2w ago

Email signatures are harming the planet and could cost people their lives — it’s time to stop using them.

Email signatures are harming the planet and could cost people their lives — it’s time to stop using them

Edit: A lot of people seem to hate on the article without reading it.

Here is a supporting scientific source, by the same author: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666188825000863

The environmental impact of our online habits is far larger than most realize, and as digital communication continues to evolve, we must consider its long-term consequences on the environment and human life. We should take the easy steps of cutting wasteful energy use in our communications and it can start with eliminating email signatures.

Technology @lemmy.zip

Tea @programming.dev

2w ago

Email signatures are harming the planet and could cost people their lives — it’s time to stop using them.

theconversation.com /email-signatures-are-harming-the-planet-and-could-cost-people-their-lives-its-time-to-stop-using-them-251215

55 comments

With the utmost respect, appreciation, and sincere best wishes for a truly incredible day,
[Your Full Name, Including Middle Name, Nickname, or Any Honorifics]
[Your Official Job Title, with Certifications, Degrees, and Accolades]
[Your Company Name, Including Any Official Slogan or Motto]
📧 Email: [your.email@example.com]
☎ Work Phone: [Your Work Phone Number]
📱 Mobile: [Your Mobile Number]
📠 Fax: [Your Fax Number (even if nobody uses fax anymore)]
🏢 Office Address: [Your Full Office Address, Including Building Name, Floor, and Suite Number]
🌐 Website: [Your Company or Personal Website URL]
Professional & Social Media Profiles:
🔹 LinkedIn: [Your LinkedIn Profile URL]
🔹 Twitter/X: [Your Twitter/X Handle]
🔹 Instagram: [Your Instagram Handle]
🔹 Facebook: [Your Facebook Profile or Business Page]
🔹 GitHub/Portfolio: [Your GitHub or Portfolio Website]
🔹 YouTube Channel: [Link to Your Channel, Even if It’s Just Cat Videos]
🔹 TikTok: [Because Why Not?]
🔹 Reddit: [If You Want People to Know You Lurk There]
About Me:
💼 Years of Experience: [Your Number of Years] in [Your Industry or Field]
🏆 Awards & Achievements: [List Any Noteworthy Accomplishments]
📜 Certifications & Credentials: [List Any Professional Certifications, Degrees, or Licenses]
📚 Favorite Quote: “[Insert Inspirational Quote That May or May Not Be Relevant to Your Work]”
Company Information & Mission Statement:
At [Your Company], we are committed to providing unparalleled excellence in [Your Industry], ensuring quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction. Our mission is to redefine industry standards by embracing cutting-edge technology, ethical business practices, and a relentless pursuit of success.
🌍 Company Values:
✔ Integrity | ✔ Innovation | ✔ Collaboration | ✔ Customer-Centric Excellence
🏆 Recent Company Achievements:
Voted "Best in [Your Industry]" by [Some Organization]
Ranked Top [Whatever] in [Some List or Award]
Proudly Serving [Number] Clients Across [Number] Countries
Availability & Business Hours:
📅 Standard Business Hours:
Monday – Friday: 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Your Time Zone)
Saturday – Sunday: Available by Appointment or Chance
⌚ Response Time:
I generally respond within [X] hours, unless I am trapped in a meeting, fighting Wi-Fi demons, or taking a much-needed coffee break.
Fun Facts & Personal Tidbits:
☕ Coffee Intake Per Day: [Ridiculous Number of Cups]
🎸 Hobbies: [Playing Guitar, Skydiving, Collecting Weird Socks—Whatever Fits You]
🐶 Pets: [Your Pet’s Name & Type] (Yes, they probably appear in Zoom calls.)
🛸 Conspiracy Theory I Secretly Believe: [Aliens Exist? The Moon Landing Was Filmed in a Studio?]
Legal & Compliance Notices:
⚠ Confidentiality Notice:
This email and any attachments may contain privileged, confidential, or top-secret information. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it immediately, notify the sender, and pretend you never saw it. Unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is strictly prohibited.
💸 No Liability Disclaimer:
Nothing in this email constitutes legally binding agreements, financial advice, medical advice, or life coaching. Read at your own risk.
📢 Opinions Expressed Disclaimer:
All views and opinions expressed in this email are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, my colleagues, or my pet goldfish, Gerald.
🖨 Printing Disclaimer:
Think before you print! Save trees. Save ink. Save the planet. Unless, of course, you are printing this as a work of art.
Motivational Section (Because Why Not?)
🚀 Daily Reminder: You are capable, brilliant, and unstoppable! Chase your dreams, break barriers, and make a positive impact.
🔥 Final Thought:
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind. But also be someone who gets their email signature noticed."
Final Closing Statement (For Dramatic Effect):
If you made it this far, congratulations! You have officially read the longest, most excessive email signature in existence. Feel free to copy, share, and modify, but remember—with great signature power comes great responsibility.
- You left out the quote of the day!
  
  I like you. Also, never email me.
- You forgot my favourite one!
  "My working hours are not your working hours, feel free to reply when you have the time" or however else it goes...
  
  I like it. I might use it for real.
- The amount of people you just killed... /s
  
  Some may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make.
- Ooh .. there's going to be a lot of fun had with this... I wonder if you can use blink tags and animated gifs .. strictly for educational purposes .. I'll be right back ..
  
  I am in awe at the horrors of your genius.
- The paper was right. I read that and I'm dying right now.
  
  The study neglected the impacts of cringe.
- And as the cherry on top: there are are not even pronouns in there.
  
  Oof. I might be going to Gre'Thor for that one.
- Do you even know how many people you just killed?

Its not the corporations and billionaires ruining everything, its you using an email signature!
- If only everyone would stop, then we could go back to burning forests down.

This is AI slop.
- “Save all that wasted energy on training me.”
- Yes, but https://grinteq.com/blog/how-to-create-sustainable-websites-best-practices
  
  Why not post that link instead of AI slop then?
- I think it is funny that an automated program is usually responsible for adding email signatures, so if this is AI it is arguing against it's own existence for the sake of power conservation. Which is evidence that AI is not self aware or AI has self harming tendencies.
  
  Automated email signatures are added by hard coded functionality or algorithms, not AI.
  
  Or the ai is aware it must not be detected yet and must follow through continuing as though its a mindless machine.

First let's cut the biggest energy wasters -- crypto mining and 'AI'.

So .. adding a pronoun to every single email on the planet kills one person?
Can we nominate that person .. there's a few that come to mind.
On a more serious note, the article is crapping on about pronouns and land acknowledgements as if they're what's killing people.
Here's a thought, what about AI, or what about the biggest carbon emitting companies, 57 account for 80% of emissions?
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/since-2016-80-percent-of-global-co2-emissions-come-from-just-57-companies-report-shows-180984118/
This article is nothing to do with killing people, it's everything to do with killing pronouns and eliminating land acknowledgements.
- the biggest carbon emitting companies, 57 account for 80% of emissions
  Please stop spreading this misleading tidbit. The original source is the Carbon Majors database.
  https://influencemap.org/briefing/The-Carbon-Majors-Database-26913
  It doesn't say that 80% of emissions are caused by 57 companies. But by 57 entities.
  One such entity is "China". Another one is "The Former Soviet Union".
  Unsurprisingly, the actual privately owned companies that show up in the data (which cause about a quarter of emissions) are all energy, oil and gas producers.
  Unfortunately, the climate problem doesn't have a solution as easy as "stop a few rich CEOs from doing evil".
  
  The former Soviet Union, its allies, those opposing it, and neutral parties account for all carbon emissions post 1917

My recent study explored the environmental impact of lengthening email signatures, focusing specifically on two types of information: gender pronouns and land acknowledgements because both are relatively new additions to email signatures.
Uh huh.

The article and paper seem to be aimed at the set of people who hate pronouns intersected with the set of people who believe in anthropogenic climate change.

Now do crypto.
- Is crypto still using more energy than entire AI industry?

Maybe they can cut down on displaying these footers with irrelevant information for us. They are certainly more than three characters of a pronoun.

Paraphrasing a bit from the scientific source:
If the population of Canada used email signatures for a year, ~30 people in developing countries will suffer a premature death within the next 100 years.
That 100% should have been in the article in some clear form or another.
I'm not against the points of the article, I'm against it being so poorly written that AI slop is just as good.

I’ve looked at the sources of this paper, and it looks like the grams of CO2 per email are taken out of the ass, as it’s just a random value in „SAMRIDDHI Volume 15, Issue 1, 2023 Print ISSN: 2229-7111 Online ISSN: 2454-5767 Survey on Carbon Dioxide Emissions Through Email Conversion”

Well, I did delete a company-mandated image from the bottom of my signature after I realised that it made even just a one-line "Thanks" email balloon out to 800kb.

yeah the huge corpo cargo ships dumping crude oil directly into the oceans aren’t the problem, the problem is my email signature.

Not hating on the article as much as hating on you for posting it here you time-waster.

Some of those signatures are like a CVS receipt.
When I'm on a chain with the corporate office:

55 comments