gerrymcgovern

gerrymcgovern, 18 days ago to random

Since 1970, there has been a:

49% decline in marine life

50% decline in insects

66% decline in wildlife

69% decline in vertebrates

83% decline in freshwater species

Birds: 60% decline in Ireland in 50 years

Lions: 90% decline in Ghana in 40 years

Forest elephant: 60% decline in 12 years

Leatherback turtle: 95% decline in 20 years

SEI whale: 50% decline in 20 years (47 left)

Earthworms: 33% decline in UK in 20 years

Mammals:

3% wildlife

97% humans and livestock

Is this progress?

gerrymcgovern, 16 days ago to random

Threats against Amazonian communities and their leaders are on the rise.

“I’m Miguel Guimaraes Vasquez, of the Shipibo Konibo Indigenous people and currently the Vice President of AIDESEP. Recently, people entered my house violently, burning windows, and painting a written threat that ‘You won’t live.’ It’s concerning because as Indigenous leaders and defenders of human rights, we are the visible face of the movement."

https://amazonwatch.org/news/2024/0530-a-message-of-thanks-from-indigenous-earth-defender-miguel-guimaraes

gerrymcgovern, 16 days ago to random

"Europe generated more e-waste per capita than any other region in the world, while at the same time boasting the highest collection and recycling rates. By contrast, most developing countries generate significantly less e-waste per capita and have a thriving repair culture."
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-right-to-repair-aims-to-shrink-e-waste-pile/a-69165311

Lots of e-waste from Europe and North America gets collected and then dumped in poor countries. E-waste is a toxic scandal.

gerrymcgovern, 16 days ago to random

"The study also raises concerns about AI’s impact on inequality. While some argue that AI will free up workers for higher-skilled jobs, Acemoglu suggests this may not be the case. In fact, he posits that AI could disproportionately harm certain already disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, as AI creates new opportunities for those who own and develop the technology, the gap between the rich and the poor is likely to widen, he suggests."

https://workplaceinsight.net/mit-professor-pours-cold-water-on-the-prevailing-hype-about-ai-and-the-economy/

gerrymcgovern, 16 days ago to random

The staggering electricity demand needed to power next-generation technology is forcing the US to rely on yesterday’s fuel source: coal. Retirement dates for the country’s ageing fleet of coal-fired power plants are being pushed back as concerns over grid reliability and expectations of soaring electricity demand force operators to keep capacity online.
US slows plans to retire coal-fired plants as power demand from AI surges, Amanda Chu, The Financial Times, 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/ddaac44b-e245-4c8a-bf68-c773cc8f4e63

gerrymcgovern, 16 days ago to random

"Committing to the “no buy year,” -- people put themselves on a self-imposed break from spending money on extraneous purchases, she bent the rules by purchasing a $2 notebook in order to break down what the next 12 months would look like. On the first page, Szot wrote out her monthly bills, her income, and her debt. The second page she divided into categories: necessities, needs, and no needs. Anytime she made a purchase, it went into one of these three categories."

https://atmos.earth/on-consumerism-and-the-rise-of-the-no-buy-year/

gerrymcgovern, 17 days ago to random

"Tiehm’s buckwheat is a rare wildflower that lives on one site in Esmeralda County. The proposed Rhyolite Ridge Lithium Mine would destroy its habitat and surround it with an industrial open-pit mining operation. Experts will discuss how this would irrevocably degrade the flower’s habitat and lead it to likely extinction, in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Reports on dust deposition, pit wall stability and hydrology will be presented."
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/press-conference-monday-highlights-plant-extinction-indigenous-concerns-of-rhyolite-ridge-mine-2024-05-30/

gerrymcgovern, 17 days ago to random

"If we assume the same size piece of silicon wafer for a computer chip, the most modern 2nm process technology requires significantly more electricity (x3.5) and ultra-pure water (x2.3) for production compared to the older 28nm technology. Greenhouse gas emissions (in CO2 equivalents) increase 2.5 times (per computer chip)."

https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/05/30/chip-production-in-the-multi-crisis/

gerrymcgovern, 17 days ago to random

Water and power supply remain a major challenge in Johor, despite the southernmost state in Peninsular Malaysia experiencing a boom in data centres due to its proximity to Singapore and the spillover effects of the US-China trade war, according to Johor Bahru city council (MBJB) Mayor Datuk Mohd Noorazam Osman.

"People are too hyped about data centres nowadays."

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/713622

gerrymcgovern, 19 days ago to random

So, this guy takes out his new AI phone from Samsung and takes a photo of the table we're sitting at. Then he does some magic stuff with his AI and shows me the picture.

"Look," he says to me. "There are three glasses on the table and in the picture there are five. Isn't AI amazing!" And he laughed.

And all I could think was that this is happening in millions of places every minute of the day. All this energy. All this water. All these materials.

Destroying our environment for this?

baldur, 17 days ago to random

For some reason, I’m brought back to the moment when I, then a teenager, told my uncle my mom had bought a “big car”

He got excited and asked me what kind of jeep it was. “What kind? Land Rover? Hope it isn’t a Toyota Land Cruiser. Those are garbage.”

He visibly deflated when I told him it was a cheap Daihatsu—only big compared to the previous cars we had owned: a Lada, one of the smallest Fiats ever made, and a battered original Mini held together by duct tape and literal moss growth.

gerrymcgovern, 17 days ago to random

"The Jaw-dropping environmental impact of Large-Language-Models (LLMs). Assuming static usage of 100 million weekly active users (ex. OpenAI chatGPT) and just 5 queries per user per week, the total energy consumption for operating an LLM like GPT-3.5 is staggering—around 44,200 MWh per year."

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kaushlendratrivedi_digitalsustainability-ai-climatechange-activity-7197497699351302144-tZYn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

gerrymcgovern, 18 days ago to random

The tech bro who created the Great Big Lying Machine was fired for outright lying.

Altman admitted that the initial training set for ChatGPT was an enormous data set of his own lies that he had collected over a three year period. But that could be a lie.

"OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was fired for 'outright lying,' says former board member. Helen Toner also revealed the board found out ChatGPT had been released via social media."

https://mashable.com/article/open-ai-board-why-fired-sam-altman-helen-toner-podcast

gerrymcgovern, 18 days ago to random

"While Big Tech wrings its hands about things like greenhouse gas emissions, IT teams out in the trenches aren't nearly as concerned about the eco-sustainability of their infrastructure. In fact, just 16.7 percent of the 2,869 IT professionals surveyed around the world this season by The Register considered sustainability a top issue, and only 38.7 percent considered it a priority at all."
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/28/register_it_sustainability/

The tech industry is full of cynical greenwashers.

gerrymcgovern, 18 days ago to random

"The crazy idea is “degrowth communism,” a combination of two concepts that are contentious on their own. Degrowth holds that there will always be a correlation between economic output and carbon emissions, so the best way to fight climate change is for wealthy nations to cut back on consumption and reduce the “material throughput” that creates demand for energy and drives GDP."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/kohei-saito-degrowth-communism/678481/

An even crazier idea: let's keep growing on a finite planet.

gerrymcgovern, 19 days ago to random

"People who rhapsodise about AI driven healthcare often seem to have little appreciation of how the functionality and user experience of our present systems lags decades behind consumer technology that we take for granted. Systems that are notionally paperless are actually a mishmash of digital and analogue, with vital information trapped in non-searchable PDFs and scanned letters."

https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q1171