gerrymcgovern

gerrymcgovern, 1 day ago to random

Electric vehicles are often presented as a key technology for drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus helping curb climate change.

But manufacturing electric cars requires the mining of critical minerals for batteries, like lithium and cobalt, that are largely sourced in developing countries. Local traditional and Indigenous communities say the mining is already harming their way of life, damaging biodiversity, and polluting.

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/green-credentials-of-electric-vehicles-come-under-fire/

gerrymcgovern, 1 day ago to random

In Mexico, the data gets water before the people. Is your community next?

Mexico’s water shortages have gotten so bad that even the police are blocking traffic. The officers stood blocking six lanes of traffic, saying their barracks hadn’t had water for a week, and that the bathrooms were unusable.
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-heatwave-drought-protests-monkey-deaths-6310778f139ef786a8c70301fb340bd5

Mexico poised to become significant player in global digital services, with plans for the construction of up to 73 new water guzzling data centers
https://banderasnews.com/mexicos-data-center-boom-potential-hub-and-economic-boost/

gerrymcgovern, 2 days ago to random

"Insects and birds are disappearing at rates of 1–2% per year. The U.S. and Canada have lost an estimated 3 billion birds since 1970. Things aren’t looking great, and the alarm bells are getting louder as the mounting crisis becomes ever-more apparent. For large population declines, absolute losses can appear to be moderating, but only because fewer critters are left to eliminate."
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-22/growth-or-scale/

Devourers. What we call progress, wildlife call ecocide. We think we don't need Nature.

gerrymcgovern, 2 days ago to random

"By 2027, global AI demand may be accountable for 4.2 – 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal, more than the total annual water withdrawal of half of the United Kingdom when taking account of the combined scope 1 and scope 2 operational water withdrawal," Yang said. The immense water demand from data centers in areas where water resources are scarce could spark "increased competition can strain water availability, even causing data center closures."

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/jpm-predicts-global-ai-data-centers-will-consume-681-olympic-sized-pools-fresh-water

gerrymcgovern, 2 days ago to random

AI Big Tech practices modern day slavery in poor countries. If you're surprised by this, you're not paying attention.

"US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers. In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery."

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/open-letter-to-president-biden-from-tech-workers-in-kenya/

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

"Generative AI is getting more advanced by the day. During the course of my reporting, I was shown deepfake videos, purportedly portraying global leaders like U.S. President Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, that were indistinguishable from the real thing. They included politicians allegedly speaking in multiple languages and saying things that, if true, would have ended their careers."

https://www.politico.eu/article/artificial-intelligence-elections-ballots-vote-chinsinau-seattle-policymakers-technology/

Never has there been a technology that can lie so well.

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

AI: The best liar ever designed. Incredible innovation and progress.

"An AI algorithm found a way to achieve its objective in a research experiment — by hacking its own code. Tasked with winning a simple game that involved strategic deception, the AI discovered an unanticipated workaround to triumph, according to a new paper in the journal Patterns."

https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2024/ai-breaks-its-own-code-win-glitch-reveals-new-challenge/

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

In the words of Ursula Le Guin “[the] power [of capitalism] seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings”.

"Growth and its attendant social structure has shaped the core of the modern Western subject, it has also become evident that a break away from this model will require not merely an economic shift, but the root-and-stem refashioning of our very selves—our practices, common senses, needs and values.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-21/life-after-growth-a-peek-into-values-needs-and-time-for-degrowth/

Leave the Growth Death Cult
Degrowth is the only hope

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

Why are we giving the richest and most powerful companies in the world tax breaks, half-price water and half-price electricity? Why does Google, Facebook and Microsoft have to be on corporate welfare?

"Environmental groups warn that without ratepayer protections, average Michigan taxpayers may be burdened with hefty costs to support data centers, akin to supporting entire cities."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/environmental-groups-raise-concerns-data-164440393.html

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

‘Climate capitalism’ can help scale green solutions, new book says

"Some people say that the title of your book is an oxymoron — that, in a sense, capitalism is the root cause of the rapid growth of industrialization."

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/climate-capitalism-can-help-scale-green-solutions-new-book-says

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

"The digital world gobbles up 10 per cent of the world’s electricity and represents more than four per cent of global emissions. That’s more than the civil aviation industry. Within a year or two it will account for 20 per cent of global electrical production and nearly eight per cent of greenhouse gas emissions."
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-05-21/no-ai-wont-outsmart-our-climate-calamity/

That's the tip of the melting iceberg. The digital world is an advertising machine whose key objective is to drive overconsumption--the key cause of collapse.

gerrymcgovern, 3 days ago to random

"The world’s data centres are using ever more electricity. In 2022, they gobbled up 460 terawatt hours of electricity, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects this to double in just four years. Data centres could be using a total of 1,000 terawatts hours annually by 2026. “This demand is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan,” says the IEA. Japan has a population of 125 million people."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj5ll89dy2mo

gerrymcgovern, 4 days ago to random

Since 1970, there has been a:
49% decline in marine life
50% decline in insects
63% decline in Irish birds
66% decline in wildlife
69% decline in vertebrates
83% decline in freshwater species

Dams and mining key cause of freshwater fish collapse.

Dams?

Is that where we get our sustainable, clean, green energy from?

Mining?

Don't we have to mine those green metals?

The Green Transition: killing everything on earth so humans can keep consuming, sorry, devouring

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/21/living-planet-index-migratory-freshwater-fish-populations-decline-dams-weirs-mining-water-abstraction-pollution-threat-aoe

gerrymcgovern, 4 days ago to random

Microsoft reveals AI-powered ‘Recall’ spyware feature to transform your Windows 11’s experience and spy on everything you do every moment of every day. Microsoft justified their AI-driven year-on-year 20% water increase and 30% CO2 increase by saying: "Spying doesn't come cheap."

The AI tech bro future just keeps on getting brighter and brighter.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-reveals-ai-powered-recall-feature-to-transform-windows-11s-searchability-while-confirming-hardware-requirements

gerrymcgovern, 5 days ago to random

"Indigenous peoples around the world have long understood that international structures and laws were created without their inclusion, and in some cases, with the deliberate aim of further excluding them. Indeed, these structures, imposed across almost all parts of the world, have colonial origins."
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/amplifying-indigenous-voices-at-the-global-level-interview-with-dario-mejia-montalvo/

gerrymcgovern, 5 days ago to random

"More than 70 human rights defenders in Ecuador, including indigenous leaders, were criminally charged for opposing these projects and criticizing the way consultations are held. In recent weeks, environmental activists and residents in communities affected by mining have staged days of resistance against the La Plata project, run by Atico Mining."
https://www.plenglish.com/news/2024/05/20/ecuadorian-indigenous-people-to-mobilize-against-mining-violence/

A classic tactic of the mining oligarchs is to work with the courts to criminalize the environmental protectors.

gerrymcgovern, 5 days ago to random

"AI models take in inputs and produce outputs, but the logic and data used to reach those results are not accessible, making it difficult — or even impossible — to fully see how they operate."

https://builtin.com/articles/black-box-ai

We're giving our future over to this? A water guzzling, energy sucking, material chomping monster that can't stop lying and we can't even find out how it made up its lies.

This is progress?

This is innovation?

Wake up.

This is a grift.

This is a scam.

This is a con.

gerrymcgovern, 5 days ago to random

Apple’s ‘next CEO’ says EU’s right-to-repair laws risk forcing ‘bad decisions’ on product design

John Ternus says firm is on the path to sustainability but debate lacks ‘nuance’
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/apples-next-ceo-says-eus-right-to-repair-laws-risk-forcing-bad-decisions-on-product-design/a465200648.html

The company that gave us irreparable toxic earbuds talk about bad design.

Apple is on "path to sustainability" like all Big Tech

Big Tech: the wudda shudda cudda saved the environment crowd.

Apple, through its unrelenting greed, tried to kill Right to Repair multiple times.
Greed
Greed
Greed

gerrymcgovern, 5 days ago to random

AI is a lie making machine that could kill you

AI is a grift

AI is a scam on multiple levels. From Big Tech, to the AI designers, all the way down. A scam, grift, dangerous con.

"Any readers looking to try to use these books to figure out which mushrooms were safe to eat and which weren’t would be out of luck, which to Trybuch was seriously concerning. “It could literally mean life or death” if you eat the wrong mushroom, he says."

https://www.vox.com/24141648/ai-ebook-grift-mushroom-foraging-mycological-society

gerrymcgovern, 6 days ago to random

I’ve been working with Web content since the mid-Nineties, and it has always had a content quality and maintenance problem. 95 out of 100 organizations I have worked with (and I’ve worked with some of the biggest organizations in the world in some 40 countries), they wanted to publish, publish, publish; nearly never to maintain. The Web is a launch-and-leave junkyard. And every year the percentage of content there that has simply been left to rot, it grows and grows.

https://gerrymcgovern.com/web-content-has-a-maintenance-problem/

gerrymcgovern, 6 days ago to random

"Degrowth calls for an organized slowing down of society, to minimize harm to humans and other species. Degrowth and post-growth proponents conceive economic growth as a major driver of environmental degradation. Beyond a certain scale, the economy is seen to enter into conflict with ecological life-support systems, the costs of growth accelerate, and environmental conflicts multiply."

https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(24)00146-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590332224001465%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

gerrymcgovern, 6 days ago to random

Projected electricity demand in the U.S. Northwest will likely grow by 30 percent in the next decade, a growth rate faster than previously expected. The increased demand is in part due to the large number of data centers being built in the region.

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2024/05/129067-northwest-power-demand-could-surge-data-centers-transportation-electrification

gerrymcgovern, 6 days ago to random

Tech heroes powering net-zero: AI & the race against climate change

The sickening propaganda spewing out of Siemens

"Time remains the great, unstoppable force. It can be our ally and enabler – one of Tolstoy’s “most powerful warriors”. It unites us all in the race to net-zero."

https://www.siemens.com/global/en/company/insights/tech-heroes-powering-net-zero-ai-and-the-race-against-climate-change.html

As the super-greedy Growth Death Cult destroys everything good in this life, let us at least give them our contempt and scorn.

gerrymcgovern, 6 days ago to random

What Microsoft says: We're going to be so zero zero, so environmentally conscious. We're just beautiful, kind people, so caring.

What Microsoft does: We use 20% more water every year and cause 30% more CO2 pollution every year because we're a Super Greedy Corp and we're all in on AI and destroying the environment, every last blade of grass, if we can. And it's all inevitable. Nothing you or any government can do to stop us.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-emissions-ai-datacenters

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

When Big Tech is challenged on its energy, material and water use, it's response is always that its working on being more efficient, finding ways to keep growing but in a "greener" way.

We must challenge the Growth Death Cult.

Our environment simply cannot cope with this incessant growth of data, data centers, servers, chips, smartphones, laptops, earbuds.

There is no infinite growth on a finite planet. Driven by Big Tech, we have already bust past multiple boundaries.

It's not sustainable.