Being Environmentally Friendly On The Internet
The following is a guest post from Brian Franklin
The Internet affects the environment in ways we have not understood yet. In a popular article on the topic, researchers Mark Mills and Peter Huber suggest that the Internet will consume 30%-50% of U.S annual electricity within the next decade. While we are working to live in greener homer, eat locally grown fruits and vegetables, and drive energy efficient vehicles, what can we do online? The environmental impact of the internet, and even our computers are rarely seen by us. Here are two ways you can help make a difference and protect the Earth.
Green Web Hosting
Eco-awareness has become a popular trend in the hosting industry in just the past two years. There are providers that plant a tree for every new customer or solely run their data centers on solar and wind power. But officially caring for the environment is also one of the oldest tricks in the marketing book. Finding a good website hosting provider that runs its servers and data centers on less power is the best thing you can do. You can look for the earth symbol on hosting company websites that are certified by Green America. A few hosting companies are Think Host, Greenest Host, SuperGreen (where Focus Organic is hosted), and Sustainable Websites.
You Search – They Grow Trees
The eco-friendly search engine Ecocho has chosen green house emissions as its arch enemy. For every 1000 searches, two trees are planted to help decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Ecocho uses Yahoo search engine results, which means you get the best results and have the opportunity to help plant a tree.
Recently, the Times London covered a story on carbon emissions of a search engine result. The article was full of erroneous statements, most notably that a Google search result creates a
Starting with these two simple services you can change your user-patterns online for a greener experience in real life and virtually.
