Why it matters:
Energy consumed transmitting and deleting spam is equivalent to 3.1 million passenger cars. Now that’s a lot of waste.
Recap:
Software developer McAfee commissioned climate-change consultant ICF International and spam expert Richi Jennings to investigate the environmental impact of Internet spam. The study sheds light on just how much waste results from spam. It turns out that just in transmitting and deleting the unwanted emails the impact is equivalent to 2.4 million U.S. homes, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equivalent to 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion U.S gallons of gasoline! Approximately, the average spam message is equivalent to driving 3 feet in GHG emissions.
Commentary:
When McColo was taken offline in 2008 the results were energy savings equivalent to 2.2 million cars off the road. Most of the energy use associated with spam happens in the deleting process. Which means that opening and sifting through inboxes for legitimate mail, or opening an unwanted e-mail to take yourself off their list actually increases the amount of energy used. Until the glorious day exists when spam doesn’t there are several things we can all do, such as not opening the unwanted e-mails or using a spam filter, which actually do save a significant amount of energy. Also, never publish your email online and using disposable and free email hosts and accounts (Gmail, Hotmail, AOL) and when the junk mail starts getting out of hand just start a new one. .
