Blog Green

It seems that everything we do has an impact on the environment, and Blogging is not to be excluded. It makes sense when you think about it: a blogger needs a computer to publish from and a server to publish to, and both of these electronics eat up energy.  Consider this, from the website for 1 Blog, 1 Tree:

“According to a study by Alexander Wissner-Gross, PhD, physicist at Harvard University and environmental activist, an average website causes about 8 ounces of carbon dioxide for each visit. Assuming an average blog gets 15,000 visits a month, it has yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8 pounds. This can mainly be tracked back to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems.”

There are some ways to bring your blogging into the carbon-neutral zone.  First, you could plant a tree.  One tree per blog (as long as you have 15,000 hits or less per month) will cover it.  If you have more hits than that (impressive!) then more trees will be needed.

If you’re not much into dirt work, you can have a tree planted for you for free over at the 1 Blog, 1 Tree site.  I first heard about this program on the Krafty Kitten blog, and after some checking around, I’m fairly certain the program is legit.  I signed up for it, which means I get to display this pretty button on my site.

Another option is to check with your blog host.  Many hosting companies are offering green hosting options that at least make the server part of your blog carbon-neutral.  Both of mywebsites are hosted through Just Host’s green program, which uses servers that run off of alternative energy.  You can check out a list of other green hosting options here.

As the realm of blogging continues to evolve, we’re seeing more emphasis on transparency, disclosure, and other ethical issues.  It only makes sense that our responsibility to respect our Earth should be addressed as well.

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