Dear Geist,

As a writer who drafts in longhand, then inputs the draft in a word processor, then the same again for each revision, am I a wanton polluter of the Mother Earth? That's what two people in my writers' group are saying. They do absolutely everything on the computer, but surely that takes a toll too, and not just the blue light.

Dear Old,

says that Google searches “account for about 40% of the internet's carbon footprint.” And so on. A page of search results on a home computer is quick and noiseless, but the vast networks and subnetworks of computers, switches, routers and other essential technologies that bring in those results burn a lot of fuel—mainly fossil fuels. The good news is your colleagues cannot blame pollution on you. The not-so-good news is that all of us in the writing and publishing business—and many other culture pursuits—are implicated.