Science in the Service of Stupidity

A Harvard University physicist claims that just doing one or two Google searches from your desktop computer can cause environmental harm.

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.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2. Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres.

I'm not sure if that last sentence is Mr. Wissner-Gross or an editorial comment thrown in there by the U.K. Sunday Times online. I doubt seriously that Google is hiding its data centers, in that it has physical offices in various states, including California and Oklahoma. The data collection itself is largely done through software programs that send little "bots" circulating through the world wide web, gathering info and reporting home.

Whatever. The comment does reveal a bit of a negative bias toward Google, however, which leads me to question the good professor's intentions and his claim.

Nevertheless, even if he is correct, and some CO2 is released because someone executes a Google search (or brews a pot of tea), there is only one thing responsive Americans should have to say to him:

Kiss my ass.

Especially if federal funds are paying any portion of your research. How much CO2 is this guy responsible for releasing into the atmosphere each day? Everything involves energy exchange. Everything.

Furthermore, later in the article there is a bit of tut-tutting over the energy resources wasted by those who spend time in the virtual world:

Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, Rewiring the World, has calculated that maintaining a character (known as an avatar) in the Second Life virtual reality game, requires 1,752 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. That is almost as much used by the average Brazilian.

Hey, why pick on Brazilians? Why not use Barack Obama's half-brother who lives in a mud hut in Kenya on $12 a year? Surely his carbon footprint is much more admirable.

These games where liberals try to induce guilt through reverse class envy are such a waste of time.

UPDATE (Jan. 15, 2009) -- Wissner-Gross claims that he did not mention Google in his research. This, he says, was apparently a shot taken by The Times which bears some sort of hateful grudge against Google. That sounds about right. However, everything else he said still stands, and so does our conclusion.