There has been discussion today (see the Sunday Times, BBC, Daily Telegraph, Nicholas Carr and Earth2Tech, among others) about claims that a Google search is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide (two searches would be equivalent to boiling a kettle). Google claims that the number is "many times too high" and one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2 (see also TechWorldNews article).
Whatever the figures, internet searching (whether of Google or an online repository of data such as the BIW project control platform), so long as it returns a valid result, will, I'm sure often still be many more times efficient than an individual conducting a time-consuming search through indexes of folders, multiple email tape back-ups, or - worse still - having to delve through reams of paperwork perhaps stored in multiple filing cabinets (with all the carbon footprint implications of producing and storing that paper).
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