Notices by Gerry McGovern (gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green)

Bitcoin is pure, pure evil

"Critics warn that bitcoin is becoming a multitrillion-dollar marketplace built on greed, wild speculation and criminality."

https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/bitcoin-boom-comes-with-huge-intensifying-environmental-footprint/

"For all the excitement about the electricity-intensive proof-of-work protocol used by Bitcoin giving way to the more frugal proof-of-stake principles used by Ethereum, the computing power being used to mine Bitcoin is currently roughly three times what it was two years ago."
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-07-30/bitcoin-devours-the-electricity-meant-for-the-world-s-poor

Texas AI centers guzzle 463 million gallons, now residents are asked to cut back on showers

"Amidst severe drought in Texas, a clash emerges as AI data centers consume millions of gallons of water daily. Microsoft's Stargate campus leads this surge, raising environmental concerns. Data centers in Central Texas used 463 million gallons in 2023-24 alone, enough for tens of thousands of homes."

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/texas-ai-data-centers-water-usage-texas-ai-centers-guzzle-463-million-gallons-now-residents-are-asked-to-cut-back-on-showers-ai-news/articleshow/122983253.cms

We are only at the very beginning of all this.

Theo Von: "I don’t talk to ChatGPT much myself because there’s no legal clarity about privacy.”

Sam Altman: "I think it makes sense.”

https://devicology.com/news/chatgpt-privacy-concerns-legal-issues-altman/9408/

The guy who sells ChatGPT thinks it makes sense not to chat with ChatGPT.

Says everything we need to know.

Big Tech thinks we're such awful fools. They're laughing at us.

Bitcoin is pure evil

Everyone is town is affected by the constant noise from the crypto facility, even the animals.

One resident told us: "Every person here is sick."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU

No free lunch from AI

We're all paying heavily so that the tech bro billionaires can billionaire

"This summer, across a vast stretch of the eastern United States, monthly home electric bills jumped. In Trenton, New Jersey, the bill for a typical home rose $26. In Philadelphia, it increased about $17. In Pittsburgh, it went up $10. And in Columbus, Ohio, it spiked $27."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here-s-who-s-paying-for-the-explosion-in-ai-and-cloud-computing/ar-AA1JncI0

“One AI Video Burns More Power Than Your House”: Shocking Energy Cost Sparks Outcry as Critics Say “This Is Digital Arson”

"When it comes to multimodal tasks, such as generating a five-second AI video, the numbers skyrocket. This process requires approximately 3.4 million joules or 2.9 kilowatt-hours of energy, equivalent to three and a half hours of continuous cooking."

https://www.energy-reporters.com/environment/one-ai-video-burns-more-power-than-your-house-shocking-energy-cost-sparks-outcry-as-critics-say-this-is-digital-arson/

The AI data centers will destroy rural USA

"Almost overnight it seems, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become “an integral part of modern society, revolutionizing industries, enhancing daily life, and driving economic growth”. At least that’s the hype."

https://arkvalleyvoice.com/why-rural-america-may-be-rightfully-worried-about-the-growth-of-data-centers/

Freshwater loss is “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.”

"The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster. More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater."

Meanwhile, a typical AI interaction consumes a glass of water.

What are we doing?

https://www.propublica.org/article/water-aquifers-groundwater-rising-ocean-levels

"The loss of water on the continents has grown so dramatically that it has become one of the largest causes of global sea level rise. Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans."

https://www.propublica.org/article/water-aquifers-groundwater-rising-ocean-levels

Google 2021: 12.7 billion liters water

2024: 30 billion liters of water

“These are some of the richest companies in America, and maybe across the world. To ask them to make sure that residents don’t pay more in terms of their electric or water bills, [or] to do right by choosing the right energy sources to not pollute the community or the planet, we feel isn’t too much to ask.”

https://www.wpr.org/news/water-energy-use-data-centers-midwest-great-plains

"State-run Petroperú, the block’s current operator, aggressively pushes for more Amazon crude to recoup massive debts from the build-out of its Talara Refinery, budgeted at $6.5 billion. The refinery build-out, financed by commercial banks, has put the company in a precarious financial position as it continues to rely on unsustainable government bailouts. As a result, Peru is stuck in a perpetual cycle of oil debt."
https://amazonwatch.org/news/2025/0722-the-achuar-reject-petroperus-oil-expansion-yet-again

The drought in the Southwestern U.S. is likely to last for the rest of the 21st century

That’s led to major rivers and their basins, such as the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers, seeing reduced flows and a decline of the water stored in underground aquifers

These states--Arizona New Mexico, California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas--are full of water guzzling data centers, chip fabs and bitcoin mines.

Why?

Greed.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18072025/southwestern-drought-likely-to-continue-through-2100/

For tech companies, "water is an afterthought" hydrologist and director of urban water policy at Stanford University Newsha Ajami told the New York Times. "The thinking is, 'Someone will figure that out later.'"

"One data center company in Georgia was demanding a staggering nine million gallons of water per day — the equivalent of 30,000 households"

https://futurism.com/ai-data-center-water

"In Nevada, the country’s driest state, the recent growth of generative artificial intelligence has put increased attention on data centers’ power demands and the water needed to cool servers. This comes as Lake Mead risks hitting crisis levels, and more groundwater has been signed away in parts of Northern Nevada than is actually available."

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/southern-nevada-data-centers-used-a-ton-of-water-in-2024-heres-how-3397994/

92 Percent of People Don’t Check Their AI Answers, a New Report Warns

Just exactly as Big Tech wants it.

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/are-you-too-trusting-of-ai-answers-92-percent-of-people-dont-check-it-for-accuracy/91209990

"The only way to go back across planetary boundaries is by becoming a low-energy civilization. This would mean a severe pruning back of industrialism and a wholesale commitment to ecological regeneration as the bedrock of all other forms of production. If we are incredibly lucky and smart, we can have MRIs and a livable planet, but what we cannot have is an “abundance” of electricity, synthetic housing, industrial appliances, and so on."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-07-16/on-abundance/

In Johor alone, projected water demand from existing and planned facilities would exceed 673 million litres per day.

In 2024, Malaysian authorities received 101 new data centre applications, with a combined water demand exceeding 808 million litres per day.

https://www.thinkchina.sg/economy/true-price-ai-water-and-energy-demands-behind-asias-data-centre-boom

Data centers make electricity more expensive for everyone around them

Big Tech is on corporate welfare. We're all paying to subsidize the richest and most powerful companies in the world

https://www.fastcompany.com/91368903/ai-data-centers-require-massive-amounts-of-power-making-electricity-more-expensive-for-everyone-around-them

Amazon’s emissions have tripled since 2019, when the company committed to achieving net-zero emissions across its operations by 2040.
https://earth.org/amazon-emissions-rose-in-2024-amid-expansion-of-energy-hungry-data-centers/

I'm writing a story about hidden e-waste. Chips and electronics in products such as children's toys, shoes, clothes, etc.

Anyone has some funny / weird examples of products you don't expect to have chips / or that have no useful reason to have chips--but still do? Or examples of really throwaway electronics such as vapes?