[melicerte]

In my opinion, the idea behind Firefox send was a real step towards a more greener IT. The elephant in the room here that no one is talking about is the impact of the email with attachment on climate change. In 2018 (that's the best I could find) nearly 600 billion emails are distributed every day around the world. Im' pretty sure this is a lot more nowadays. No matter the truth, this colossal figure is not without impact on the environment. From the PC to the data center to the small lithium battery of a smartphone, email consumes electricity and its consequences on greenhouse gas emissions are far from negligible.

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)

[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.

[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?

[Arch-TK]

How did you get 6?

I run my own infra and on my end I see 1 permanent server side copy and 1 temporary local copy.

[melicerte]

1. local copy of the file on the sender computer

2. local copy in the send item once sent

3. a copy on the sender email server

4. a copy on the receiver email server

5. a copy on the inbox of the receiver

6. add one if the file is saved as a local copy on the sender computer

And this does not take into consideration backups (like local backups and email server backups). Also, the number increases obviously by the number of recipients (points 4, 5 and 6).

(edited for layout)

[melicerte]

I see I'm being downvoted which is ok but to the down voters, I genuinely wonder why ?