Studies on the subject (very few actually, if you have intel on that matter, let me know) have already been conducted and reveal that a simple email with an attachment of 1MB produces around 15 grams of CO2[1]. Obviously, this figure increases with the size of the email. This is the case, for example, when the email includes large attachments or if the email is sent to several recipients.
With the use of the IMAP protocol, one email sent has at least 6 permanent copies (from the sent item in the sender email client to the inbox of the recipient, through sender and recipients email server which hopefully have long term archiving).
A solution like firefox send with automatic shredding of the file after an expiration period to replace email attachment would drastically reduce the consequences of email usage on greenhouse gas emissions. It would also resolve other issues related to sending files by email, but that would make this post waaaayyy to long :-)
[1] http://www.helixee.me/limpact-ecologique-des-e-mails/ (in French)
I think environmentalists need to find more effective focuses than these if we want our goals to be achieved and for us to be taken remotely seriously
Hope you have fun playing Sonic I guess?
No seriously, just extrapolate that for a second and try to tell me with a straight face that all the gamer kids playing with whatever it takes to render a modern game, and by the logic I'm reading from that french article those kid are basically each a victorian age factory spewing out so much carbon gunk we're going to need to bring back chimney sweeps, like yeah I don't really think that the logic of restricting emails is going to change a lot when people are literally just out there playing video games.
I'm being "defensive" because as an environmentalist I think that we need to get real and target the real emitters. It's mostly military functions, international shipping, and still going and generating power in the first place using non renewable sources that maybe we should be focusing on rather than this BP-orchestrated carbon footprint bullshit that they foisted on people as a psyop to convince us that we're the problem that need to change