General Discussion

UTUSN

(70,683 posts) Wed Nov 27, 2019, 01:25 PM Nov 2019

Carbon footprint of EMAILS "ruining the environment" - but, whew!1, "isn't huge"!1

So first they found another disastrous thing to worry us with, then say it ain't THAT bad. I can keep sending my email alerts about wingnuts!1

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https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/your-emails-are-ruining-the-environment-study/

Your emails are ruining the environment: study

.... The study, commissioned by OVO Energy, England’s leading energy supply company, used the UK as a case study and found that one less “thank you” email a day would cut 16,433 tons of carbon caused by the high-energy servers used to send the online messages.

That’s the equivalent of 81,152 flights to Madrid or taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road, the research said. ....

The top 10 most “unnecessary” emails include: “Thank you,” “Thanks,” “Have a good weekend,” “Received,” “Appreciated,” “Have a good evening,” “Did you get/see this,” “Cheers,” “You too,” and “LOL,” according to the study. ....

One of the researchers, Mike Berners-Lee, a professor at Lancaster University in Lancashire, England, said in a statement: “Whilst the carbon footprint of an email isn’t huge, it’s a great illustration of the broader principle that cutting the waste out of our lives is good for our wellbeing and good for the environment.”

“Every time we take a small step towards changing our behavior, be that sending fewer emails or carrying a reusable coffee cup, we need to treat it as a reminder to ourselves and others that we care even more about the really big carbon decisions,” Berners-Lee said.

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