Renewable emails?

Shocking news: emails, avatars, blogs like this - well everything that is part of the internet is adding to climate change! Süddeutsche wrote today (based on an NYT article) that a single Google search requires the same energy as a 11-Watt-light bulb per hour and a Second Life avatar needs an average 1752 kwh per year - more than some real humans for instance in India. Research from Prognos Institut estimated that electricity consumption for internet is responsible for CO2 emissions of 4 million tons per year in Germany alone, putting Internet on the same level as the aviation industry. As data traffic is constantly increasing, internet is a real (climate) killer application.
This puts a lot of internet offers - from eco-innovation blogs like the one at treehugger to established green brands like greenpeace and every one in the LOHAS (lifestyle of health and sustainability) customer segment at a serious dilemma. An equivalent to recycled paper is needed: Recycled webpages? Well, close: If you choose a black instead of a white background for your site, this will substantially reduce energy consumption for most monitors. For the clear eco-conscience, you can get a CO2 free e-mail address from atomstromfreies Internet an initiative of Greenpeace Energy. A great idea is also to ban email, at least for one day, as U.S.Cellular did with its "email free friday" (see story in Wall Street Journal), an initiative meant to ease workers' overload. Or just pull the plug.