Save Water by DELETING Emails!
76This has to be some of the most absurd official statements that I've seen. There is a national drought in the UK apparently, and there's a press release to people discussing about that national drought. That's not what makes this post insane. What makes this post insane is this claim right here.
"How to save water at home."
The guide starts off innocently enough. If you want to save water, you can install a rain butt to collect rainwater for the garden. I mean if we have rain already, we'd already be in abundance of water. You can also fix a leaking toilet, use dish waste water for your plants, avoid watering your lawn-- wait what? That's how you deal with the drought? Not caring about the lives of plants? Turn off the taps when brushing teeth or shaving. Aren't people already doing that? Take shorter showers because I guess people shower too long.
And finally, the most absurd request of them all, delete old emails and pictures as data centers require vast amounts of water to cool their systems. Whoever wrote that needs to get their facts checked. So, I will. If you haven't seen a data center or a server room in your life, they are put in rooms where they have air conditioning to make sure that they do not run super-hot because they tend to run super-hot. Oh yes, some data centers do use cooling systems that use water, but they are not universal.
The funny thing is deleting emails and files might actually be increasing the energy because the servers will have to work to index and sync the files. So, most of you people are better off actually not deleting anything. There are certain operations that do require a lot of water for cooling, but storing files is not one of them.