Your Avatar's Carbon Footprint?

While I have no idea as to the veracity or legitimacy of this claim by a Harvard physicist, I thought it was interesting nonetheless:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24898157-601,00.html

"Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate a similar amount of carbon dioxide to boiling the kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research."

** added: google responds to the claim in the article: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html

The article goes on to state:

"Chris Goodall, author of Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, estimates the carbon emissions of a Google search at 7g to 10g (assuming 15 minutes' computer use). 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. "It's not an unreasonable comparison," said Liam Newcombe, an expert on data centres at the British Computer Society. "It tells us how much energy we in the West are using on entertainment versus the energy poverty in some countries."

** edit: found the author's breakdown based on 2006 assumptions which I haven't really looked at in detail: http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php

I've been somewhat aware of things like green web hosting data centres but never really thought much the environmental costs of using my computer outside of the energy it takes to run it, rather than the behind the scenes consumption. Your individual impact is probably less than driving your SUV to the corner store to pick up a package of ramen noodles that were shipped from overseas but it should be interesting to see when his research is actually published and peer reviewed. Similar things such as a black Google homepage have been debated before http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/ten_things_you.php , although it is difficult to critique this researcher's assertions without knowing the assumptions made when calculating these numbers.

Personally, I think his numbers are grossly overestimated as I envision one box fan sitting in the Linden Lab data centre and various Lindens coming in to roast marshmallows and warm up their leftovers on the overheated servers during lunch breaks.





Anyone ever consider how your avatar might be melting polar ice caps and killing cute fluffy polar bears?

No.

*Gets into her SUV and drives to the corner store.

/me puts on her panda fur coat.

oh it's eating away at that ozone layer that doesn't reproduce itself? or the one that does?

1,752 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.those guys are Noobs..i waste more than that..

global warming is kind of like religion..you have the ones that believe it and you have the ones that don't.

Gret further idiocy for the GW people...
Brenda I wd say pick me up on ur way but that wd save gas or something

My PC helps heat the room in winter when I'm running the video card to its limits. Does that count as a carbon footprint offset?

What about the furries that wander around SL leaving their carbon pawprints behind them everywhere they go?

Yeah but if you consider I was halfway down your way last week, coming all the way down would be an admirable use of extra fossil fuel.

Yeah, believing in something nobody has ever proved.

Oooo I see a new market!!

/me sets up an SL Carbon Credit/Voucher sales booth. 10000L a credit and I plant a linden tree.

/me get rich quick!!

but but but Al GORE!!!
Da great inventor of Da intranets and prover of Global warming says it's truuu..
but he invented da intranets where googles and Secondlife footprints are killing da snows dats gonna come down and make us take a bath..and we won't have anyplace to go cause all the trees in the rain forest will be gone by then and i knew i should have bought a volkswagon luv bug that floats!!!

it all makes so much desenses to me now..all the pieces of da puzzows aw coming togever!!!

And i dinint wistens to Al Gore wike i shud uv

Has anyone made a Kyoto Sim yet?

:0 saw that mentioned elsewhere - i wondered if he figured that out with that steaming kettle was on an electric range or gas stove?

if gas, then it has small footprint, but is an expensive utility! :\ my rule in life - you can live without gas; you can't live without electricity...

if electric, then in all liklihood that elec was generated burning coal - cheaper, but much bigger footprint, not too mention the extra pollution it generates.

if a global-warming denier - then i recommend running your car in a closed garage and see what happens. ;0 just because you think the earth's atmosphere is infinite doesn't necessarily make it freakin' so. ;0

As counter-point to all the silliness...

Two and a half years ago I sold our second car and started commuting by bus daily to work, including a 20 minute walk to and from the bust stop. I'm not so naive to think it will make any real difference, but I needed to do something in the face of this issue.

If it turns out using my computer — a sweet little 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac — is a significant contributor to Climate Change then I'll honestly have to assess its place in my life.

I would be curious to know, what is the carbon footprint of a book? I'd likely read more if I gave up the computer. Or, I might have to take up knitting if books used too much carbon.

I might as well just give it all up and do yoga and meditation all night.

Funny how the best thing for the planet would also turn out to be the best thing for me. The desire to keep ourselves endlessly entertained and distracted from real life is reflected by the state our world as well as ourselves.

I hope I have the wisdom and discipline to change this in my life. The rest of you folks... well, good luck with that.

What's the view like up there?

Nice.

But you have to put up with the nosebleeds.

Anybody spare a tissue? Better make that a hand-washed handkerchief.

I don't worry my head about such things. Before we know it all the fuel be used up and - hey presto! - problem solved.

And the next time you are stranded on an ice flow and there is nothing there to rip you apart and have you for their next meal, I hope you remember to thank me.

Really, a lot of these things are accurate to a point, but often not in the context of all the users together. IOW, many of the knocks against bicycles done by auto companies or advocates presumes that only one bike is build and suddenly using bikes is a huge ecological disaster. That it is done as one of many (no, one supertransport is not moving that one bike) or part of a process that includes many ends (no, not making bikes will not shut down the mining and refining of aluminum), the impact is more reasonable.

The issue usually ends up being exactly how the process costs are shared and over how many users. (OK, admittedly it sometimes appears that it is pretty much one server per user on SL in some areas.) And arguably you should estimate how the time would be used and what resources would be expended if you didn't have the people on SL. Oh, yeah, fire up that big screen TV...

I would indeed like numbers for other activities for comparison. If for instance we all abandoned our cars (I have actually) and went back to horses, would they not produce as many greenhouse gases as automobiles or more?

Running a computer is like running a 200 watt hair dryer for hours though, so it's not something I'm taking lightly. But I agree, what is the carbon footprint for a book? Or a TV show (which I refuse to watch)?

I have seen this in SL already, but it was plant a real tree

try having a campfire in a closed garage and see if you don't get quicker results with the same ending..
anyone can make the science sound good to anyone that doesn't understand the science..
anyone wish to talk about Dow and patents and carbon killing in line with their patents on refrigerants expiring?every ten years lol
ya i'll believe it when someone isn't profiting from research and development..
when in doubt always follow the money..

everytime someone talks about global warming I get a funny picture in my head of prehistoric man running around with signs, screaming that the ice age is coming.

Change happens.

Hmmmm... Kinda funny I saw this.

Just spent the weekend with my Dad, burning stuff out in the back yard: tires, wood, brush, leaves, etc. And to start it all off & keep it going- used motor oil.

There's 3-4" of snow outside, over 70" of it in Spokane. So where's the "warming" part??

As far as I've read, the modern catalytic converter removes 99% of harmful emissions. So no more Suicide by CO. Well, unless you remove it. I used to do that with older cars just to get an extra bit of power out of them. Our county doesnt have Emissions Check.

The history of the planet is full of warming/cooling cycles. Blame the planet. 200 years from now I really wont be caring too much about "the future".

And why is everything thats "green" more expensive?

ya my uncle was at a party and people were talkig about global warming..he said he had to step in and say..don't talk to me about global warming..i have lived in chicago all my life and have never shovled this much snow before..

omg maybe something went wrong and we are on the path of.......................GLOBAL COOLING!!!
oh the patterns will they ever stop!!! lol

because guilt is a great marketing tool

If you weren't logged on to SL, you might be firing your pottery in a kiln, taking part in a tractor-pulling contest or having a huge bonfire.