A recent article dialoguewritten by Joshua M. Pearce, titled “Email signatures are harming the earth, potentially harming people’s lives – it’s time to stop using them,” bold claims; email signatures allegedly harm the environment and even “make life damage” due to its energy consumption. [emphasis, links added]
This claim is not only false, but exaggerated, which is totally ridiculous.
A deeper understanding of the actual energy use of emails, the infrastructure of the Internet, and the overwhelming impact of spam emails suggests that the climate hazards assumed by email signatures are trivial at best.
“It is estimated that average emails, including all “good faith” and company disclaimers, publish 4G carbon dioxide emissions,” the author noted in the article.
This statement is a typical example of distorting numbers without context.
The backbone of the Internet (email server, data center and routing infrastructure) is 24/7/365 runs runs runs, regardless of how many emails are sent.
Email servers never shut down; they keep consuming energy, whether it is processing an email or millions. Extra features taken from an extra email, not to mention signatures are trivial.
If we are really worried about the energy consumption associated with email, the focus should be on spam, not on email signatures.
Research estimates that spam emails account for more than 85% of all email traffic. According to Cisco Report in 2021 Spam emails constitute about 122 million of the 144 million emails sent every day.
This means that legitimate emails (including those with signatures) make up only a small part of the overall email traffic.
In addition, a McAfee study estimates Spam email alone generates 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year, equivalent to emissions of more than 3.1 million vehicles.
By contrast, regular email traffic, including signatures, contributes a small portion of this energy use.
If reducing email emissions is indeed a priority, addressing spam filtering inefficiency will be more effective than eliminating polite email signatures.
How much energy does email signatures actually use? Let's look at the facts:
- The total energy consumption of all emails (legal and spam) is estimated to be nearby 100 treatment hours per year (TWH).
- Spam email contribution More than 33% of energy use (McAfee, 2009).
- Email signature, including some additional text and logo, represents a A small fraction of total email data traffic.
If an email sends out 4G of CO2 and a typical corporate email signature is just an extra kilobyte, the additional energy impact is negligible, perhaps a few hundred grams of CO2 per email.
In other words, a minute streaming video or Google search may be an order of magnitude more than all email signatures you send in a year.
Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, especially large training models such as Chatgpt, Google Bard and DeepMind, are much larger than regular Internet operations.
Estimates suggest that AI-related computing may account for 10-15% of total data center usage, meaning AI workloads are about 50-70 TWH in 2022.
This is roughly equal to the electricity consumption in medium-sized countries such as Sweden or Argentina.
With the increase in AI adoption, forecasts suggest that AI computing could consume more than 200 TWH by 2030, accounting for 5-6% of global electricity consumption.
Overall, data centers are expected to consume more than 1,000 TWH per year by 2030 (about as much as the entire energy consumption in Japan).
However, Joshua M. Pearce dialogue Worry about the trivial email signature impact on the planet and people's lives.
This article is another example of climate shockism distorting reality to make everyday activities seem harmful. It's just a crisis created to drive “climate guilt”.
Rather than acknowledging practical issues (such as energy-intensive AI data processing, inefficient spam filtering, or the environmental cost of manufacturing electronic devices)This article promotes the ridiculous idea that typing “best greeting” into an email is to some extent the loss of human life.
The real problem here is not email signatures, but misleading journalism, picking up picky numbers without context. if dialogue True care about accuracy, they will focus on Actual Contributors to energy waste, not creating another climate panic story.
Cottonbro Studio via Pexels' top photo
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