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How much CO2 does my Mahalo addiction use?
Laura Farrar wrote a great article for CNN back in July.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/07/10/green.internet.CO2/index.html
-quote-
"...every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one."
-/quote-
Is there a way to accurately gauge my addiction on Mahalo into a carbon footprint?
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/07/10/green.internet.CO2/index.html
-quote-
"...every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one."
-/quote-
Is there a way to accurately gauge my addiction on Mahalo into a carbon footprint?
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If you want to know your personal CO2 emissions from using Mahalo you'd need to measure the power consumption of your particular computer, how long you use Mahalo for, and crucially what the carbon emissions are for your power supplier. You'd also want to do the same thing for your shre of the consumption at Mahalo's end.
If it so happens that you are buying your electricity from a wind powered source, then you could say your CO2 emissions are zero.
If you wanted to get fancier about it, you'd have to look at the entire lifecycle of the systems being used - what it took to make your PC, make the wind turbines, operate the power grid etc.
Rather than doing all that, if you're using an average-ish PC, buying energy from an average-ish source, then you might as well use the figure given in the article you cite.
But your CO2 emissions from using Mahalo may be the wrong thing to be worrying about entirely.
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQB2YXUxvY
Take a look at my answer here and the Without the Hot Air website I reference. There's info on the typical power consumption for all kinds of devices there, esp in Chapter 11.
But more to the point, it suggests the totality of power consumption and emissions for all the tech you have in your house probably account for roughly the same as your lighting, but maybe only one-tenth of what you use for things like heating and driving your car.
As David MacKay makes clear, if you want to make a big diference, you need to tackle the big things, not the small things.
If it so happens that you are buying your electricity from a wind powered source, then you could say your CO2 emissions are zero.
If you wanted to get fancier about it, you'd have to look at the entire lifecycle of the systems being used - what it took to make your PC, make the wind turbines, operate the power grid etc.
Rather than doing all that, if you're using an average-ish PC, buying energy from an average-ish source, then you might as well use the figure given in the article you cite.
But your CO2 emissions from using Mahalo may be the wrong thing to be worrying about entirely.
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRQB2YXUxvY
Take a look at my answer here and the Without the Hot Air website I reference. There's info on the typical power consumption for all kinds of devices there, esp in Chapter 11.
But more to the point, it suggests the totality of power consumption and emissions for all the tech you have in your house probably account for roughly the same as your lighting, but maybe only one-tenth of what you use for things like heating and driving your car.
As David MacKay makes clear, if you want to make a big diference, you need to tackle the big things, not the small things.
| Asker's rating: |
Thanks for pointing out the bigger picture to my addiction. I really enjoyed the videos!
voted helpful: bunnyphuphu
You can go here to determine your carbon footprint online by using an easy calculator:
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
voted unhelpful: psionandy
I think that the questioner wanted to work out the contribution of their mahalo usage to their carbon footprint. Not how to calculate their carbon footprint as a whole.
Well, the first step is to accurately gauge how much time is spent. This probably varies on a daily basis, but is probably consistent within a week. So for one week, set up a log with "in" and "out" times accurately noted. If you're on the web in another capacity, don't log those times - just Mahalo.
Next, do the math and add up all the time in minutes. Convert the minutes to seconds. Using the above formula, multiply the amount of seconds times x 20 milligrams. Once you have the milligrams, 1000 of them is a gram and 1000 grams a kilogram, if you're a serious "user." A kilogram = 2.21 pounds.
I went here for the conversion. http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
There is no category for Internet use, nor could I find and data to support the quote originally used to ask your question. Perhaps it's not worth worrying about. Hope that helps.
Next, do the math and add up all the time in minutes. Convert the minutes to seconds. Using the above formula, multiply the amount of seconds times x 20 milligrams. Once you have the milligrams, 1000 of them is a gram and 1000 grams a kilogram, if you're a serious "user." A kilogram = 2.21 pounds.
I went here for the conversion. http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
There is no category for Internet use, nor could I find and data to support the quote originally used to ask your question. Perhaps it's not worth worrying about. Hope that helps.
source(s):
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
http://www.france-property-and-information.com/metric_conversion_table.htm
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
http://www.france-property-and-information.com/metric_conversion_table.htm
voted helpful: nickunderscore
Glad that more and more peoples are concerned about carbon footprint of internet usage..
I have answered similar question in
How much CO2 does it take to download 1MB of data.
I use the data of Wissner-Gross (as in the website link you provide) too in the previous question.
Wissner-Gross website: CO2Stats can calculate and improve site energy efficiency, among other things…
We may be able to really calculate the footprint per time use if we put the website on CO2Stats.
We will need to log our total search time, total online time etc..to really calculate the footprint.
Besides configuration of servers (data in 1 or multiple servers), whether servers are “green”, other factors on our side for e.g. how electricity is generated, whether PC are “green” type etc.. are important too.
I usually open lots of potential questions to be answer, then read and answer offline. In other words, online only when necessary.
Hope this helps in reducing carbon footprint too.
I have answered similar question in
How much CO2 does it take to download 1MB of data.
I use the data of Wissner-Gross (as in the website link you provide) too in the previous question.
Wissner-Gross website: CO2Stats can calculate and improve site energy efficiency, among other things…
We may be able to really calculate the footprint per time use if we put the website on CO2Stats.
We will need to log our total search time, total online time etc..to really calculate the footprint.
Besides configuration of servers (data in 1 or multiple servers), whether servers are “green”, other factors on our side for e.g. how electricity is generated, whether PC are “green” type etc.. are important too.
I usually open lots of potential questions to be answer, then read and answer offline. In other words, online only when necessary.
Hope this helps in reducing carbon footprint too.
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http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/audio/?podcastItem=david_mackay.mp4
Takes a long time to start, as it's big file.
One thing to remember is he's talking about Britain and British people. Americans use twice as much energy per person as Brits.
Do nothing.
Or to put it in a fancier way, if your hobby is meditation, you are spending time in about the most environmentally friendly way you can.
But if you are going to do *something* with your time, whether it be using Mahalo, watching TV, going out to dinner, or whatever, using the net is likely one of the lower impact things you could be doing.
It may even compare well with things like reading a book, since ten hours worth of reading from a book requires the transportation of a moderate sized physical object around the world, where ten hours of reading online just moves some electrons back and forth. I don't know which comes out ahead, but the net well might win.