Big Sky Cairn

Carol notes that Google - in support of Earth Hour - has made their screen black. On their explanation page, they claim that modern monitors use the same energy to display white as black, so their effort is purely symbolic.

As to why we don’t do this permanently - it saves no energy; modern displays use the same amount of power regardless of what they display.

Of course, the metaphor of changing Google black to Earth Hour is appropriate. In both cases, the intentions are certainly good. But in both cases the results are actually counterproductive.

While it may seem that a black screen would use less energy than a white one, this is not the case. It is also not the case that a black screen uses the same amount of energy. In fact, it is a black screen - like the one that Google put up for Earth Hour - that will use the most energy overall.

As for the notion of Earth Hour - saving the planet from the real and imagined threats that it faces is a pretty big job. Convincing people that they are actually contributing by turning off their lights for an hour in the middle of the day on a Saturday - well that’s giving them an easy way out. Why do more? I celebrated Earth Hour!

What’s next? Earth Minute?

Never mind that — I’d like to see the net power use from all of Google’s datacenters.

That would be interesting.

I’m wondering about the Carbon Footprint when after the entire world shuts it’s lights off for one hour, they simultaneously turn them back on.