Blackle

Sarah Saxon is a senior at Roland Park Country School working as a BJEN intern this spring. She authored this guest entry.

Recently someone told me about a new website called Blackle. The site was created by Heap Media, and it is powered by Google. Basically, it is a more sustainable form of Google. Why? You might ask. Well, instead of having a screen that is all white with black writing, the screen is all black with white writing. This is more sustainable because it conserves energy. According to Roberson et al., “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen”. The amount of energy conserved can be seen on the site’s main page. It says that presently, 1,256,001.441 Watt hours have been saved. Although this is a small amount, it is one step in a larger action to reduce energy use.

What you can do to help:
Heap Media claims that Blackle was created in order “to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy”. Heap Media encourages users to set Blackle as their home page. “This way every time you load your internet browser you will save a little bit of energy”.

In order to learn more about Blackle, you can go to the website http://www.blackle.com/ and click the “About Blackle” button on the bottom of the page. You can also find out more about how to save energy and stay updated about the site.