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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by inari@piefed.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] kromem@lemmy.world 127 points 1 day ago

Cornell researchers found that at the current rate of AI growth, the burgeoning industry could represent 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030

The United States emitted 4.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2024.

So by 2030 the AI industry CO2 release might be 0.9% of total US emissions.

That 'almost' in "Almost Incomprehensible" is doing a lot of work there.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 62 points 1 day ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I love Lemmy math nerds and honestly appreciate how there's always at least one to put things in perspective for those of us who worked really fucking hard to get a C in college algebra. Cheers.

[-] HieroProtagonist@feddit.org 3 points 8 hours ago

But...but...but... the RAGE! With a measured approach to topics like that, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FUEL THE RAGE!?!?!?!11

[-] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

Consider how rapidly they have been built, and the capitalists’ plans to make many many more. Now also consider the state of the planet’s ecology and the already terrible effects of climate change.

To me, it’s incomprehensible that regular people haven’t already revolted against the death spiral the capitalist class has put us on.

[-] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago

Can you name a moment in time when regular people did stand in solidarity and revolt against something that wasn’t already at the point of causing them grave, direct, unavoidable, and consistent harm?

[-] TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club 6 points 18 hours ago

I present to you...the French.

[-] HieroProtagonist@feddit.org 2 points 8 hours ago

The French that started by beheading kings and nobles... and shortly after anyone who had a slightly different opinion? The French who shortly after that madness had a new Emperor? THAT French?

[-] 7101334@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago

Abolitionists are an easy example.

Now if you mean a majority of people, yeah not really. But people in general, it happens.

[-] gwl 30 points 1 day ago

.9% from a single source is RIDICULOUS though

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

Ok how much is beef farming accountable for

[-] gwl 41 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A huge amount too, 37.9%

But more than one thing can be bad a time, a novel idea, I know

And how many beef farms are there compared to data centers? A lot of a lot more.

If a tiny amount of physical space can do such a large amount of pollution, that's a worry, when the plan is to increase the amount of them.

[-] r1veRRR@feddit.org 20 points 1 day ago

Well, sure, but when everyone loses their fucking minds about the tiniest thing, that even requires us to buy all the lies from billionaires about how much the build out will be, while having never done anything about the biggest thing they could personally change, it starts sounding mightily hypocritical.

It seems like the personal responsibility to boycott polluting and unnecessary industries is limited to whatever doesn't require any personal effort from the person speaking.

Napkin math:

  • 40% of americans are very or extremely concerned about AIs environmental impact
  • To save 34 million tonnes of CO2e, you need about 5.2 million vegans from now until 2030
  • So only 5% of ONLY the complainers would need to go vegan to make up for this "tremendous" impact
  • That's 2% of all americans

That's the thing we're even attacking random strangers online for. The thing that we pretend is going to bring about the end times. But sure, veganism is the extreme position.....

By the way, what other resources are we saving?

  • Water — about 8.8 trillion gallons (~33 billion m³)
  • Land — around 1–1.5 million acres of forest/land
  • Animals — roughly 8 billion animals including fish and shellfish
[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 6 points 20 hours ago

Personally I'll never go Vegan simply out of spite because no matter what is being discussed there's ALWAYS some asshole inserting veganism into the topic.

Veganism might be great for the environment, but as long as you(they) continue to act worse than especially obnoxious Jehovah's Witnesses, veganism can go fuck itself.

If I devoured one cow every time some vegan asshole spoke up in a thread that was on a completely different topic, cows would be extinct.

[-] Hond@piefed.social 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

What a whiny little bitch you are.

I'm not even vegan. But meat eating morons signal posting that they're sick of vegans are way more common and annoying than vocal vegans.

Its such a overplayed prejudice for as long as i can remember. I came across overreaching vegans which actually annoyed me maybe five times in my life. Signalposting meat heads are more like a weekly occurance.

Random vegan at a bbq "hey, can i have small sliver of aluminum foil for my stuff and if you guys dont half intentionally wrench the meat juices over my veggies, that would be cool"
What always follows: 10-30 minute moronic rant of some meathead because eating meat is his whole personality.

[-] gwl 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

More than one thing can be bad.

Why don't we do both? Less AI, Less Meat

Also, I'm not American, don't insult me by assuming I'm one

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Or, just eat less meat and you can still have AI

[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

or have double meat and no ai.

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Bad for heart health, unless it's chicken which already has much lower emissions in the first place

[-] _stranger_@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

AI is bad for your brain and society, so there's that.

[-] gwl 6 points 23 hours ago

Sounds like a bad solution to me

[-] freeman@feddit.org 10 points 1 day ago

Much more realistic: 6% of amicans that eat mostly vegan

[-] FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

12% of Americans that often choose a vegan meal multiple times per week, seems realistic too.

[-] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 16 points 1 day ago

To me it seems the root of the problem is that humanity depends on fossil fuels for energy.

AI data centers are just one of many things contributing to CO~2~ emisions.

Lond tsory short, humanity needs to start getting it's energy from non CO~2~ emmiting sources (solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear).

[-] AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

"AI data centers are just one of many things contributing to CO~2~ emisions."

A useful perspective is to reverse how we frame the causative logic here; the fossil fuel industry is contributing to the AI data centre madness. There's a lot of evidence of fossil fuel executives and lobbyists pushing for AI because it helps to justify their existence in a world where renewable energy isn't just cleaner, it's cheaper.

What this means is that we have two problems to solve when it comes to CO2 emissions:

  • Humanity's apparent level of dependence on fossil fuels, when accounting for deliberately wasteful endeavours like mega data centres. and
  • Humanity's actual level of dependence on fossil fuels. This is higher than it should be and requires some changes to society to improve, but it's not nearly as high as it might seem at a glance.

These are both problems we need to solve, but the method is different for esch

this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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