By Paul Jay, CBCNews.ca

Yesterday we mentioned the criticism of a Times of London story which included the assertion that running two Google searches released the same amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as boiling a kettle of tea. Now a new critic has emerged: the Harvard physicist and green-website founder to whom the statement was attributed.

Alex Wissner-Gross told TechWorldNews his research was focused on the CO2 released whenever someone visits an internet site, and had nothing to do with Google.

Specifically, his study found that about 20 milligrams of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere for every second that an average website is viewed. That information is in the Times story, but was buried under the information on the carbon footprint merits of tea drinking versus Googling.

But as for that origin of the "two Google searches = one cup of tea" equation, Wissner-Gross told TechWorldNews he's as confused as anybody.

"I have no idea where they got those statistics," Wissner-Gross said.