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Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

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101–110 of 136 posts

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also forbidding fossil fuel derived fertilizers and heavy machinery used to produce cheap food. BRICS is allowed to build coal plants to replace the industry that dies in the west. This Marxist climate justice is like how DEI achieve equity, redistribution of outcomes, to favored activist groups or in this case the communist CCPs rule. For communists like the greens it’s about destroying the west to put thei…

How do you suppose, keeping in mind we're trying to avoid emitting carbon in the process, and keeping in mind 3 of them have nukes, we're to disallow BRICS from building coal plants? It's also simply the case that if all Co2 production stopped tomorrow that countries like the United States would have all the stuff, as a consequence of a history of more overall pollution, so the resistance to stopping all coal product…

ESG which is used to enforce climate justice is a a cartel environment that creates a total top-down, public-private sector controlled by a Stakeholder Soviet that determines the parameters of doing business.

This model was pioneered in China under Deng Xiaoping. The ultimate vision here is that the West, after "Degrowth" (Communism), and the East/South, after the full implementation of PRC/CCP hegemony and the Belt and Road Initiative, will dialectically synthesize into a single global system. Both the CCP and UN think they'll control it.

So both China and western oligarchs behind this are interested in western degrowth through energy & food & job poverty as a tool to destroy individual liberty that holds capitalism up and introduce communist religious rule.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#102
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how that happens sometimes. Reminds me of the United Nations' "Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples". The only four countries that didn't sign it initially were the ones that actually looked at it and thought about whether they could really achieve it.

That’s a charitable description of the states that voted against and an uncharitable description of the ones that voted for. A less loaded description would just observe that the opposed countries were the ones where the indigenous peoples would have the greatest claims and the governments would have the greatest resources to claim.

Saying no does require honesty though. Signing a treaty, and then ignoring it, is always an option.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those systems should get built out because they make sense to build out. Having a company feeling justified in releasing tons of extra co2 in the process seems like it nullifies some of the good the plant would bring.

Suppose many of those projects would not be built out without channeling significant capital to it, and carbon credits being an effective means of securing that capital. Would that change the calculus for you? Note that I recognize many (possibly most?) carbon credits programs are bogus or worse, but trying to draw attention to circumstances where it's not always so cut and dry.

I think for renewable energy to win it has to be financially viable on its own. If it requires carbon credits to get started, is it going to be viable without them?

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#104
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting if one of the major benefits of AI is it pushing us to clean energy

Clean energy until waste is hidden under the carpet for thousands of years.

Do you realize it can be reprocessed yes? It's not like we don't know how to deal with it, there are both working reprocessing plants and breeding reactors for it. Only about 5% of it is actual waste and it's dangerous for much less that 10k years and can be solidified if needed...

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#105
post #72
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we may be heading right into a massive climate crisis in the next few decades, but what about the hypothetical post-humans who will dig up spent nuclear fuel 10_000 years from now?!

Transportation and storage are still issues we have to deal with today, though. There was definitely a window, maybe fifty years ago, where widespread adoption of nuclear energy would have stopped and reversed climate change. We may have had an increase in Chernobyls with the proliferation of non-modern reactor designs, but in this hypothetical reality maybe people would have been OK with that. The problem today is t…

Question is, why it's so slow for nuclear when China usually finishes a project within 6-7 years

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’a assume the hypothesis that they believe that to be true. Why would anyone that believe that shut off nuclear plants that emit zero CO2 in Germany and burn wood as well as gas instead?

You can be right about AGW and still be a moron?

Are you saying that the ones holding up the ESG cartel that incentivize businesses to do communist climate justice are all morons that just happen to have incredibly competent execution? It’s the UN, EU, BlackRock, vanguard, the state department, all the WEF oligarchs etc

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#107
post #66
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is whataboutism 2. According to the EPA's greenhouse gas calculator, this year's increase is equivalent to an extra 800,000 gas-powered cars on the road.

No, it's not really whataboutism at all. Whataboutism is when two entities are doing shitty stuff with roughly commensurate negative impact. Versus dinging an endeavor that might have net positive impact (AI might REDUCE environmental impact) against forces that 100x larger and have no positive direction, it's actually just: pointing out when journalism uses a relative value to make a tempest in a teapot and distract…

Replace "remind me" with "what about" and the sentence reads perfectly. That is usually a good test for what about'ism

> Whataboutism is when two entities are doing shitty stuff with roughly commensurate negative impact

I have different view. What about'ism can be akin: "oh, you don't like that i drive a ar, what about the millions of cars driven everyday? And what about al gore! I will not stop driving until he stops flying"

Perhaps my understanding is wrong of what-aboutism, wanted to point out that there not be common ground on the definitions of terms.

FWIW, while AI might reduce carbon impact, as you have stated, so far it has not. Data centers use a lot of electricity, they are significant, and have a lot of projected growth ahead. With that said and news the impact has ramped up, so far we have only increased the challenge.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#108
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just say you don't understand how LLMs work, you don't need to beat around the bush. Maybe someone will help you understand.

Ah, because given said understanding, surely it's impossible to hold a different opinion than yours.

It's not an opinion. Plagiarism has a meaning and LLMs are not doing that.

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#109
post #72
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, we may be heading right into a massive climate crisis in the next few decades, but what about the hypothetical post-humans who will dig up spent nuclear fuel 10_000 years from now?!

Transportation and storage are still issues we have to deal with today, though. There was definitely a window, maybe fifty years ago, where widespread adoption of nuclear energy would have stopped and reversed climate change. We may have had an increase in Chernobyls with the proliferation of non-modern reactor designs, but in this hypothetical reality maybe people would have been OK with that. The problem today is t…

SpaceX Dragon Hazmat Capsule

Re: Microsoft's Emissions Spike 29% as AI Gobbles Up Resources

#110

The energy consumption would not be a problem if it was renewable energy . Ironically, we already have plenty of renewable energy in the US, it’s just there, sitting, waiting to be hooked up to the grid and not being used productively. The US currently has 947 GW of renewable generation capacity that is not hooked up to the grid [1]. To put that number into perspective, the US currently has 1160 GW of generation capa…

> The energy consumption would not be a problem if it was renewable energy.

This is not the case. As long as electricity is fungible on the grid, and there's some fossil electricity production close enough for transmission, changes in renewable electricity use mean increases/decreases in fossil electricity use at the margin.

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