Will Searching Google Destroy the Planet?

News appeared yesterday taking Google to task over how much CO2 is produced by searching Google.  Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist of Harvard, claims two Google searches are enough to produce the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle.  Google disputes, and the Register actually takes a look at the the whole thing.  They suggest the numbers and analysis are a bit dodgy and conclude that the daily flatulence produced by humans has more of an effect on the environment than searching Google. 

It's not as if this "news" will make society stop using Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc., or computers generally any more than society will stop passing gas.  When the History Channel next runs the recently concluded Armageddon Week of programming, I don't believe they will include searching Google next to super volcanoes, earthquakes, giant meteors, gamma ray bursts, killer microbes, nuclear war, and all the other mechanisms that can destroy life on the planet.  To quote Dick Cheney, "so?"  [MG]