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Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

andymasley.substack.com

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Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#111

Post by ido »

aio2 wrote: post #83
saagarjha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not true. Let's take Americans, for example, driving their cars to work. Americans are about 15% of the world's emissions, of which 25% or so is transportation, of which well over half is cars. So you not driving to work is making direct impact on 2-3% of the world's overall emissions. Likewise, your decisions on all the other things, if taken in aggregate, will have a significant impact on overall…

The emissions from vehicles are different from plastics produced by factories. Also, while important, 2-3% of world emissions is a drop in the bucket compared to the other 97%. Let's consider the other causes and how we can fix them. Think about this: for many people, not driving to work is a big deal. If people collectively decide to do that, that's a lot of effort and inconvenience just for 2-3%.

while 3% might sound like a drop in the bucket, there isn't any single specific chunk of the rest of the 97% that will immediately cut, say, 30-40% of emissions (also remember that 2-3% is the super specific "Americans not driving cars", not "everyone in the world not driving cars").

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#112

Post by saagarjha »

bitwize wrote: post #62
throwaway314155 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right just a little bit of restraint. On an unprecedented scale of coordination by hundreds of millions to billions of people - a scale of cooperation that has probably never occurred in human history (and there's no reason to believe it will any time soon). But sure, if people "just" did a "little", it would go a long way. Just a _little_ restraint from the entire population all at once in perpetuity. No big deal.

You do this through the government. Implement meat rations. Everybody is only allowed so much meat per week. So you have to make it count.

Vegetarian here. People who eat meat tend to reduce their consumption if you 1. charge them appropriately for it and 2. give them good alternatives. Telling them to not do something usually makes them angry unfortunately.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#113

Post by realusername »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #30
ekianjo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most doctor visits are for benign matters...

The point of the doctorate is for them to make that determination.

Yes and no, you really don't need a deep expertise to diagnose the very common illness.

And that's where chatgpt is doing great.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#114

Post by ternnoburn »

Liquix wrote: post #17

~90% of the plastic debris in the ocean comes from ten rivers [0]. eight are in china/SEA. millions and billions of single-use items are sitting in warehouses and on store shelves wrapped in plastic. even before the plastic is discarded, the factories these items are produced in dump metric tons of waste into the oceans/soil with little repercussion. point is, none of our "personal lifestyle decisions" - not eating m…

Per capita beef consumption is down by 35% in the US since the 70s. From 62kg/person/year to 35.

Beef produces ~100kg CO2 per kg of meat. That's a reduction of 27,000kgs of CO2 reduction, per capita.

That's not nothing. By simply reducing beef consumption by 1 kilogram a month, you can prevent more than a metric ton of CO2. If 5% of Americans cut 1 kilo of beef a month, that'd knock out 15 million tons of CO2.

Small changes can have an impact on aggregate, and just because someone else is not making those changes doesn't excuse us looking at ourselves and saying, "I could choose something else this time".

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#115

Post by saagarjha »

llmthrow102 wrote: post #67
irishloop wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat and dairy specifically accounts for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). If people collectively just ate a bit less meat and dairy, it would go a long way. Don't even have to be perfect. Just show a little bit of restraint.

Greenhouse gas emissions are only a fraction of terrible things that humans are inflicting on the environment, and meat/dairy are both nutritious food that provides requirements for sustenance, and if not eaten need to be replaced by something else that will also cause greenhouse gas emissions (aka, a 10% reduction in meat consumption does not equal to a 1.45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions) I think it's kind…

It won’t be 1.45% but it will be 1.3%. Meat is exceptionally inefficient compared to non-meat. It sounds false but it really is like that :(

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#116

Post by idle_zealot »

saagarjha wrote: post #110
idle_zealot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Driving to work" is hardly a "vote with your wallet" style consumer choice. Our housing, building, and transportation policies have been geared towards encouraging car-dependence for nearly a century. In places with better public transit and bike lanes, people spontaneously choose to use those modes of transport. Just like with companies dumping as much plastic waste/CO2 as they can get away with, this is a policy p…

See, my point is that everyone first goes “it’s not me”, then they understand it is them and go “but it’s not my policies” and then they vote in the policies which are the problem. It’s totally fine to go “we need collective action to fix this”. But you have to actually join the collective action. You think billionaires are getting rich by committing environmental arbitrage? Then don’t oppose attempts to make the cos…

Sure, recognizing that the problem is political is step one. Step two is... political activism, I guess? Lack of local political engagement and organizing is part of what allows problems like these to form.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#117

Post by deepsun »

Liquix wrote: post #17

~90% of the plastic debris in the ocean comes from ten rivers [0]. eight are in china/SEA. millions and billions of single-use items are sitting in warehouses and on store shelves wrapped in plastic. even before the plastic is discarded, the factories these items are produced in dump metric tons of waste into the oceans/soil with little repercussion. point is, none of our "personal lifestyle decisions" - not eating m…

And 80% of all the trash in the oceans come from fishing industry (e.g. abandoned nets).

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#118

Post by maeil »

saagarjha wrote: post #112
bitwize wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do this through the government. Implement meat rations. Everybody is only allowed so much meat per week. So you have to make it count.

Vegetarian here. People who eat meat tend to reduce their consumption if you 1. charge them appropriately for it and 2. give them good alternatives. Telling them to not do something usually makes them angry unfortunately.

> Telling them to not do something usually makes them angry unfortunately

Then it's up to you to get even angrier.

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#119

Post by deepsun »

mnsc wrote: post #88
petesergeant wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This massively lets the Philippines off the hook. China has a gazillion people, and so does India, and the rest of SE Asia is bad for pollution, but the Philippines — with 1.5% of the world’s population — is an incredible 36% of ocean plastic pollution. Also a call-out to Malaysia who are an upper-middle income country and contribute far too much per capita given their income situation, but again, they are a drop in…

What are they doing in the Philippines? Dumping household waste straight into the rivers?

I think they are fishing commerially a lot. Most of the ocean trash comes from the fishing industry (e.g. abandoned nets).

Re: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment

#120

Post by saagarjha »

aio2 wrote: post #83
saagarjha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not true. Let's take Americans, for example, driving their cars to work. Americans are about 15% of the world's emissions, of which 25% or so is transportation, of which well over half is cars. So you not driving to work is making direct impact on 2-3% of the world's overall emissions. Likewise, your decisions on all the other things, if taken in aggregate, will have a significant impact on overall…

The emissions from vehicles are different from plastics produced by factories. Also, while important, 2-3% of world emissions is a drop in the bucket compared to the other 97%. Let's consider the other causes and how we can fix them. Think about this: for many people, not driving to work is a big deal. If people collectively decide to do that, that's a lot of effort and inconvenience just for 2-3%.

There isn’t really a magic wand we can wave and get 50% back for free and without inconvenience. The other 97% involves things like individually figuring out where our electricity generation goes. Or figuring out which farms to shut down, or what manufacturing we don’t like anymore. All of this must happen. It will be inconvenient. I picked a slice that is immediately relevant to a lot of people here. But there are a lot of axes to look at this.
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