Utterly silly. Note that the initial estimate of 7g/search is based largely on the power used by the client and includes the time to read the search results an

Utterly silly. Note that the initial estimate of 7g/search is based largely on the power used by the client and includes the time to read the search results and possibly perform additional searches if the first one doesn't have what you want, while Google's retort of 0.2g/search is based entirely on the power used by their server to return one set of search results. If the goal is to compare the environmental cost of non-essential browsing versus non-essential eating, you clearly want to use the first number. And, in which case, there's no need to single out Google, since they are probably one of the most efficient sites you could be browsing; your total server-side energy consumption will be dominated by the site to which your search results link. (No attempt is made in either number to amortize the cost of running the internet infrastructure for an additional client, nor the cost of Google's constant spidering, which consumes resources on less efficient remote sites.)