that websurfing “contributes to a greater global carbon footprint” than the entire aviation industry from 2007 onwards. He then went on to describe how the mere act of typing in a Google search query uses up a significant amount of energy, of which such usage gives a negative impact upon the environment.
Many internet users might be surprised and perhaps even skeptical of the amount of energy consumed in a single Google search. Resultantly, quantitative results shall be drawn from Dr Cross’s study and summed up here in order to fully communicate to the reader the magnitude of the energy cost of supporting a Google search. In simple layman’s terms, websites store their files in servers, connected via an intricate system of networks, which in turn are viewed by the viewer’s Personal Computer. This entire system runs on electricity, generated from power plants and the combustion of fossil fuels. According to Dr Cross, each search query made causes 5-10g of CO_2 to be produced by power plants. To put these figures against the context of daily life, two search queries would provide approximately enough energy to “boil a kettle” of water for tea, according to the UK Times. When one multiplies this figure by the millions of Google users, the energy consumed here reaches garantuan proportions. Furthermore, the mere act of staying upon a website produces around 20mg of CO_2 a second, but this figure can go up to 300mg of CO_2 a second when the website produces “complex” animations and video. In short, the energy consumed by staying on a website depends upon its complexity of layout, and in modern-day society, many websites can produce very flashy and user-friendly homepages with the purpose of attracting more visitors. As such, the consequences do not seem to produce a very good impact upon the environment.
One reason, according to Dr Cross, behind the massive energy use of Google searches is the “unique infrastructure” of its search engine when a user is making queries. Upon making a query, the relevant query is replicated to different servers which then compete to provide answers within the shortest time possible. As Google has many gigantic server farms which range across Asia to Europe, searches made through the search engine are generated at a high speed, providing optimum user experience. Unfortunately, the energy needed to transmit messages across different server farms at such distances is significant towards creating a large carbon footprint.
Google has published a rebuttal of Dr Cross’s findings, setting up a blog post which stated each search only generated 0.2 g of CO_2 per search, and that Dr Cross’s findings were mainly exaggerated. It futher stressed that it was committed to providing the fastest, most accurate searches with the maximum efficiency and it had made many contributions towards a green approach. According to Google Green, sustainable energy was already being used, with servers already running on 30% energy provided from renewable sources such as wind and solar power. They also invest in projects in the outside world to reduce CO_2 emissions to allegedly “offset” their own personal emissions to create an altogether 0 carbon footprint.
The different numerical values provided by Google and Dr Cross respectively caused a ‘blogstorm’ across the web, with many alleging that Google deliberately avoided the issue and ignored Dr Cross’s findings. However, I personally believe such arguing is irrelevant, as the main issue should be focused upon here: the gigantic energy consumption caused by the use of Information Technology altogether. Combined, the IT network provides 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is quite a horrifying figure when one realizes that it is more than the entire aviation indusry emissions combined.
Many issues can be realized here.
References
No comments:
Post a Comment