Did you know that at present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes into running data centers.

If you’re thinking about switching to green hosting, good for you! Green hosting is an important step in dealing with climate change. But be aware, once you start asking some questions you’ll find that not all of the 'green' hosting options out there are nearly as green as they claim to be.

Our servers are both powered and cooled using renewable energy, whereas a number of other 'green' hosts only offset the electricity used to power their servers.

That represents a big difference, because servers generate a lot of heat. For every watt of electricity that a server uses, 1-2 watts of electricity are typically required to cool it.

If you’re one of the four and a half million registered users of Second Life, consider this: the average Second Life avatar consumes 1,752 kWh of electricity per year, or about two thirds that of an actual person (globally averaged). One server alone has roughly the same climate impact as a 15mpg SUV!