碳中和第一站-传播低碳生活知识

Two search requests on the internet website Google produce "as much carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle", according to a Harvard University academic.

根据哈佛大学学者的研究，互联网上Google网站的两个搜索请求产生“煮沸一壶水那样多的二氧化碳”。

US physicist Alex Wissner-Gross claims that a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g CO2.

美国物理学家亚历克斯·威斯纳-格罗斯声称，桌面计算机的一次典型Google搜索产生大约7克二氧化碳。

However, these figures were disputed by Google, who say a typical search produced only 0.2g of carbon dioxide.

不过，这些数字是有争议的，Google说，一次典型的搜索只产生0.2克二氧化碳。

A recent study by American research firm Gartner suggested that IT now causes two percent of global emissions.

最近的一项由美国调研公司Gartner从事的研究认为，IT现在产生全球排放量的百分之二。

Dr Wissner-Gross's study claims that two Google searches on a desktop computer produces 14g of CO2, which is the roughly the equivalent of boiling an electric kettle.

威斯纳-格罗斯博士的研究声称，桌面计算机上两次Google搜索将产生14克二氧化碳，大致相当于用电水壶煮沸一壶水。

Carbon emissions
碳排放
The Harvard academic argues that these carbon emissions stem from the electricity used by the computer terminal and by the power consumed by the large data centres operated by Google around the world.

哈佛大学的学者证明，这些碳排放来自计算机终端使用的电力和Google在世界各地运营的大型数据中心消耗的电能。


If you want to supply really great and fast result, then that's going to take extra energy Dr Alex Wissner-Gross

威斯纳-格罗斯博士说：“如果您想真正又多又快地供给搜索结果，那么，就需要额外消耗能源。”

Although the American search engine is renowned for returning fast results, Dr Wissner-Gross says it can only do so because it uses several data banks at the same time.

虽然美国的这个搜索引擎因快速返回搜索结果而享有盛名，但威斯纳-格罗斯博士说，它只能这样，因为它同时使用了几个数据银行。

Speaking to the BBC, he said a combination of clients, networks, servers and people's home computers all added up to a lot of energy usage.

他跟BBC讲，把客户端、网络、服务器和人们的家用电脑全部加起来，合计使用了大量能源。

"Google isn't any worse than any other data centre operator. If you want to supply really great and fast result, then that's going to take extra energy to do so," he said.

“Google不比其他任何数据中心运营商更糟。如果您想真正又多又快地供给搜索结果，这么做就需要消耗额外的能源，”他说。

Dr Wissner-Gross said he was working on a website called co2stats.com which helps companies identify "energy inefficient" aspects of their websites.

威斯纳-格罗斯博士说，他正在开发一个名为co2stats.com的网站，帮助各家公司标识网站“能源效率低的”各个方面。

In a statement on its official blog, Google said that Dr Wissner-Gross' figures were "many times too high."

Google在其官方博客发表的一份声明表示，威斯纳-格罗斯博士的数字“高了许多倍”。

The firm said that a typical search returned a result in less than 0.2 seconds and that the search itself only used its servers for a few thousandths of a second. This, said Google, amounted to 0.0003 kWh of energy per search - equivalent to 0.2g of CO2.

该公司表示，一次典型的搜索不到0.2秒就返回结果，而搜索本身仅用其服务器数千分之一秒。Google说，这表示每个搜索消耗能源共计0.0003千瓦时——相当于二氧化碳0.2克。

"We've made great strides to reduce the energy used by our data centres, but we still want clean and affordable sources of electricity for the power that we do use," said Google in its statement.

“我们的数据中心为了减少能源的使用，已经取得了很大进步，但我们仍然希望，负担得起的清洁电源才是我们使用的电源，”Google在其声明中说。

"In 2007, we co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. This non-profit consortium is committed to cutting the energy consumed by computers in half by 2010 and so reducing global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. That's a lot of kettles."

“2007年，我们联合发起气候拯救计算倡议。这一非营利的协会承诺，到2010年降低电脑消耗的一半能源，因此，全球二氧化碳排放量每年将减少5千4百万吨。那是许许多多的水壶。”

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