Notices by Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)

@Bredroll 100%. You've said the word: frivolity. There is so much waste and so much low level data, and so much data that's just designed to create addiction. So much data designed for misinformation. It is waste and abuse on multiple levels

"A data center with 15 megawatts of IT capacity is estimated to use about 80-130 million gallons of water each year. That is as much water as three hospitals"

"The majority of the water directly withdrawn and used for cooling is drinkable water from the local water supply."

https://www.asianometry.com/p/the-big-data-center-water-problem?publication_id=38270&post_id=151923390&isFreemail=true&r=3g47a&triedRedirect=true

2022: Microsoft's water consumption leapt 34%

2021: Water consumption jumped by 13%

These are astonishing figures.

"Tech and AI are changing the climate equation. Greenhouse gas emissions from some of the largest tech companies have already risen by about 50% in five years. Their electricity consumption has more than doubled. Some analysis suggests emissions from Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official tallies."

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/tech-ai-are-changing-climate-equation-worse

Big Tech is an environment destroyer. A devourer. It's appetite is doubling, doubling.

Why?

Greed.

Change the land, change the climate

Forests are rainmakers.

Cut down the forests and you increase droughts and floods.

"The Maracaibo basin in northern Venezuela, the northern Brazilian Amazon, and the Gran Chaco basin of Bolivia and Brazil are the regions with the largest land use changes and precipitation losses in South America."

https://eos.org/articles/south-america-is-drying-up

"The folly of cutting down trees and other plants for short-term profit afflicted the ancient world as well as our modern one, with new research suggesting that the extensive use of Arava desert vegetation to fuel the famous King Solomon’s copper mines at Timna caused both the industry, and the local environment, to eventually collapse. Ecological destruction wrought then can still be felt today."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/wood-cut-to-fuel-king-solomons-ancient-mines-caused-environmental-collapse-study/

More copper will be mined in next 30 years than in all previous history.

Data colonialism: A Microsoft AI Data Center Saps Water From A Small Mexican Town

After decades fighting against water bottling and beer companies, rural communities in Mexico are now also having to compete against Big Tech for water.

Development in the Global North has long come at the expense of the Global South as well as Black and indigenous frontline communities in places like Cancer Alley and Flint, Michigan.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/microsoft-ai-data-center-water-climate

"More than planting trees, we need to “grow” forests. Nature everywhere teaches us that life is a highly complex and rich phenomenon that requires us to respect nature’s rhythm and laws. Soil cover is essential to start correcting the hydrological cycle on land. Then come the shrubs in several layers and only later come the trees. Nature, left to its own devices, will green unfrozen continents everywhere, as it has done many times through geological time."

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/forest-modeling-misses-the-water-for-the-carbon-qa-with-antonio-nobre-anastassia-makarieva/

"Sustainable" biomass is suicidal on multiple levels.

Burning wood is worse than burning coal.

"The price of not performing such a stress test — or crash test — for global climate modeling could be very high: for if natural forests are key to climate stability due to their role in moisture transport, using them for biomass to lower CO2 emissions will only aggravate the climate situation."

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/forest-modeling-misses-the-water-for-the-carbon-qa-with-antonio-nobre-anastassia-makarieva/

"The number of data centers worldwide will surge from 10,978 in 2023 to more than double by 2030. In 2023, DC operators consumed 300 TWh of energy for cooling alone, a figure projected to increase threefold by 2030, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15%. This forecast underscores the significant challenges in powering and cooling new and existing data infrastructure."

https://digitalinfranetwork.com/news/ai-and-automation-push-data-centers-toward-3x-energy-growth-by-2030/

“We were surprised by the magnitude of the projected e-waste from AI"

“The e-waste generated by generative AI, particularly large language models, could increase dramatically – potentially reaching up to 2.5 million tons per year by 2030 if no waste reduction measures are implemented."

https://www.iflscience.com/e-waste-is-set-to-explode-over-the-next-decade-we-still-have-time-to-change-that-76777

A Google "data center consumes 450,000 gallons of water a day. But some of the newest centers consume 10 times that volume, as do some of the newest semiconductor fabs."

Google’s water consumption, for example, jumped 17% in 2023, compared to the year before.

The more stressed the world’s water supplies become, the greater the likelihood that water costs will rise for the data center industry.

This "is just starting to create compelling opportunities for investors."

https://investorplace.com/smartmoney/2024/11/ais-unquenchable-thirst-brings-opportunity/

"Hundreds of Indigenous people staged a protest march in the Brazil last week, voicing opposition to a congressional measure that will effectively dismiss indigenous land claims made after 5 October 1988 – the date of the promulgation of the country’s constitution."

https://macaonews.org/news/lusofonia/brazil-land-rights-constitution-bill-indigenous/

How human activity drove the Valencia tragedy.

“The moist, polluted layers of air pile up over the Mediterranean Sea, layer upon layer, day by day, three to five days at a time. Those layers, soupy with powerful greenhouse gases like water vapor and ozone, steadily warm the sea below, so that by the end of summer the warmed sea begins supercharging coastal storms.”

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-07-17/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-mediterranean-storms/

Why Valencia tragedy happened

“Every unrealized summer storm, every failure of the system to eject its heat and release its water to the life below, not only diminishes that life, but leads to more powerful storms in fall, winter and spring. Those storms then further erode what’s left of the land, deepening the cycle, as the land drifts ever closer to the critical threshold at which it collapses to desert.”

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-07-17/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-mediterranean-storms/

"Backed by the agribusiness and mining interests in the Brazilian legislature, PEC 48, along with PEC 36 and PL 4039, aim to block Indigenous land demarcation and open protected territories in the Amazon up to further extraction. This assault from anti-Indigenous factions in the Brazilian government continues to grow."

https://amazonwatch.org/news/2024/1031-a-luta-continua-indigenous-peoples-of-brazil-resist-attacks-against-their-constitutional-rights-in-brasilia

All over the world, the final assault on our environment is underway by the musks, trumps, putins, bolsonaros--and the greedy cults that follow them.

"Utah has dozens of data centers, and at least one covers 1.5 million square feet. Data centers guzzle water to keep their computers cool—and yet data about their water consumption in Utah is not readily available."

"The Lake has lost 60% of its surface area and 73% of its water. As its surface area shrinks, toxic dust is exposed, causing significant air pollution. As water flows into the Lake dwindle, salinity increases, harming brine fly and brine shrimp populations."
https://katiesinger.substack.com/p/rights-of-nature

"The animals were fleeing, so desperate... And the fear was clear in their eyes," she says. She recalls seeing bush dogs, deer, pacas, and clouds of insects moving away from the fire. "It destroyed many trees, drove the animals away... And I'm sure the natural remedies the villagers used were lost too," she laments.

Evidence points out that the fires started in illegal mining areas

https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/10/31/fire-in-the-kayapo-indigenous-land-brazil-s-most-scorched-territory

A mining boom is always environmentally devastating. Always.

"Much of the deep-sea lies beyond the jurisdiction of any one nation.

This area is known as the High Seas and makes up half our planet.

A new threat looms for this wild frontier that will impact us all.

Deep-Sea mining will cause irreversible damage to life in the deep ocean."

https://www.theoceanandus.org/the-ocean-hope-expedition.html

"Most of the minerals from copper to cobalt needed for The Green Transition’s machinery (including electric batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels) are located in Latin America and Africa. Worse yet, more than half (54%) of the critical minerals needed are on or near Indigenous lands, which means the most vulnerable populations in the world are at the most significant risk of being impacted in a deeply negative fashion by future mining and related operations."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/10/11/robbing-africas-riches-to-save-the-climate-and-power-ai/

E-waste from AI computers could 'escalate beyond control'
Fred Schwaller

Researchers predicting a thousand-fold increase in e-waste from AI computer servers by 2030 called for recycling strategies to reduce the environmental impact.

https://www.dw.com/en/e-waste-from-ai-computers-could-escalate-beyond-control/a-70619724

Recycling? E-waste recycling is a scam and a con like pretty much everything else in Big Tech these days.