Gerry McGovern
AI execs who urgently need more energy to power their tech revolution are turning to fossil fuels
AI is driving a massive demand for electricity.
Despite earlier commitments, some executives now say clean energy may not meet AI's growing needs.
This was always going to be the case. Big Tech will never let the saving the environment get in the way of its insatiable greed.
There's a reason why the environmental collapse has run in parallel with the rise of Big Tech
Gerry McGovern
Some 2 billion tyres are made a year. 78% of microplastics in the ocean come from tyres. Car tyres are made from around 24% synthetic rubber. This “chemical cocktail” of 400 chemicals includes heavy metals like copper, lead and zinc. A reduction of tyre wear particles is as important as reducing exhaust emissions.
Toxic tyre dust: This source of microplastic pollution could be the worst of all, Euronews Green, 2024
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/02/toxic-tyre-dust-this-source-of-microplastic-pollution-could-be-the-worst-of-all
Gerry McGovern
Bangalore—India’s Silicon Valley and Data Center Hub—is enduring its worst drought in 30-40 years. 20 other major Indian cities are also facing water crises.
India's data center market is absolutely booming, and is expected to grow to $10.9bn by 2028, up 78.7% from $6.1bn in 2023. How much water it consumes is hard to find out because of the industry’s incredible secrecy.
https://science.thewire.in/environment/hidden-environmental-costs-india-data-centre-push/
https://analyticsindiamag.com/data-centres-please-stop-drinking-my-water/
Gerry McGovern
"Even greater use of technology can reduce the growth of carbon emissions by one third."
"Half of the technology that's going to save the environment hasn't even been invented yet."
Big Tech is nothing if not one big grift and con when it comes to the environment.
At what point do we stop being conned by Big Tech? Or is the greed and convenience too comforting?
More energy
More water
More materials
And yet we keep falling for the latest, greatest AI is going to save us crap.
Gerry McGovern
"The reason there's not a lot of transparency, simply put, I think most companies don't have a good story here," says Kyle Myers. Data centers have a choice. They can either consume less water and use more electricity. Or they can use less energy and consume more water. "Water is super cheap," Myers says. "And so people make the financial decision that it makes sense to consume water."
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119938708/data-centers-backbone-of-the-digital-economy-face-water-scarcity-and-climate-ris
Gerry McGovern
Just published research finds that humans have pushed Earth's freshwater system far beyond the stable conditions that prevailed before industrialization. Global land area experiencing deviations has nearly doubled compared with pre-industrial conditions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240304135840.htm
Massive shifts of water have caused Earth’s poles to wander. Humans have pumped so much groundwater in last 50 years, we’ve altered Earth’s tilt. “It is, in a way, mind boggling.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/humanity-s-groundwater-pumping-has-altered-earth-s-tilt
Gerry McGovern
Ireland is an enthusiastic member of the Growth Death Cult
If you dare oppose the truly wild data center growth (which is now consuming about 20% of total Irish electricity), you are accused by Irish politicians of "blocking economic growth"
Long ago, Irish society agreed that the economy was all that matters and that the environment could and would be sacrificed in order to support growth. We Irish think that the environment can pay any cost.
Gerry McGovern
When politicians in the Nordics welcomed Big Tech, they hoped that Googles, Microsofts, Amazons would bring jobs, wealth and brand value to struggling municipalities. Instead, the Nordics are turning into a Big Cheap processing place for the global digital economies. If China remains the place of cheap labor for Silicon Valley innovations, the Nordic countries are today the source of cheap land and cheap renewable electricity Silicon Valley data processing and AI.
Gerry McGovern
"The Nordic states are letting go of values and infrastructure resources that are dear to the welfare state – from shared access to public resources to democratic values and universal access to communication and electricity – while intensifying digitalization and dependencies on Silicon Valley companies."
The public values of openness, affordability of connection and universal access to infrastructure are under threat by Big Tech.
Gerry McGovern
In Skåne, Microsoft booked so much electricity that the local Swedish bread company Pågen could no longer build a bread baking factory in the area and had to expand elsewhere.
In Sörmland, Amazon has reserved 1/4 of the grid. It is preventing more job-intense industries establishing. AWS is the largest consumer of electricity in the region, followed – and not closely — by the largest chicken slaughter house in Sweden that slaughters 200 000 chicken per day.
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/reimagining-public-values-in-algorithmic-futures/whats-new/dismantling-public-values-one-data-center-at-the-time
Gerry McGovern
Big jobs announcement from Google in Norway. Its new data center in Skien will deliver a whopping 100 jobs. And for those amazing 100 jobs, all Google is asking for is 5% of the total electricity Norway consumes. “What an amazing deal,” a local politician was quoted as saying. “Even if it will mean higher electricity prices for local people, we are so proud to have Google come to little old Skien.”
Gerry McGovern
They say that degrowth is utopian and delusional. But what could be more utopian and delusional than believing you can infinitely grow, consume, waste and pollute on a finite planet?
Gerry McGovern
Degrowth is the only hope
Imagine a world where you work three or four days a week. In your free time, you play sports, spend time with loved ones, garden, and engage with local politics. Overnight shipping, advertising, private jets, billionaires and SUVs no longer exist, but health care, education, and clean electricity are free and available to all.
We must massively reduce our energy and material consumption to have any hope of saving our environment.
https://grist.org/looking-forward/the-growing-popularity-of-degrowth/
Gerry McGovern
A large data center can have no more than four to five people working there at a time, “ensuring that workers were alone most of their shifts,” a research study found. Work is tedious, dull and isolating. Job security is weak. There is constant talk of further automation. “People are afraid,” the research authors were told. Some hope that they might get to finish their careers because “we are much cheaper than the robots.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01972243.2023.2169974
Gerry McGovern
When Facebook’s data center in Luleå, Sweden was announced, 30,000 new jobs were promised. 56 jobs were delivered. The data centres have sucked up so much electricity in Västnyland, there isn’t enough for other enterprises to locate there that would create vastly more jobs. Facebook uses more electricity than the nearby municipality of Boden with 27000 inhabitants. And in Trondheim, Norway, there’s a new data center that will deliver 10 jobs.
http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/i-fokus/in-focus-2023/theme-nordic-infrastructure/article.2023-04-25.6991080087
https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1493739
Gerry McGovern
Virginia, USA: "Explosive growth of data centers threatens to derail efforts to meet climate goals, improve air and water quality, advance land conservation, protect national and state parks. Utilities are legally obligated to serve data centers, no matter how much energy they require or impact to the transmission grid. Virginia ratepayers are currently subsidizing this buildout for some of the largest and wealthiest companies in the world – which is patently unfair."
Gerry McGovern
If we don't protect the Rights of Nature, we will have no future on this planet.
"If the next Irish government respects its mandate to restore regard for nature and our island home as a living subject of our history – it’ll bring together two great movements: the movement for ecological justice on the island and the belated work of decolonisation."
Gerry McGovern
"Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta combined more than doubled their energy consumption between 2017 and 2021."
And they will double their energy and water and material demand again by 2026.
Is anyone anywhere in government paying the least bit of attention to the environmental catastrophe that Big Tech is massively accelerating? Or have all our politicians been bought off by Big Tech?
Gerry McGovern
As Microsoft doubles down on AI products, it lays off the entire team that taught employees how to make AI products responsibly and ethically
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23638823/microsoft-ethics-society-team-responsible-ai-layoffs
As the danger of AI interference in elections multiplies, AI companies “have untested and relatively small election integrity teams, while older companies have cut back those teams — at its peak in 2019, Meta's integrity staff numbered over 500 globally.”
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/03/ai-elections-politics-chatbots-regulation
Gerry McGovern
Rapid groundwater depletion is widespread around the world, according to 2024 study of 170,000 wells located in over 40 countries. Rates of decline have accelerated in recent decades, with levels falling by 20 inches or more yearly in some locations.
https://theconversation.com/humans-are-depleting-groundwater-worldwide-but-there-are-ways-to-replenish-it-220816
Humanity’s groundwater pumping has altered Earth’s tilt
https://www.science.org/content/article/humanity-s-groundwater-pumping-has-altered-earth-s-tilt
The UN is predicting a 40% shortfall in freshwater resources by 2030.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/31/why-water-is-the-next-net-zero-environmental-target.html
Author of World Wide Waste. Developer of Top Tasks. Focused on reducing data waste and e-waste.
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