As if Microsoft isn't doing enough damage to the environment, Windows 10 support ending could be an environmental disaster that puts 240 million PCs on the scrapheap
Microsoft needs to rethink Windows 10 support deadline, analyst firm warns
I will just change that PC to Linux, Win 11 ruined 2 PCs and is not stable or useful enough to run as it hogs all resources for whatever nefarious purpose they use it for....
"Degrowth advocates for policies that focus on economic and social metrics that can benefit both ecosystems and human well-being — infrastructure projects that have a smaller carbon footprint or use only native vegetation and stay open to the public — in other words, projects that serve both humans and nature, not just the market."
"In 1635, mining was introduced in Sápmi when a silver mine opened near Árjepluovve in Sweden. The impact on Sámi society was huge. Businessmen and settlers arrived from the south, while local Sámi were driven from their homes and used as coolies. Resistance was met with harsh repression. A special kind of water torture became notorious. Sámi were dragged along a rope underneath the ice of a frozen lake from one hole to another."
Sweden’s shameless pursuit of ”green minerals” generate a conflict with the Sami people
"Once again we, the Sami, will be forced, by a company owned by the Swedish state, to give up land, culture, Sami place names, traditions and future in the area where our ancestors have lived since ancient times. The Sami, the only recognised indigenous people in the European Union, is expected to carry the burden of the demand for ”green minerals” by EU politicians and industry."
“The cumulative effects of all these encroachments is basically that we don't have any more land to feed our reindeer. So the little that is remaining we need to protect,” Elle-Merete Omma told Ian Morse. Without land to feed reindeer, herders spend considerably on artificial fodder. Wind turbines repel herds, and thinned forests lack the lichens that reindeer depend on.
"The iPhone 14 Pro Max from 2022 (240 grams, 73-124 kg CO2eq) is almost twice the weight and between 32% and 125% more carbon-intensive than the iPhone 3G (133 grams, 55 kg CO2eq), its ancestor from 2008. So, fourteen years of technological progress have not managed to bring down the footprint of the main product made by a company acclaimed as one of the most innovative in the world."
"While one Google search requires approximately half a milliliter of water in energy, ChatGPT, an AI-powered natural language processing tool, uses approximately 500 milliliters of water for every 5 to 50 prompts. In addition, it’s estimated that technology firms will use an estimated 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water to run and cool data centers by 2027." https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ai-environmental-friend-or-foe-9400282/
Big Tech goes to huge efforts to deny academic institutions or other research bodies access to data that would help highlight the harm Big Tech does. “Without better transparency and more reporting on the issue, it’s impossible to track the real environmental impacts of AI models,” Kate Crawford, a research professor at USC Annenberg, who specializes in the societal impacts of AI, told the Financial Times.
E-waste colonialism: Israel dumps its e-waste in Palestine
"The rapid accumulation of electronic waste across the occupied Palestinian territory has prompted an investigation concerning its implications on the environment. This report will highlight the situation in Idhna, Deir Samit and Beit Awwa, three towns in Hebron that receive vast quantities of e-waste, most of which is transferred from Israel."
62 million tons. This is the volume of “e-waste” – generated worldwide in 2022. It is up 82% since 2010.
Having long gone to Asia, e-waste from Europe and the US is arriving in huge quantities in West Africa ports, in violation of international treaties. Ghana has seen the proliferation of informal open-air landfill sites that have come even closer to people’s homes after the dismantling of the massive Agbogbloshie scrapyard site in July 2021.
"For reference, the amount of compute used in frontier AI models has been increasing ~4x a year, and GPT-4 cost over $100 million to train. Major AI lab CEOs are predicting $1 billion and even $10 billion training runs. Only a select number of closed-source model providers (Google, Microsoft, etc.) will be able to underwrite these ever-increasing costs."
"The ‘legacy’ of older mines translates into environmental liabilities, as failures can cause leakages of toxic sludge or fuel into river systems, rapidly spreading over tens of thousands of hectares and contaminating ecosystems.
"By changing name or owner, companies often manage to escape responsibility for those liabilities, as legally that entity initially owning polluting mines might not exist anymore.
"The share of electricity consumption by Arizona data centers could more than double by 2030, per a new report from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).
This would be largely attributable to expanding use of energy-hogging generative AI models, per EPRI.
Stunning stat: AI queries, like ChatGPT requests, are estimated to require 10 times the electricity of traditional Google queries, EPRI found.
What good is AI if you don't have a planet to use it on?
Microsoft released its 2024 Sustainability Report on Wednesday, and it's mostly bad news. Last year, Microsoft's emissions went up 29%, and it used 23% more water, primarily due to "new technologies, including generative AI."
The Great Lying Machine is eating our environment and spewing out toxic misinformation. Big Tech has become a clear and present danger to all our futures.