Newsweek - Millions across England were told to delete their emails to save water during a "nationally significant incident." England has experienced its driest six months leading up to July since 1976—five areas are officially in drought and six are experiencing prolonged dry weather.
The National Drought Group met on Monday and part of its advice was to delete old emails and pictures "as data centers require vast amounts of water to cool their systems."
Deleting emails may not seem the answer to drought, but it is true that the underlying data center infrastructure consumes significant water and energy to cool servers, which run constantly to store and process global internet traffic, including personal emails.
In 2021, Google's data center in The Dalles, Oregon, used 355 million gallons of water, according to the newspaper The Oregonian. This is enough water to fill roughly 538 Olympic-size swimming pools.
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