Searching Greenly

Everything we do has carbon implications. That isn’t a comfortable thought. This blog has a carbon footprint. The screen you are reading this on has a carbon footprint. The means by which you got to this site created carbon. Maybe not much, but when millions of people all do a little bit of ‘not much’ it starts to look like rather a lot.

The scale of the problem with CO2 can be so overwhelming that it is hard to know where to start. The failure of big business and governments to step up to the issues is demoralising. How can one person make any difference in face of these enormous problems? 

We can make a difference. Just as every small act of adding creates the bigger problem, so every small act of reducing carbon impact helps the planet.

Here is a small thing you can do to help make a difference. Try http://www.ecosia.org/index for internet searches. This is a search engine backed by a company that plants trees and engages in some interesting projects to reduce carbon use. 80% of revenue generated by the engine goes on Green projects. It’s a small thing to search here rather than elsewhere, and a small help. It won’t save the world all by itself, but it is still well worth adding to the mix.

As a practical point, I’ve tested ecosia as a search engine around terms I know well, and I think it delivers good results. It’s quick, not weighed down by adverts, and apparently it doesn’t shape your results based on what you’ve searched for and clicked on before. Anyone interested in seeing how their website is doing will find this helpful. You can’t check search engine optimisation against an engine that is trying to tailor itself to fit your preferences!