The British government has urged people to “play their part” and delete old emails in a bid to lower internet server water usage amid drought conditions even as water companies nationwide lose 660 million gallons of water a day to leaks.
Following a meeting of the UK’s National Drought Group, the government’s Environment Agency has urged the public to begin mass deleting old emails and cloud photos.
While individual users clearing their inboxes or scrapping old photographs would likely have minimal impact, the agency claimed that a widespread effort could reduce the amount of water used to cool internet servers.
The government has said that despite recent rainfall, five areas of the country are currently in drought and a further six are in near-drought conditions as Britain has experienced the driest six months on record since 1976.
Urging the public to do their bit to conserve water, the Environment Agency’s Director of Water and NDG chair, Helen Wakeham, said: “The current situation is nationally significant, and we are calling on everyone to play their part and help reduce the pressure on our water environment.
“Water companies must continue to quickly fix leaks and lead the way in saving water. We know the challenges farmers are facing and will continue to work with them, other land users, and businesses to ensure everyone acts sustainably.
“We are grateful to the public for following the restrictions, where in place, to conserve water in these dry conditions. Simple, everyday choices – such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife.”
The call to delete old emails drew considerable backlash on social media, with users mocking the advice, including Daily Sceptic writer Ben Pile, who suggested that the energy used by people manually deleting their emails could outweigh that used to store the data, and therefore consume even more water.
Regardless, it is unclear how much water such an effort would save, with Facebook estimating that less than a third of a millimetre of water is used to store an email. Typically, water cooling systems such as those used to remove excess heat from computer servers are also sealed, recycling the water through a radiator rather than constantly needing a constant supply of fresh water and dumping used coolant in the sewers.
The government has already urged people to conserve water by using rain collections, fixing leaky toilets, turning off the taps while brushing teeth, and to cut down on shower time. Yet according to the government regulator, England’s water companies leak approximately 50 litres of water into the ground per person per day. This works out at a loss of 3,000 megalitres (660 million gallons) of water — one fifth of all treated water being lost before it can be used — that is simply lost into the ground from old damaged pipes every single day.
It comes amid increasing warnings about Britain’s infrastructure — in light of the adherence to leftist green policies — as the modern world and advances such as artificial intelligence are set to consume much higher levels of energy.
Indeed, government ministers were recently warned that if the UK plans to become an “AI superpower” as Prime Minister Starmer has suggested, it needs to be prepared to start using more fossil fuels and nuclear power, according to a report from POLITICO.
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