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.
@gerrymcgovern@Mabande someone said EV cars are about preserving the automobile industry not the environment. Which given the evidence rings more true than not. EVs in buses and semis and more trains will do far more on a wide scale than the changes automobiles would bring (like having to rebuild all the roads)
“We walk for the water we need. If we don’t walk, who will give it to us?” asks Juan, a middle-aged man born in the Indigenous rural community of Maconí, Mexico. “It’s a four-hour journey each day to fetch water … Since last year, there hasn’t been rain, and this year it’s the same.” The bean crop has withered and there’s no corn to make tortillas, he told Ana Valdivia, an AI expert from the U.K.’s Oxford Internet Institute.
"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."
"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.
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."
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."
"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."
@gerrymcgovern I’m convinced half of the content I am being served by YouTube’s algorithm lately is AI generated in terms of story, script, visuals and narration. As soon as I sense it I leave the video (generally in the first few seconds of the video but some are quite convincing).
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."
‘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."
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.
I still drive a stick shift, if I drive at all. The fist lesson my father taught me about decelerating was to take my foot off the pedal, then to down shift as needed.
Stepping off the car-centric pathway is right. It’s central to economic and financial viability even without the climate crisis it played a hand in. It’s all positive and we have every reason to do it.
"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.
"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
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.
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
Techbros are an ancient & persistent threat to all living things.
There is no line they will not cross, no promise they will not break, no law they will not violate, no poison they will not sell, no life they will not enslave in pursuit of their madness.
The techbro recognizes no race, no culture, no nation, no moral code, no limits. There is only the next tool, the next machine, the next patent, the next project, the next cap raise, the funding round, the next IPO.
@beans_please@gerrymcgovern Patterns of consumption are already determined by structural factors; People can’t buy what isn’t produced. Why would we think that changing those structural factors to induce more sustainable patterns of consumption would result in some generalised outrage? As long as people can meet their needs, I don’t see there being any issue.
"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."
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.