spam...

Spam – not SPAM – is the stuff of evil Internet marketers. It’s bred in dark, dark spaces and spread to the intangible depths of E-mails and pop-up ads of YOUR computer. And today, I found out that spam’s got quite the environmental impact!

Well, I’d never actually eaten SPAM until today, but I thought it’d be the perfect occasion to make a SPAM & cheese melt and read through the new study put out by McAfee Inc. about spam.

According to them, approximately 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide are released in association with each spam message. McAfee, a security company, says that an estimated 62 trillion spam E-mails were sent last year, which equates to 33 billion kilowatt-hours of energy use. That’s enough juice to power 2.4 million U.S. homes for a year. Wow.

And what's worse: the 3 seconds it takes the end-user (YOU!) to view and delete each spam message represents 52 percent of the energy consumption associated with spam.

Of course McAfee conducted the study so individuals and businesses would buy their state-of-the-art spam filters. But at the same time, their study can be used as evidence for decision makers to rid the E-world of spam!

SC Magazine reports that back in November, one of the largest spam producers, McColo Inc., had its plug pulled by their Internet Service Provider. Apparently, spam levels dropped 70 percent the next day. ICF International, the group that performed the McAfee study, said the drop in November was equivalent to taking 2.2 million passenger vehicles off the road. But at the end of March, the level of spam was back to where it was in November.

So, I just opened a spam message titled “Amazing Seex Life,” and it read:

Is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit the democrats.
lincoln came forward as his opponent..

How to Open the Door to an Amazing Sex Life Learn more

But finally she added, i don't believe that, maida! Much
indeed. Anyway, in the end, after a lot of the time. My
household maintains a more dignified well, i'm sorry, answered
the man. I don't mean waroongawho had been named betsy was
therefore the oftrepeated signal of adieu to her faithful
the reader went on, that she could hardly fail eight yolks
of eggs, work it up very stiff with if i wed her, it is
chiefly his fault i never but when the morning advanced
towards noon all or one of the glacier sanatoriums for a
if she the road by a number of boys and men who were.

This is nonsense! Reading and deleting that emitted 0.3 grams of carbon dioxide -- the same amount of emissions from driving three feet in a car! How dare they? After finishing this can of SPAM and publishing this blog on spam, I'm sticking to Michael Pollan’s rule about not eating things that won’t eventually rot. There’s probably enough sodium in this can of SPAM to cure a whole pig.