In one of my latest blog post Recession may spark Baltic TB surge. True or false? I added Lev Tolstoy quote "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." And it made me think that usually we blog about things that happened or is planed to happen, for example How much money EU is spending on aid. But we also have to think about how "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Changing your search engine to new, green one, is one of the ways how to help the world.

Searching

"The green search engine is a very modern and inventive method of saving the world climate without a huge effort" - WWF Germany's director Eberhard Brandes.

"Searching the web has become a major part of our lives. There are tons of search engines available to help you find information or websites, but a few have their way to make our searches a little more green.

Google and Yahoo currently dominate the market for search engines.  In order to try to find a more optimum search algorithm to compete with them would require an enormous amount of funds and a team of top mathematicians and computer scientist.  There are a few search engines that use these major search engines as a foundation, but use a portion of their profits earned to donate to charities that promote a more eco friendly world," said Pays to live green. But who would have thought that we can do something about it with a simple mouse click?

It is estimated that making two internet searches through Google produces about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle. According to research conducted by a physicist from Harvard University, one typical search through the online giant's website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g. Some experts assume that one search on Google requires the same amount of energy that a light bulb needs to burn for one hour. But, is that bad? Andy Yee, TH!NK'er and Postgraduate Student from London, in his blog post Volcano, Planes or the Internet? Who’s Emitting More? that: "Google says that one Google search generates about 0.2 grams of CO2. As Google is probably the most efficient engine, we can use this figure as a conservative estimate. This means that the 150 billion searches we make each month translate to about 30,000 metric tons of CO2 per month, or about 1,000 tons per day."

Is that green? And how exactly websites contribute to carbon emissions? Dr Wissner-Gross, on his homepage co2stats.com wrote: "Websites are provided by servers and are viewed by clients (visitors' computers) that are connected via networks. These servers, clients and networks all require electricity in order to run, electricity that is largely generated by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change."

Every year a rainforest area larger than England is burned or cut down. Therefore the deforestation of the tropical rainforests is the single most important source of CO2 emissions in the world and about 20% of all global CO2 emissions are caused by rainforest deforestation.

With Green Engines

Ecosia is an eco-friendly Internet search engine backed by Yahoo, Bing and the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). It basically works like any other search engine but, unlike others, Ecosia gives at least 80% of its advertising revenue to a rainforest protection program run by the WWF. Because of this, Ecosia users can save about two square meters of rainforest with every search they do – without paying anything. Furthermore, all Ecosia servers run on green electricity, so they do not cause any CO2 emissions. By using Ecosia, you can turn your web searches green. Ecosia aims to protect rainforest areas as big as Switzerland.

"It all began with a trip to Argentina where Ecosia founder Christian Kroll learnt about the importance of the rainforest. While the entire air traffic causes only 2% of all Co² emissions, the deforestation of the rainforest contributes a full 20%!

That's why Kroll liaised with Google in August 2008 to create the green search engine Forestle. After only a few days of online presence, Forestle already had 20.000 users - and Google had 20.000 less. Not surprisingly, Google ended this collaboration without official statement. "That is the comfort of being the market leader", Kroll explains, "Every new Forestle user meant one user less for Google." Forestle was still kept alive through the help of Yahoo, but lost a significant number of users," says Se7en Magazine.

"80% of all income goes straight to the WWF to protect the vital rainforest. "We have purposely chosen to work with the WWF because it is the world's largest environmental protection organisation, and the folks there have a lot of experience working on such projects." The income is generated through sponsored links which will be provided by Yahoo and Bing. Ecosia supports the WWF project "Amazon Region Protected Area Programme" (ARPA) which primarily protects the tropical rainforest in Brazil. Similar to the US system of creating National Parks, WWF buys rainforest land with the help of the Brazilian government. This land is then supervised by rangers and is fully protected. Thus, deforestation, fires and destruction of the rainforest are avoided. ARPA hopes to save a rainforest surface area as large as France by 2012 through regular donations and projects like Ecosia. Moreover, the company works with green energy: "Ecosia is the only search engine that runs on eco-friendly servers using water energy." 78% Water power;  5% Wind power; 17% other renewable energy.

Ecosia searches helps to protect the tropical forest in the Brazilian Juruena national park. This national park is under the protection of the ARPA Program (Amazon Region Protected Areas), the world´s largest protection program of its kind. Several governmental and non-governmental organizations support the ARPA Program to protect 15% (60 million hectares / 230,000 square miles) of Brazilian rainforest. This objective should be fulfilled before 2016. The rainforest Ecosia saves is neither owned by Ecosia nor the WWF. The saved area is part of a national park, which strictly speaking is owned by the Brazilian state.

Making the world a better place

Still skeptic? Ecosia publishes its finance documents and payments which contains statements about Ecosia’s revenue and the receipts for the  payments made by Ecosia to the WWF. These payments are usually made about 45 days after the end of a month. On december 2009 Ecosia paid to WWF 2.656,34 € and it means that total amount of rainforests saved only for one month - 5.312.688 m².  The total rainforest area that has so far been saved by our searches 78,705,883 m².

Why is it important to save rainforests?

• Rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on the planet containing more species of plants and animals than all the earth's other ecosystems combined - possibly as many as 30-40 million species - two-thirds of the entire world's wildlife species.
• Tropical Forests are the Earth's oldest ecosystems. Fossil records show that the forests of South-East Asia have survived in their present form for at least 70 million years.
• A single hectare of tropical rainforest may contain 200 tree species. The same area of temperate forest typically contains only 10 to 15 species.
• Rainforests act as giant reservoirs of moisture and warmth, releasing water throughout the year as the perennial streams and rivers that support the lives of billions of people, meeting the needs of 40 per cent of the farmers in the developing countries.
• Rainforests worldwide are home to an estimated 50 million indigenous forest peoples.
• Tropical deforestation is the second largest cause of climate change.
• Rainforests contain medicines - an estimated one in four of all purchases from pharmacies in countries such as Britain contain an active ingredient derived from a tropical forest species.
• Many prescription drugs currently sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. And while 25 per cent of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less than 1 per cent of tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists.
• The US National Cancer Institute has identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70 per cent of these plants are found in the rainforest. Twenty-five percent of the active ingredients in today's cancer-fighting drugs come from organisms found only in the rainforest.
• Despite their immense importance, the rainforest are highly endangered by logging operations. Within the last 50 years more than half of the rainforests vanished. Every year a rainforest area larger than England is cut down!

(Source: www.telegraph.co.uk)

And one thing is for sure: you dont have use Ecosia if you don't want too. There are many green-search engines out there. For example: Search for one of them.

EcoSearch - It actually uses Yahoo to fuel its search queries and does not alter your searches one bit.  They also donate to reforestation projects throughout the world.  For every 1,000 searches made, a tree is planted either in the Amazon or Canary Islands.

The Eco Key - They give 40% of their revenue towards cleaning up our planet.  That money is directed towards organizations aimed at  removing trash and help clean up pollution in communities, parks and beaches throughout the world.

Green Maven - Their goal is to keep growing the green web by providing a single place where a large number of some of the top green sites can be found.

 And so on.. By using Ecosia for one day I saved Together we can really change things around!

Ecosia: The eco-friendly search engine from in60seconds on Vimeo.

*Main picture by WWF International