What's the carbon footprint of the internet?
<> 2010.8.12
互联网的碳足迹
The internet releases around 300m tonnes of CO2 a year – as much as all the coal, oil and gas burned in Turkey or Poland, or more than half of the fossil fuels burned in the UK.
互联网每年释放大约3亿吨的二氧化碳-相当于土耳其或波兰一年煤、石油和天然气的释放量，或超过英国化石燃料燃烧释放的一半。
All carbon footprints are hard or impossible to pin down accurately, but the internet is a particularly complex case. This isn't just due to the fact that the "net" consists of millions or even billions of machines owned by countless people and companies. There's also another problem: even if we knew exactly how much energy all these devices consumed (which we don't), we still wouldn't know how much of that energy was spent on offline jobs (such as creating documents in Microsoft Office) and how much was spent on online jobs (such as emailing those documents to a friend or colleague).
所有的碳足迹很难并且不可能确切统计，并且互联网是一个特别复杂的情况。这不仅仅是因为有这样一个现实，既―网‖是由百万计甚至亿万记得及其构成被无数的个人或公司拥有。并且有另外的问题：就算我们精确知道这些设备的能源消耗（其中我们不知道），我们也不能知道我们在离线工作（如在微软办公软件编辑文档）和在线工作（如把这些文档发给朋友或同事）耗费了多少能量
pin down 确定；使受约束；阻止
countless [ˈkaʊntlɪs] adj.无数的，多得数不清的；恒河沙数；指不胜屈；数不胜数
device [diˈvais]n.装置，设备；设计；策略；图案文档
It's possible, nonetheless, to take a rough stab at working out the internet's carbon footprint. A good place to start is the world's data centres – buildings packed top to bottom with servers full of the web pages, databases, online applications and downloadable files that make the modern online experience possible. Data centres use
lots of electricity, both for powering the machines they contain and – all importantly –for the air conditioning needed to keep the servers from overheating.
虽然如此，粗略估算出互联网的碳足迹是有可能的。一个很好的起点就是世界的数据中心—-将服务器至上而下用完整的网页，数据库，网络运用程序和文件下载使网络尽可能运用使其全面工作。数据中心耗费大量的电能，这些电能用于维持机器的运转包含和—更重要的—空调用于防止服务器过热。
nonetheless [ˈnʌnðəˈles]adv.虽然如此，但是
rough [rʌf] adj.粗糙的，崎岖不平的；粗鲁的；狂暴的，汹涌的；未经加工的
stab [stæb] vt.刺；将……刺入；对……做出刺或戳的动作；刺vi.用或似用带尖的武器刺；刺伤；戳n.用或似用带尖武器刺的伤口；尝试；突发的一阵
According to a report by Gartner, data centres already account for around a quarter of the energy consumed (and the carbon emitted) by the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as a whole. In other words, around half a percent of global CO2 emissions.
据加特纳称,信息和通讯中心作为一个整体，其数据数据中心已经约占四分之一的能源消费(碳排放)。换句话说,大约是全球碳排放的一半。
By Gartner's figures, the world's PCs and monitors are even more power hungry, accounting for around 40% of the total ICT energy demand and 0.8% of global CO2 emissions. If we decided (somewhat arbitrarily) that half of the emissions from all these laptop and desktop machines were down to internet-based activity, and then add on the emissions from the data centres that make all this online activity possible, then the internet would clock in at around 1% of all the CO2 emissions released from burning fossil fuels. Put another way, the internet releases around 300m tonnes of CO2 – as much as all the coal, oil and gas burned in Turkey or Poland in one year, or more than half of those burned in the UK.
