Hey readers, I’m still sunning and funning in…well New York City, and why not? Staycation is the new Vacation! Here’s a vintage post from the early days of SFSG in 2008. -Madam Toussaint

Global warming and climate change are huge problems today with wide ranging effects from super hurricanes to confused insomniac bears that don’t know when to hibernate because winter just ain’t what it used to be. Hard to know where to start and understandably the temptation to find something really easy that you can do right now at your computer with the click of your mouse is always there.

Blackle.com is a website created by Heap Media and powered by Google Custom Search to help people save energy. It’s makers claim Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black.

Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.

Their site also claims “In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine… We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up.” They also state “seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy.”

These figures sounded incredibly high to me when I first read this and I though this also sounds like a great way to capitalize on a desire to effect some positive change on the environment while not breaking a sweat or going anywhere. If Blackle saves energy it is probably minimal and there are other ways to save energy without getting up from your computer that would be far more effective. You can read about that in 5 Ways To Go Green At Your Computer Now.

blackle.com