Email signatures are harming the planet and could cost people their lives (techxplore.com)

In terms of excessive energy use, email signatures are the least of anyone's problems compared with what has happened to the web.

There’s also the lost productivity caused by what’s essentially visual noise with no signal. Cluttering every message with non-related virtue signaling is harmful because it makes recipients filter the message from all the words.

I remember doing CX debate in high school, and one of the things you could use to counter arguments is "disads" - disadvantages to any proposed plans. The way the rules worked, the affirmative team would theoretically have to counter any argument against their proposal, no matter how dumb - so one tactic was to throw out a ton of disads at them, that would technically apply to any proposal.

This definitely feels like a stupid disad my partner and I would have written, and had ready on an index card.

I can't stand being in email threads where someone's signature is full of icons that come through as attachments. It's unnessessary clutter that looks terrible on the receiving end.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

The most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a carbon tax. But there is no global tax authority nor any feasible way to legitimize such a thing. Any country that taxes itself over a global problem will disadvantage its economy and people. If a country decarbonizes it’s often by off-shoring heavy industry and importing the finished goods. Canada’s new administration just got rid of their carbon tax.