Study: Email Spam Blamed For 17 million Tons CO2

[engine]

Study: Email Spam Blamed For 17 million Tons CO2 [news.bbc.co.uk]

A study into spam has blamed it for the production of more than 33bn kilowatt-hours of energy every year, enough to power more than 2.4m homes.

The "Carbon Footprint of e-mail Spam Report" estimated that 62 trillion spam emails are sent globally every year.

This amounted to emissions of more than 17 million tons of CO2, the research by climate consultants ICF International and anti-virus firm McAfee found.

Searching for legitimate e-mails and deleting spam used some 80% of energy.

The study found that the average business user generates 131kg of CO2 every year, of which 22% is related to spam.

[piatkow]

I am sure that the amount of energy used in dealing with spam is significant but I never trust reports like that. If nobody uses a mail server it is still consuming energy. Have they simply apportioned that baseload across spam and non-spam or have they really identified the marginal usage?

[greenleaves]

hmmm, it is a true shame I didn't come up with a link bait piece like this.

I could have wrote a piece like that, and put any number out there. Science has little to do with these types of 'studies'

[lgn1]

I dont feel so bad now.

I was always worried that my own flatulence would be responsible for the collapse of the West Antartic Ice Sheet :)