Folks in the UK are doing it tough right now with droughts sweeping the country. The situation has gotten so bad the government has declared it a "nationally significant incident." Alongside a release with advice on how residents can help save water. Some of these suggestions are great ideas but included amongst them is advice so out of touch I'm beginning to think they found it on a series of tubes.
Tom's Hardware spotted the odd suggestion from the UK government which instructs citizens to "Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems." It's especially odd advice coming from a government that wants to go all in on AI and other notoriously water-hungry technologies. It falls in line with the usual key tactic for many large groups when it comes to environmental accountability: shift blame and responsibility to the individual despite their efforts being miniscule in comparison.
It's a lot like what many countries, including my own, experienced with recycling. We were taught how to stringently separate waste and diligently dispose of it correctly. Almost all of the waste sneakily still went to regular landfill as we didn't have facilities to process it. We were told we were saving the world while a billionaire flew over in a jet doing more damage than I could with a million plastic straws. More plastics were sold because we thought we were recycling them. Don't forget to delete those emails.
This advice from the UK government rings the same, because not only will deleting your data be very unlikely to help with water conservation, it could wind up doing the opposite. It's no lie that datacentres are high users of water, storing your data isn't something that uses much of it. Instead, water is likely used in evaporative cooling situations which are more likely to be triggered by more computing intensive acts. Things like generative AI processes, not holding a few jpegs.
The act of looking through what you have stored in one of these centres and deleting things would likely use more water than if you had forgotten they existed in the first place. There's also no guarantee that your data is even stored in the UK, so it could be another country's water you're wasting or saving. Don't worry though, you can always tell your AI MP all about your disolusion.
Despite that confusing advice, other tips on the website are a fair bit more sensible. As someone who grew up in the desert often with water restrictions, using rainwater, fixing leaks, reusing grey water, and generally being mindful of taps are great ways to save water. Even taking a shorter shower is pretty good actionable advice, and far more likely to help than deleting your emails.
