That way, people will be less inclined to leave their computers perpetually in standby mode.

Recently Grist has elected to refresh its web site design so that its form and function follows the prevailing mode of rolling out more complex layouts laden with feature-rich multimedia support. Certainly Grist is aware that this practice is resource-intense for each supporting node, in that it requires more storage and router capacity due to the larger bandwidth demands, and more operational overhead, which has real ecological and financial costs. The question is, what real-world environmental cost calculations has Grist made?

One cost borne by the present incarnation of its service pertains to the embedded print option. For example, click on the "Print" icon and a print dialog box appears with no "text only" print option. Many articles could easily be formatted to fit onto one 8.5x11" page with margins set to .75", but Grist.beta fails to make the inclusion of this important option a priority, at a time when many people viewing web pages from computers still print out articles, however short their length on paper which is probably 30 percent PCW at most. This unimplemented measure requires far more print space and ink on average, which adds real costs for everyone, upstream and downstream. While it is true that there are products like greenprint, smartprint, etc., some of these programs are still limited in their operational effectiveness and platform support, and many people will never use them due to their cost or other requirements.