A penny per email could curb our enormous data use

Mike McClelland proposes a 1p charge for messages in response to an article on the downside of Ireland’s datacentre boom. Plus a letter from Sue Stephenson

The long read (Power grab: the hidden costs of Ireland’s datacentre boom, 15 February) highlights the enormous cost in terms of energy consumption and carbon emissions of our collective love affair with the seemingly free ability to send emails, text and WhatsApp messages every minute of the day. There is an enormous cost to us all in terms of data storage – a fact of which we are barely cognisant.

Think how much money could be raised to counter the impact on our environment if we all paid just one penny for each digital message we blithely send. And tuppence if there is an attachment, and thruppence if it includes a digital photo of the meal you ate at a restaurant last night.

We’ll never stop digital communication, but we would think more carefully about what we send, particularly where group messaging and emailing is involved. I would gladly pay a penny for this email communication that I’ve just sent you – still a hundred times cheaper than sending it via snail mail.

Cover photo: ‘Think how much money could be raised to counter the impact on our environment if we all paid just one penny for each digital message we blithely send.’ Photograph: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek/Getty Images