Want to save the world? Then don't hit 'send' | Simon Carter

It’s simple and doesn’t involve anything too problematic (or expensive) like buying electric cars.

All we need to do is – send fewer e-mails.

Last weekend I mentioned the Twitter account Quite Interesting Facts, and recently one tweet they posted said: ‘If every adult in the UK sent one e-mail fewer each day, it would save carbon emissions equivalent to 80,000 flights from London to Madrid, or taking 3,300 diesel cars off the road.’

While that statistic was applauded and derided in equal measure, it is proven that sending just one e-mail is estimated to produce 0.000001 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

That doesn’t sound a lot, admittedly; but say the average person sends 10 ‘unnecessary’ and ‘unactionable’ e-mails every week, you quickly build up a far larger carbon footprint when looked at on a national level.And let’s be totally honest, how many of us send 10 ‘unnecessary’ e-mails every day, let alone every week?

And not only how many do we needlessly send, how many useless ones do we receive daily? Not just unwanted spam, but e-mails from work colleagues and friends? I know this for sure: the carbon footprint generated by nonsense e-mails sent to newspapers is huge. Greta would be furious if she knew.

Look at the following, a small sample of the cyber rubbish sent to The News sport e-mail in the past week. And yes, I know none mentions sport – that’s my point.

One told me I could ‘survive comfortably for 30 days on a budget of £265’ if I wanted to self-isolate amid coronavirus fears. This contained £40 for ‘weekend drinks’. Whoever compiled this nonsense has obviously never drunk with a journalist…

Another was entitled ‘Six ways to create a sustainable garden’. One of these informed me ‘by growing your own food and eating what’s in season you will eliminate the need to go to the supermarket.’ Never!

Another e-mail sent to The News sport e-mail was titled: ‘Five steps pet owners can take to discourage cats from killing birds and other wildlife.’

The fifth step I would never have thought of – namely, ‘keep your cat inside the house’.

Another e-mail contained advice on ‘How to keep your trainers looking as good as new’.

The first suggestion was, and I quote: ‘If your trainers are looking muddy and grubby, wipe them with a dry cloth to get off any loose dirt.’

Again, genius information and well worth adding to the world’s carbon footprint problem.

I’m staggered that anyone would be paid to come up with this complete tosh.

One random e-mail that had nothing to do with sport which I did enjoy receiving concerned the weird things people have handed in to charity shops in the past 12 months.

Among the items ‘donated’ were the following:

1 A taxidermied owl, holding a taxidermied mouse;

2 Wedding photo albums... and a blood-stained wedding dress;

3 Several tins of octopus, apparently from somebody’s holiday in Spain.

The latter came with this hilarious comment from a shop assistant: ‘We don’t accept food donations, but they thought we could raise up to six squid from them.’

It’s not a barrel of laughs at News HQ, as you can now see...