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> I am sure it generates a lot of CO2 for all that effortless eyecandy.

Why?

Genuine question. A couple years ago I tried assessing the claim that websites (frontend, specifically) can meaningfully be tuned to reduce emissions [1]. Apparently it takes less than a dollar/year (2018) to charge a smartphone (0 to 100% daily) [2]. Given that fact, and assuming that energy usage from a mobile browser is in the same order of magnitude as a desktop browser + price is a decent stand-in for amount of emissions, it seems to me that any savings aimed at reducing emissions via "better" websites is negligible, even at web scale. I have a simple (maybe too simple?) spreadsheet to back this up [3].

[1] https://github.com/thegreenwebfoundation/lighthouse-plugin-g...

[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-much-it-costs-to-cha...

[3] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18cNY8Xpabau3bMY5iEsB...

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"assuming that energy usage from a mobile browser is in the same order of magnitude as a desktop browser"

Any basis for this assumption?

Desktop processors are much less optimized for power consumption, and desktop browsers are also used differently with websites often time left running in the background tab, compared to the mobile phone.

I think the claim is accurate only because I've set the bar quite low (10x being an order of magnitude).

But I'll do a similar analysis: how much does a constantly-used desktop PC emit? I'm seeing estimates of ~200 kg emissions/year from a desktop PC for ~8hr/day usage, which is ~0.4% of the average American's emissions (50,000 kg/year). Now you must consider some other things:

1) of those relatively small emissions, how much is due to energy that is used for baseline PC functions (OS, monitor, etc).

2) does idle time from a browser doing slightly less work translate to noticeably less power draw? I can see a difference from 100% to 80% CPU utilization, but what about 40% to 20%? is the relationship between cpu utilization and power draw linear?

3) I'd bet the largest offenders of sites in terms of power usage are complex webapps that have no meaningful room for performance improvements possible by a frontend developer: games, photo editors, video players. Compare to those, better CSS selectors seems small potatoes.

To be clear, my claim is that overall the savings here are negligible and efforts are far best spent elsewhere (extreme example: instead of a programmer trying to optimize even a heavily-trafficked site, they would have a larger impact if they spent their time ensuring their home, or the home of their friends and family, is not wasting energy).

That doesn't take into account the production footprint of a device capable to render today's web with all its transitions and glory, the environmental and geo-political toll on extracting lithium, rare earths, and other materials, plus the footprint of delivering devices into the hands of users, and disposal after typically only two years of usage.

Whereas had we been sticking to deliver just plain passive HTML markup users are after, we could've had solar-/light-powered devices with slow LCD displays and low-power RF transmission similar to old e-book readers by now (solar-powered pocket calculators were available in the 1970s already).

Would help with tracking, privacy, ad monopolies, and browser obsolescence as well.

The focus of this analysis is if creating tooling and researching better frontend practices could result in a meaningful reduction of emissions. Saying "don't use the web at all or the devices that access it" is not very useful in this context.

Yes, but having our modern devices isn't solely to allow css to exist - good hardware allows devices to be a replacement for maps and gps, cameras, messaging systems, mobile games, entertainment systems, and everything else you can write an app for. Low power e-book readers exist, but it's clear that most people would much rather have a smartphone.

Want to see how far we can get messenger pigeons to fly?

Jokes aside it sounds like the gemini protocol is trying to fulfill what you're mentioning here

https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

> That doesn't take into account the production footprint

That doesn't stop some people (and even some goverments) from calling EVs "carbon neutral".

Yes, I think you are right - I was half joking. Its unlikely the faster websites would free up enough idle cpu time to make up for all that extra time it would take to implement the web with lower level, presumably more efficient frameworks.

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