gerrymcgovern

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.

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

Hi Indigenous People. We're from the Green Transition and we're here to kill you and your children and destroy your environment because we need these green and clean metals, and you really don't want to get in our way. Have a nice day, now.

Mining tied to climate goals fueling human rights abuses, report says
https://www.eenews.net/articles/mining-tied-to-climate-goals-fueling-human-rights-abuses-report-says/

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

Mexico is suffering historic droughts and heatwaves. Mexico City is sinking because the aquifer is drying up.

Meanwhile, there is a "boom" in water intense data centers. The poor are going thirty, while the data drinks its fill.

"The data center market in Mexico is booming, with direct investment projections in excess of US$7 billion and an expected expansion of installed capacity from 81 MW to over 1000MW."
https://www.inprogroup.net/en/mexico-data-centers/

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

"Use of petroleum-based chemicals skyrocketed during the postwar era, most of them entering the market with little concern for safety. Now, mounting evidence links petrochemicals to the rapidly rising prevalence of a slew of chronic and deadly conditions, a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine warned earlier this month."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18032024/fossil-fuels-toxic-chemicals-deadly-diseases/

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

The Cloud is more efficient at ... destroying our environment.

"While it is more efficient for companies to store their data in a shared centre rather than operating their own, these buildings are highly energy intensive. They rely on a continuous power supply and water-intensive cooling systems to keep the equipment functioning properly. This is not helped by the fact that many data centres are built in drought-stricken desert locations."

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/05/16/microsofts-emissions-soar-by-30-why-is-it-building-more-data-centres-and-what-is-their-imp

gerrymcgovern, 8 days ago to random

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."

https://au.pcmag.com/news/105283/microsofts-emissions-spike-29-as-ai-gobbles-up-resources

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.

gerrymcgovern, 9 days ago to random

Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news. The largest study ever carried out on social media deactivation has found that disconnecting lowers users political participation and also their propensity to believe misinformation
https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-05-14/deactivating-facebook-for-just-a-few-weeks-reduces-belief-in-fake-news.html

European Commission opens formal proceedings against Meta under the Digital Services Act related to the protection of minors on Facebook and Instagram
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_2664

gerrymcgovern, 9 days ago to random

"In 2020, Microsoft made an ambitious commitment to make its operations carbon negative within a decade, removing more carbon from the environment than it emits each year. But four years in, the carbon footprint for the cloud, software and gaming giant keeps expanding. Depending on how you tally Microsoft’s greenhouse gas emissions, they’re now between 29% and 40% higher than when CEO Satya Nadella made his pledge."

https://www.geekwire.com/2024/microsofts-carbon-footprint-keeps-growing-as-ai-drives-data-center-expansions/

gerrymcgovern, 10 days ago to random

Microsoft's jaw-dropping nauseous greenwashing

Microsoft’s AI Push Imperils Climate Goal as Carbon Emissions Jump 30%

The company’s goal to be carbon negative by 2030 is harder to reach, but President Brad Smith says the good AI can do for the world will outweigh its environmental impact.
https://revealnews.org/article/what-california-can-learn-from-saudi-arabias-water-mystery/

Ah, Brad, Brad, pull the other one, fella. Maybe for once in your life could you be honest? It's the good AI will do your stock price. That's all you care about.

gerrymcgovern, 10 days ago to random

"While Michigan does not have many data centers, research from other states shows that once established, data centers are often the largest users of water in a community, Sean McBrearty, Michigan director of Clean Water Action said. He explained large data centers typically use between 1 million and 2.5 million gallons of water a day. This is because they use evaporative cooling technology, which is the cheapest way to cool the heat generated by the center’s equipment."
https://michiganadvance.com/2024/05/14/enviros-push-back-on-bills-giving-tax-breaks-to-data-centers/

gerrymcgovern, 10 days ago to random

"While many of the AI CEOs in Silicon Valley focus their attention on far-off existential catastrophes, researchers and technologists—especially women of color—have been calling attention to the discriminatory harms AI is already causing today. Yet the AI industry continues to ignore these immediate liabilities in favor of a theoretical future and engages in blatant greenwashing, redirecting concern by highlighting the supposed climate benefits of the technology."

https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AI_Climate_Disinfo_v6_031224.pdf

gerrymcgovern, 11 days ago to random

Why has water become such an issue for AI and data centers?

Because for years, Big Tech boosted energy efficiency and reduced CO2 by using more and more water.

It also "reduced" CO2 by causing a massive increases in e-waste.

There is the huge danger in focusing only on CO2. To reduce CO2, we often degrade other life systems such as water, soil, biodiversity.

CO2 is increasingly being used for greenwashing.

We must measure the total cost to the environment, not just part of the cost.

gerrymcgovern, 11 days ago to random

"Training GPT-3 at Microsoft’s state-of-the-art US data centres would consume 700,000 litres of clear freshwater. This is due to sheer scale of an operation that Microsoft has revealed contains supercomputers with 10,000 graphics cards and more than 285,000 processor cores. That’s a conservative estimate, because training could also be done at the company’s less efficient Asian data centres. If that’s the case, water consumption could be tripled to 4.9 million litres."
https://ca.style.yahoo.com/news/ai-chatbots-guzzle-enormous-amounts-104503976.html

gerrymcgovern, 11 days ago to random

"Degrowth implies a planned contraction of energy and resource demands as a path towards social justice and ecological sustainability. There is a growing literature on the theoretical aspects of degrowth, however, this chapter uses the rise of tool libraries as part of the degrowth movement to shed light on pathways challenging the alienated and fetishised social relations that lie at the heart of the social and ecological degradation of the Capitalocene."

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110778359-012/html

gerrymcgovern, 12 days ago to random

“They almost annihilated us, and that genocide continues. To destroy the environment you have to destroy the people who protect it.”
Juan Benito Mancias, Indigenous Texan

All over the world, right this very moment, industrial civilization is coming for the last of the Indigenous. They are seeking to finish the job their colonial ancestors started, often under the banner of the Green Transition, of clean, green and renewable energy. It is a twin attack.

dimillian, 12 days ago to random

So? Breathing is consuming a lot of air. Slow down breathing please.

From: @gerrymcgovern
https://mastodon.green/@gerrymcgovern/112433747877755267

gerrymcgovern, 12 days ago to random

"ChatGPT consumes a lot of energy in the process, up to 25 times more than a Google search. Additionally, a lot of water is also used in cooling for the servers that run all that software. Per conversation of about 20 to 50 queries, half a litre of water evaporates – a small bottle, in other words."

AI is predicted to consume twice as much energy as the whole of France by 2030

Training GPT3, took 1,287 MWh (Megawatt hours) of electricity.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/1042696/chatgpt-consumes-25-times-more-energy-than-google