Email Spam Bad for the Environment

In the spirit of Earth Day and my ongoing commitment to be "greener," I thought these were some interesting facts to share...

1.) The annual energy related to email spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh)
2.) That equates to the electricity consumed in 2.4 million U.S. homes
3.) It also creates the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline
4.) Surprise! The US is the leading spam-relaying country in the world; we account for 17.5% (2008 stats)
5.) Surprise again! The US also leads in total emissions from spam - 3.8 billion kilograms of CO2 (2008 stats)

UNREAL!

So what can we do about it? Your first step should be to install an effective spam filter. Spam filtering saves electricity and will help reduce the energy waste assosciated with spamming. 80% of the energy waste generated from spam is created by end-users deleting it from their inboxes. So, if it never gets to you, you don't have to waste the time and energy to get rid of it! Genius.

Reference articles:
The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam Report - McAfee
Spam Harms Environment - eMarketer