The Environmental Cost of the Internet

Not only do our computers utilize energy but it seems that our surfing of the net also takes a tool on the environment. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines - about 2% of global CO₂ emissions. For instance, just browsing a basic website generates about 20 mg of CO₂ for every second one spends on it. Websites with flash animation and video can have emissions of up to 300 mg CO₂ per second.

These main sources of these emissions is from the electricity consumed by its visitors' computers, followed by the network infrastructure needed to transmit the website, with the servers and data centers providing the website as the smallest contributor.

And the latest fads such as Facebook and Twitter which require constant and continuous updates on one's status and minute-by-minute accounts of the happenings in one 's life, usage of the internet and connectivity to websites is only going to increase.

How does one integrate environmental concerns with the indispensable services that web technology provides? This will be the challenge that the next wave of IT revolution will have face.