The UK government urges Britons to delete emails and photos to conserve water

UK suggests deleting emails to save water, despite doubts on its effectiveness.

: The United Kingdom is experiencing a significant drought, with five areas already in official drought status and six more facing prolonged dry weather. The National Drought Group has released guidelines for water conservation, which surprisingly include deleting old emails and photos due to the extensive water used by data centers. Despite the controversy surrounding this suggestion, concerns are raised about its actual impact, as data retrieval may use more resources. Additionally, the suggestion to curb AI usage due to its considerable water consumption also highlights the UK government's contradictory stance on AI expansion.

The UK government is addressing a significant water shortage caused by sustained hot and dry weather, marking the driest period since 1976. The National Drought Group has stepped in to provide guidance on how citizens can conserve water. While usual measures like limiting shower time and fixing leaks are advised, a peculiar recommendation has ignited debate: deleting old emails and photos to reduce water consumption by data centers. This directive emerges from the fact that data centers globally consume approximately 560 billion liters of water annually to cool their systems.

Although this guidance is novel, its efficiency is questioned as deleting stored data might not considerably decrease data center cooling needs. Britain's current drought status is recognized as a 'nationally significant incident,' with elements like heat reclamation processes proving that the real-time energy and water usage may increase with attempts to alter backup data. Moreover, there is uncertainty about whether the remote locations of data centers storing Britons' data might fall outside the UK, thus, impacting water usage less directly within the country.

The controversy extends to the potential excessive energy use if citizens start searching for data to delete from their cloud backups, leading to more immediate resource consumption. Therefore, critics argue that these actions may not provide meaningful water conservation. Moreover, the suggestion seems more symbolic than practical, considering the cooling required after data storage is minimal, and heating escalation occurs mainly during data retrieval.

In a parallel concern, the report from Mistral AI indicates that scaling back the use of generative AI, which in a small application can use significant amounts of water and generate carbon emissions, might be a more impactful strategy for water saving. Yet, this suggestion contrasts sharply with the government's enthusiasm over AI technology, as they intend to expand its presence in the country.

British citizens and environmentalists have called for more impactful government-led initiatives to counteract the pressing climate crisis rather than relying on individual efforts that may produce only marginal gains. This debate echoes the call for broader actions to adapt infrastructure and industry to combat water wastage and tackle resource-intensive technologies effectively.

Sources: TechSpot, New Scientist, Gov.uk

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