Blackback Theory and Anyone know CSS?
18 February 2007
3 Comments
A friend, I think it was Sam, hooked me up with a neat link to a site that discusses green technology. I noticed a post about something I’d read about previously, and that was the impact that the color of websites has on the amount of energy we use while surfing the internet.
Rising Phoenix put together a pretty simple and sweet designed page to explain the problem. I’m an advocate for reducing the amount of energy we use, especially since we in the United States consume an ungodly amount already. Therefore, I feel some responsibility to change the way I’m currently consuming energy. Here’s my two step process.
- Downloaded Stylish for Firefox and then chose a black style theme for Google.
- I’d like to change my theme so it’s a darker background color with white text. I’d like to keep the current theme so it’s not too much of a change for my readers. But I need some CSS help from someone. The other option is to change to this theme.
Anyone else want to join me in the small choices matter energy saving campaign?
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Ariah, this is interesting and it was on Digg a while back and it was kind of debunked – as the world is moving towards LCD monitors (I personally haven’t used a CRT in years) the voltage used to display different colors does not vary at all because on LCDs the backlight is always on, so black is only used to block light rather than display an actual color.
The better solution is for all people to move away from CRT monitors (the estimates are that 75% of monitors in the world are LCDs) – those savings would be tangible because CRTs use so much power regardless of color. So changing the color of web sites would only amount to insignificant amounts of savings…somewhere less than one cent per year per person.
Also, someone on Digg pointed out how one’s eyes take longer to adjust to a dark screen, which could almost double the amount of time spent on a web site, ultimately leading to MORE power being used up. Of course, this is just a theory, but it sounds plausible. I guess it could only be proved with actual tests and observations.
Hey, I did quite a bit of work with CSS about a year ago. I’ll look at it with you sometime this week.
Virgil, thanks for the insight. One of the links points to the fact that most computers are moving to LCD, but the impact of the CRT use of energy is still significant.
I did notice as I was reading last night that, when I switched the google page to a black back layout it was a bit harder to adjust to.
Maybe I’m jumping a little too quick.
Josh, I still might take you up on a little color tweaking.
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