[jamal-kumar]

I'm sorry but if you're bean-counting email co2 usage and coming up with a unit of like 15 grams of a physical substance per email then by that logic we should basically all go ted K luddite on our computers and phones, and simply throw them the fuck out the window right now. Imagine the pounds of CO2 I emit playing sonic the goddamn hedgehog why don't we.

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

[EasyMark]

I agree. This is also the type of mentality that if one throws it out to the public makes everyone throw up their hands and say “do we worry about browsing the internet now? That’s a lot of CO2 too?”and then people get tired of worrying about it and just say “toss it all, I don’t care any longer”. There is fatigue that sets in when we’re supposed to constantly worry about everything so might as well worry about nothing and not fix the really big problems like where we source our energy from and getting rid of fossil fuels and the chemicals that corporations are trying to convince us are not that bad into our bodies. Now I gotta worry about emails and the most energy efficient file transfer methods? I don’t think so.

[melicerte]

No matter the amount of CO2 emitted, can we agree emails and attachment produce a certain amount of it and that we could probably do better with alternate solutions than sending files by email. In that context, the idea behind firefox send was one possible way of being more efficient. That's all what I'm saying.

[jamal-kumar]

I can get behind that for sure. I often live in places with stuff like electricity shortages and I'm sure we could be doing more robust/better communications using all sorts of underutilized technologies and standards that already exist - I really like stuff like LoraWAN. However nitpicking on emails when there's way way way bigger consumers of electricity seems like the most distracted nonsense ever

[beepbooptheory]

You dont have to have the same goals, its pretty serious but also its ok in the grander scheme of things if you don't want to think about this stuff. This wasn't even about "messaging", it was just a thing with a nice environmental upshot. No reason to be defensive.

Hope you have fun playing Sonic I guess?

[jamal-kumar]

Yeah he goes fast haha

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

[beepbooptheory]

Right, but you're just offering fatalism back, right? Its fine, but that's not like an argument against it. Its just articulating the problem again but saying its impossible to solve.

[jamal-kumar]

No I'm offering that it's incredibly wrong to go bean counting email co2 usage when this is a dead end solution blaming end users for a problem caused by large corporations. It causes people to take environmentalism less seriously and doesn't change a thing for the greater good.

It's not letting me reply to your further comment but here's some links for you to really 'get it'

https://www.clf.org/blog/the-truth-about-carbon-footprints/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...

[beepbooptheory]

I'm a little confused. GP was simply pointing something out as maybe a good aspect of this kind of file transfer flow. It doesn't matter what "people think of environmentalism" in this case (and so many other cases). Environmentalism != the environment. Nobody was chastising you for having too big an email attachment.

In general I dont get this line where people think this stuff is all just a huge PR (as press relations) issue. It doesnt matter what you or I think. We are kinda way past that. There is no cultural battle to win, and even if there was, it really wouldn't matter!