More Than 200 Environmental Groups Demand Halt To New US Datacenters (theguardian.com) 123
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the U.S., the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis. The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.
"The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacenters to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans' economic, environmental, climate and water security," the letter states, adding that approval of new data centers should be paused until new regulations are put in place. The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64 billion, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities' need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce. [...]
At the current rate of growth, datacenters could add up to 44m tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2030, equivalent to putting an extra 10m cars on to the road and exacerbating a climate crisis that is already spurring extreme weather disasters and ripping apart the fabric of the American insurance market. But it is the impact upon power bills, rather than the climate crisis, that is causing anguish for most voters, acknowledged Emily Wurth, managing director of organizing at Food & Water Watch, the group behind the letter to lawmakers. "I've been amazed by the groundswell of grassroots, bipartisan opposition to this, in all types of communities across the US," said Wurth. "Everyone is affected by this, the opposition has been across the political spectrum. A lot of people don't see the benefits coming from AI and feel they will be paying for it with their energy bills and water."
"It's an important talking point. We've seen outrageous utility price rises across the country and we are going to lean into this. Prices are going up across the board and this is something Americans really do care about."
"The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacenters to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans' economic, environmental, climate and water security," the letter states, adding that approval of new data centers should be paused until new regulations are put in place. The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64 billion, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities' need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce. [...]
At the current rate of growth, datacenters could add up to 44m tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2030, equivalent to putting an extra 10m cars on to the road and exacerbating a climate crisis that is already spurring extreme weather disasters and ripping apart the fabric of the American insurance market. But it is the impact upon power bills, rather than the climate crisis, that is causing anguish for most voters, acknowledged Emily Wurth, managing director of organizing at Food & Water Watch, the group behind the letter to lawmakers. "I've been amazed by the groundswell of grassroots, bipartisan opposition to this, in all types of communities across the US," said Wurth. "Everyone is affected by this, the opposition has been across the political spectrum. A lot of people don't see the benefits coming from AI and feel they will be paying for it with their energy bills and water."
"It's an important talking point. We've seen outrageous utility price rises across the country and we are going to lean into this. Prices are going up across the board and this is something Americans really do care about."
Meanwhile... (Score:2, Insightful)
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You sound like you really dislike China.
What's your problem then with them repeating their "housing boom" from a few years ago, which left them with an enormous sunk cost in the form of empty ghost cities and an economy riddled with bad debt?
You should be cheering that they are dumping good money into another bubble with no exit in sight.
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There, the story if their datacenters:
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
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He ain't entirely wrong, in that environmentalist groups wouldn't dare set foot in China. They wouldn't last long over there.
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Yes, China is not friendly to people or organizations who disagree with the official position of the government, even when that position is bullshit.
What's funny is that the trumpistan is boldly walking in the same direction.
However, this has nothing to do with the argument, which appears to be that not having political opposition is somehow an asset in the "AI" development field.
As I've posted in a follow-up, China has built a bunch of datacenters that are empty, because "AI" demand isn't materializing. Wh
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It's China, they're subsidized and they have to build something. Even if it's empty or otherwise represents overcapacity. Of course the people who built these datacentres may eventually lease the space to companies that will be forced to use domestically-produced hardware that no one wants to use (they'd rather have NV H200s or . . . whatever else). It's just how they do things, at least for now.
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So what, trumpistan isn't subsidizing any less.
There was the national ai initiative act in 2020, there is the new 500B initiative from earlier this year, there is a shitload of cash unleashed for projects from the departments of defense, energy and whatnot, the gubbermint is also dumping shitloads of seed money via its "AI fund", which altogether quite likely exceed all government subsidies in China by factors, if not orders of magnitude.
The government has also guaranteed bailouts in case of failure claimin
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Yes, Trumpistan is subsidizing less. It may shock you to hear that, but oh well.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least they are installing renewables as fast as they can.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Have you noticed how all the big companies who try to shove genAI down our throats, despite no consensus that it brings any kind of gain, are not from China? They are from the US. Meanwhile, Chinese companies are taking the lead on electric cars.
Environmentalists demand we only subsistence farm (Score:1, Insightful)
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Americans eat an average of 0.23 lbs of beef, 0.18 lbs of pork, AND 0.32 lbs of poultry per day ( source [ourworldindata.org]). That's a lot of freakin' meat, almost three quarters of a pound (or a third of a kilogram) a day.
Cows need to eat a LOT, and they mostly eat grain. Instead of using that grain to feed cows, we could eat it (and other vegetables grown on that land) ourselves, saving enormous resources.
We also buy a lot stuff we don't need, and that doesn't last (planned obsolescence in almost every industry). Which is
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Americans eat an average of 0.23 lbs of beef, 0.18 lbs of pork, AND 0.32 lbs of poultry per day
Finally, I have a reason to celebrate being below average.
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Cows need to eat a LOT, and they mostly eat grain. Instead of using that grain to feed cows, we could eat it (and other vegetables grown on that land) ourselves, saving enormous resources.
That's magical thinking. The real world is way, way more complex than that. First of all, the nutrition between those cows and the other items differs significantly. You can healthy live off 1.5lbs of beef a day and that results in very little food waste. You can use nearly the entire cow and can consider the cow a renewable resource. You can't do the same with vegetables nor grains and they aren't renewable resources. In the past we used to use the entire cow. The green movement now has us throwing
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You can't do the same with vegetables nor grains and they aren't renewable resources.
Third, farming plants requires fertilizing them. That fertilizer either comes from oil or comes from the animal industry.
Also mining, like potash in Canada. Most people won't get your point unless you immediately connect food and fertilizer.
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I believe the EPA value does take into account the full product lifecycle, feed, and secondary emission sources. However it's a USA based number. It doesn't include rainforest deforestation because our industry isn't clearing the rainforest. If you care about that, don't buy Brazilian meat (we do need better labeling laws). The global emissions for meat production is higher than our USA number, I don't remember what it is. Buy local.
Thanks for pointing out the current market %. I hadn't thought of tha
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put aside the environmentalists for a moment. think about high power bills. I see datacenter zoning referendums coming.
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don't raise cattle: Cattle ranching harms the climate [animalagri...change.org]
don't do energy-intense manufacturing: Steel industry emissions are a big contributor to climate change. [science.org]
don't do resource extraction: Environmental groups oppose Bill to boost mining [theturtleislandnews.com]
don't drive cars: Car culture is driving us to disaster [davidsuzuki.org]
Re: Environmentalists demand we only subsistence f (Score:1)
What if they paid a basic income and people chose self-provisioning over industrial modes of production where selling subscriptions to a carefully enclosed supply takes away control from the little man?
Re: Environmentalists demand we only subsistence f (Score:4, Insightful)
What if ... people chose self-provisioning over industrial modes of production...
Then most of us would starve to death.
Re:Environmentalists demand we only subsistence fa (Score:5, Insightful)
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First, there's a substantial issue with how representative these environmentalists are from the general movement.
I do not have a way to say how representative such views of a typical environmentalist. I don't believe I am engaging in nut-picking [fallacycheck.com] and I am open to seeing counter-evidence. I came up with these links by searching for key phrases (e.g., methane emissions from cows) and people (e.g., Suzuki) from memory and there were many similar links to chose from. Do you believe these views are not representative? If so, what makes you think so?
But you seem to also confuse sources saying "Hey, this is creating a serious problem" and not wanting to have that thing at all.
This is a valid criticism. My view is that I use expressing concerns as a
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Do you agree then that those claims are true though? Cattle ranching and steel emissions cause changes to the atmosphere, mining tends to be environmentally destructive and that car culture has many negative effects on health and society?
Not even getting prescriptive yet, no argument yet about what to do about that but can we agree those are true statements? Because if not then bringing up what some people think should be done is really irrelevant.
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Agree, but then you need to draw the line between needs and wants, and some people draw that line further to the right than others.
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I do not, because most of such claims presuppose that the environment is static and pristine.
You were doing good, here. There is no such thing as a pristine environment.
The reality is that there is a great deal of change without any human involvement and often times what humans do is insignificant.
You flew off the track, here.
Human involvement is fucking huge in this stage of our development.
We upset the carbon cycle by 60-100 times that of all of the volcanoes on Earth, combined. We are quite literally the largest force of nature on this planet outside of the sun.
While I agree with the goal of protecting humanity's habitat, it ought to be viewed as such - our habitat that should be utilized for humanity's needs.
I'm not sure you really do agree with that, though.
If you did, I don't think you'd be belittling our impact.
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Of all volcanoes on Earth today, or in 536 CE?
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Statistically, there is no difference in the volcanism of 400-600 CE, vs 1800-2000 CE.
Cherry picking a peak isn't useful. This is why we have linear regression.
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Ok but you realize this is like me having super strong positions about certain aspects of how the Catholic church makes rules and then as soon as anyone presses me I throw my hands up and say " eh, I'm an atheist". It's dishonest and bad faith.
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It's dishonest and bad faith.
Incorrect.
It is neither of those things.
Are you holding that in order to have a criticism of the rule making process of the Catholic church, one must be Catholic?
That's almost stunningly wrong.
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The presentation of being opposed to the prescriptions of all these environmental groups, you make a bunch of claims about their positions but it's performative because you don't believe the problems they are trying to solve for even exist in the first place.
It's pointless for anyone to defend or argue about those positions because you can just turn around and go "oh you think the industry can be reformed to be less environmentally taxing? Well I don't even believe climate change is a real thing". Just lea
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Oh, so you do believe the problems they are describing are real and don't actually have an issue with their prescriptions, just in their presentation?
So the cattle and steel industries do have deleterious environmental effects. Car culture does have harmful effects on the environment and society. Anthropomorphic climate change is a real phenomenon.
If your argument is "we need environmental groups to have better marketing" then sure, I can agree with that.
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So the cattle and steel industries do have deleterious environmental effects.
My view is that cattle has minimal deleterious environmental effects, none if they are pasture raised. Steel industry has minimal and it is acceptable considering how necessary steel is.
Car culture does have harmful effects on the environment and society.
Car culture does have harmful effects that are getting reduced with improved technology. Cars are necessary for a free society to exist. Without cars, government would have much bigger role and say in our lives.
Anthropomorphic climate change is a real phenomenon.
Yes it is, but effects of warming are not as dire and not as immediate as predicted. Also, climate change is a net
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You realize why this is frustrating right, because earlier you claimed "I do not, because most of such claims presuppose that the environment is static and pristine." in regards to those claims, now everything is much more nuanced...
But we can't give that nuance to environmental groups or their issues of course, we have to paint those with a big broad brush and your strawman of them makes you seem like a run-of-the-mill science denier. Again, quite bad faith to just claim they "want to get rid of all cattl
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You realize why this is frustrating right, because earlier you claimed "I do not, because most of such claims presuppose that the environment is static and pristine." in regards to those claims, now everything is much more nuanced...
Sorry, I don't see a contradiction in anything I said.
But we can't give that nuance to environmental groups or their issues of course
This is fair criticism. However, based on my subjective experience observing various environmentalism causes I am simply unwilling to extend such courtesy. I am not going to try to look for unstated meanings and alternative interpretations. I do try to resist categorically dismissing them as green-washing rent seekers, but that is the extend of my mental effort.
seem like a run-of-the-mill science denier.
Reputation destruction only works if your target cares what others think about them.
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Crossed wires maybe, it read like "i dont think these things are problems at all".
See I think we have to operate with a little bit of courtesy to at least hear them out and not someones caricature of their positions. I mean lets even look through your links for these unstated meanings;
The first, with cattles, the only change called for is "It asked for the removal of livestock from public lands that are Herd Management Areas (HMAs). " I don't think that's objectionable.
The article about steel is about thos
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The first, with cattles, the only change called for is "It asked for the removal of livestock from public lands that are Herd Management Areas (HMAs). " I don't think that's objectionable.
I am not a rancher, so what I say may be not accurate. The meaning of this ask is to drastically reduce the size of free roaming herd OR switch to feedlot [wikipedia.org]. To dangerously oversimplify the issue - feedlot is bad for the animals, meat quality, and the environment. Pasture raised beef has minimal impact of the environment and is better beef and healthier cows. So yes, I am against what is being asked in the first link.
These examples were illustrative, as a reply to a troll accusing me of inventing things
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These examples were illustrative
Yeah, they are but not in the way you think. They don't really back up your claims, I mean this is the strongest claim in all of them and depending on the meaning of "drastic" it's not an automatic given that reducing the size of cattle herds and operations is a bad thing at all.
Considering the externalizes [wikipedia.org] beef should probably cost more than it does in my opinion. Why would a decrease in beef consumption be a bad thing at all? A higher floor price on beef means we could regulate out some of those worst t
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Sure, want an H200?
Environmental issues are exaggerated (Score:4, Insightful)
But it seems like much of the left has adopted an anything involving LLM AIs is bad attitude in the US. This seems connected to the fact that the US attitude towards LLM AIs is more negative than pretty much almost every other country https://today.yougov.com/international/articles/53654-english-speaking-western-countries-more-negative-about-ai-than-western-europeans [yougov.com]. But rather than having a serious discussion about the positives and negatives of this technology (and there are a lot in both columns), there's this tendency to just pick any possible negative and throw it on the wall. This is also particularly unfortunate right now in the US because there's major problems with the Trump administration rolling back all sorts of environmental regulations, including not just those for CO2 but for many other pollutants, and the administration is now actively stopping almost any new US wind and solar on a large scale. While there's been some legal pushback against some of that (see for example, this victory just today https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/climate/trump-offshore-wind-federal-judge.html [nytimes.com] ) this would be a far better use of these groups time and resources than going after a specific industry.
Re:Environmental issues are exaggerated (Score:4, Funny)
1/10 of 1% of all the water used in the country doesn't sound like much ... if you're an idiot.
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I put just as much effort, if not more, into my replies as was put into the posts to which I reply. Using a small percentage to make a massive quantity appear insignificant? That's not only lazy, it's dishonest. You got a significantly better reply from me than you deserved.
If you want better replies, write better posts. If you want courteous replies, don't be a dishonest scumbag. It's really that simple.
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Using a small percentage to make a massive quantity appear insignificant?
Using unscaled absolute numbers to make a value appear significant? That's not only lazy, it's dishonest.
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You have a lot of trouble reading, don't you?
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Give me a fucking break.
You're getting lazy, dude.
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I did nothing of the sort, you illiterate troll.
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1/10 of 1% of all the water used in the country doesn't sound like much ... if you're an idiot.
Using a small percentage to make a massive quantity appear insignificant? That's not only lazy, it's dishonest
You must be such a sad and fucking angry little man. It's fascinating.
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Using a small percentage to make a massive quantity appear insignificant?
Thinking that a quantity matters without a reference- i.e., context
Seriously, did your father skullfuck you as a child? What the fuck made you so goddamn stupid?
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My point was that you're a lying dishonest scumbag. You've more that proven that.
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What you did was tried to remove the context in order to make his facts appear misleading.
In your small mind, this was clever. I imagine you even pat yourself on the back and smiled.
But it's not clever.
It's just standard "trying to pave over inconvenient facts to avoid having to recompute your view, by way of flinging out fallacies at a higher rate than your opponent can point them out".
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Um, yes, US uses a lot of water, so 0.1% of that can still fill a lot of bathtubs. But 0.1% is a very small percentage. So, other usages of water that have a higher percentage can fill even more bathtubs. Thus it makes more sense to be concerned with those higher percentage usages, no?
I don't like anything to do with AI as much as the next man, possibly more so, but it's important to use arguments that make sense. So that was a bit of an unintentionally ironic post there.
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but it's important to use arguments that make sense.
Oh, you sweet summer child. You aren't going to fit in well here at all.
It's important to be right here, not have rational arguments.
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It is true that 0.1% is not as much as other uses, sure, but that doesn't mean that it's an insignificant amount. A broken leg is not nearly as bad as two severed arms, but that doesn't mean it's a trivial problem. A bomb that blows up an apartment building is still national news even though it's nothing compared to a nuclear bomb.
Thus it makes more sense to be concerned with those higher percentage usages, no?
This same ridiculous argument can be used to dismiss all but the single largest problem:
Alice: "x is a problem."
Bob: "y is a bigger problem than x, so it makes more sense to be
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It is true that 0.1% is not as much as other uses, sure, but that doesn't mean that it's an insignificant amount.
In point of fact, it means precisely that.
Significance is quite literally defined by its effect. In this instance, the effect is academically interesting, nothing more.
Golf courses are a serious problem.
No, they're not.
They're a problem.
So are data centers.
No, they're not.
They're a problem.
The amount of water going into crops we don't even eat? That's a serious problem.
You're a fucking idiot.
Screaming and yelling that some fucker's lawnmower is a serious problem while your fucking Suburban idles in the background.
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Not one single one of those links demonstrated that it was a serious problem.
You'd know that if you had actually read them instead of googling and copying links like a fucking dipshit.
Each one of them provides a handy number of households for impact gauging- and oh my god, I'm here to tell you that I think Arizona will survive the loss of the annual water supply of 45,000 single-family homes. Especially since it has about 1.3 fucking million of them
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The problem is, that the activists got the numbers wrong. Wildly wrong. Like by factor 1000: https://andymasley.substack.co... [substack.com]
That happens when you confuse liters with cubic meters.
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environmental issues are exaggerated
Considering how bad we are at dealing with environmental issues, every environmental issue matters. Those people need to take any win they can get.
water usage is about a 10th of the water usage for golf courses by the most extreme plausible estimates
Two wrongs don't make a right.
US attitude towards LLM AIs is more negative than pretty much almost every other country...
That study compares 4 countries to 5 other countries. You can't make a specific claim about USA because it doesn't break the data down that far. Even if you could, that claim would still be poor because it would need to take into account if the USA has an overall more negative outlook over everything. Until you normalize for that
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Considering how bad we are at dealing with environmental issues, every environmental issue matters. Those people need to take any win they can get.
Searching for an umbrella to stop the rain, while underneath a cracking dam is an ineffective use of your time and effort.
So no- your claim is fallacious as fuck.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
No, but 3 lefts do.
And it's not 2 wrongs, it's 10,000 (0.1%) wrongs don't make a right, of which we are discussing 1 of them.
That study compares 4 countries to 5 other countries. You can't make a specific claim about USA because it doesn't break the data down that far. Even if you could, that claim would still be poor because it would need to take into account if the USA has an overall more negative outlook over everything. Until you normalize for that, the result is near meaningless. Further, there's a ton of investment in AI in the US and from US focused companies. How does that compare with those other countries? If they aren't investing as much, it doesn't matter to them if it fails to live up to its hype. You can't take the conclusions of most of what you find, no matter where you find it, for granted.
You're actually right about this part, even if your previous reasoning demonstrates a person that struggled to graduate gradeschool. What an interesting person you are.
Is AI really a left vs right issue? I haven't seen any indication of that. Mainly just artists and tech literate people vs CEOs and investors. I guess you can sort of view that as left vs right, but politics isn't why those groups have those opinions on AI.
No, it's not.
It's also not an artists and tech literat
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Cut it out? This is a discussion board. If you can't handle people providing their own opinion about your content, especially when it was a single post that wasn't attacking you, then stop posting. With the time you save, learn to meditate. You'll live longer.
The environment is a global issue. Every little bit helps or at least slows down the damage. Every slow down is meaningful, or do you not try to apply the breaks when your car is about to hit something?
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Cut it out? This is a discussion board. If you can't handle people providing their own opinion about your content, especially when it was a single post that wasn't attacking you, then stop posting. With the time you save, learn to meditate. You'll live longer.
I didn't attack your stupid opinion, I attacked your stupid reasoning.
So yes, please cut it the fuck out. The world is getting dumber at an already upsetting rate, it doesn't need your contribution.
I'd love to meditate, unfortunately people like you who think everything in life is fucking Team A and Team B vote.
The environment is a global issue. Every little bit helps or at least slows down the damage. Every slow down is meaningful, or do you not try to apply the breaks when your car is about to hit something?
Breaking is something you do to something you don't like.
Braking is when you apply brakes to slow something down.
Every little bit does not, in fact, help.
In fact, if we look at the problem corr
Wrong sovereignty (Score:1)
NIMBY is a matter for local politicians, not the federal government. Not everywhere in the US has poor water management practices. Not everywhere in the US burns fossil fuels for power generation. And Greenpeace doesn't give a shit about environmental issues, only satisfying the egos of its founders -- they'll happily substitute nuclear power for coal just to win an argument.
Re: Wrong sovereignty (Score:2)
And if they vote to allow it, would you still want the federal government to put a stop to it?
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people will vote for higher power bills to help poor google, ms, meta, and amazon?
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Our cost of electricity is pretty damn reasonable. Cheaper than Texas and most of the midwest. Not the cheapest in the country- but well below average.
Price only increases when demand outpaces supply.
I think you'll see datacenter zoning referendums- but mostly from NIMBY fuckwits trying to nuke their own economy.
I think those referendums will mostly fail.
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I think those referendums will mostly fail.
people will vote for higher power bills to help poor google, ms, meta, and amazon?
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2) Even if they do, people will vote for more, higher paying jobs.
3) Even if they don't get that, people will vote for the taxes their municipality receives, and the programs the datacenters fund.
4) Lacking all that, then no, people will not vote to "help poor google, ms, meta, and amazon."
Of course when you reframe an argument from a biased point of view, it's quite easy to scoff at there being any alternative answer.
Super clever of you.
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1) As I said, there's no evidence that power bills increase.
no, you just gave me an anecdote.
from the Pew Research Center:
For example, in the PJM electricity market stretching from Illinois to North Carolina, data centers accounted for an estimated $9.3 billion price increase in the 2025-26 “capacity market” (i.e., the total amount of electricity that providers in the region commit to supplying). As a result, the average residential bill is expected to rise by $18 a month in western Maryland and $16 a month in Ohio.
https://www.pewresearch.org/sh... [pewresearch.org]
2) Even if they do, people will vote for more, higher paying jobs.
come on! it's a datacenter for goodness' sake. there are no jobs besides a couple janitors
3) Even if they don't get that, people will vote for the taxes their municipality receives, and the programs the datacenters fund.
no they won't. people won't vote for more municipality taxes receipts if that means $200 higher yearly electricity bills. let's get real
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no, you just gave me an anecdote.
That is not a meaningful reply to what I said.
https://www.pewresearch.org/sh [pewresearch.org]... [pewresearch.org]
That's interesting, but pretty easy to shoot holes through.
1) They cite number, but then give no evidence that their interpretation of them are correct.
For example, their given reason for the increase between 2014 and 2024, while sounding meaningful, leaves out the fact that the increase precisely matches inflation in that same time period.
2) They make a similar mistake while comparing increase in capacity price, "Capacity prices are usually shouldered by..."
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no, you just gave me an anecdote.
That is not a meaningful reply to what I said.
sure it is. you wrote:
I live in a part of the country with quite a lot of datacenters. The organization I work for owns 3 of them.
Our cost of electricity is pretty damn reasonable. Cheaper than Texas and most of the midwest. Not the cheapest in the country- but well below average.
just because your electricity costs are lower than average that doesn't mean that's the case everywhere
Price only increases when demand outpaces supply.
exactly. datacenters mean more demand. so you need more supply. do you think more supply is free to generate?
https://www.pewresearch.org/sh [pewresearch.org]... [pewresearch.org]
That's interesting, but pretty easy to shoot holes through.
1) They cite number, but then give no evidence that their interpretation of them are correct.
For example, their given reason for the increase between 2014 and 2024, while sounding meaningful, leaves out the fact that the increase precisely matches inflation in that same time period.
there weren't many datacenters in 2014. the DOE expects datacenters "are expected to consume approximately 6.7 to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028" and "Gartner Says Electricity Demand for Data Centers to Grow 16% in 2025 and Double by 2030."
2) They make a similar mistake while comparing increase in capacity price, "Capacity prices are usually shouldered by...", while presenting no evidence that they are currently, not to mention that again- the available price evidence doesn't support that conclusion.
and who else will shoulder the
Response: (Score:2)
laughs in capitalism
Courage of your convictions. (Score:1)
Let them come back when they themselves are fully off-grid. Until then, it's hypocritical.
The issue I have with new datacenters is their expectation that the utilities should pay for the infrastructure and amortize it over 10s of years. But what if it's a bubble? (and it is) - the datacenters should pay for the infrastructure here and now, or everyone else is going to be stuck paying for it via higher rates in the future.
Re:Courage of your convictions. (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue I have with new datacenters is their expectation that the utilities should pay for the infrastructure and amortize it over 10s of years. But what if it's a bubble? (and it is) - the datacenters should pay for the infrastructure here and now, or everyone else is going to be stuck paying for it via higher rates in the future.
Fully agree. However, even if they agree to pay, there is no equipment (transformers, etc.) or manufacturing capacity to produce equipment fast enough to ramp energy production to meet the AI data center demand. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpEEDnV1gXw [slashdot.org]
Re:Courage of your convictions. (Score:5, Insightful)
No one should express concerns about the environment unless they themselves live fully off-grid, is the most asinine opinion I've read all day.
We can keep this going all day:
No one should express concerns about rising wealth inequality unless they themselves take a vow of poverty.
No one should express concern about food safety standards unless they forage for berries in the woods and hunt with a sharpened stick.
No one should criticize airline delays unless they have flapped their arms hard enough to fly to their destination themselves.
Participation does not equal endorsement, and people don't forfeit their rights to desire improvement simply by being part of society.
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent! Since you're posting on Slashdot you are clearly not "fully off-grid." Therefore you can't complain about the PCB dump we're putting in your neighbourhood.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's a very valid complaint that data centers are coming online and expecting bulk discounts on electricity and tax subsidies to locate to a specific area. They don't benefit the local economy at all long term, only short term construction jobs.
These data centers should be required to install an equal amount of renewable energy capacity within 5-10 years so there
Re: (Score:3)
Rather, point out that trying to lean on the hypocrisy to discredit them is logically fallacious.
If a thief tells you not to steal, that doesn't mean they're wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes them a hypocrite- it does not make them wrong.
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As long as you accept that they may be right, it's ok to point out their hypocrisy. If you're trying to do that to make a point in the argument, however, that is a logical fallacy.
Ha. Ha. Ha. (Score:1)
As if that is going to happen? Where do these people come from? Are they born or do they spawn?
Re: (Score:2)
They are the sons and daughters of the hippies who protested nuclear power back in the day. Their parents are more or less directly responsible for a large portion of atmospheric greenhouse gases, as a result.
I'd assume that listening to them now will be about as helpful as listening to their parents was.
Will slashdot join them? (Score:1)
Do they share AI DS with a lot of slashdot posters?
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth... (Score:1)
Anything these particular bands of loonies are opposed to, I automatically consider a good idea.
I consider myself an environmentalist and ... (Score:2)
... this demand is politically stupid.
Read the letter [foodandwaterwatch.org].
It should be obvious from the last few election cycles that America is nowhere close to accepting such a demand. Making it will just inflame those on the right and make you look stupid or overly-demanding to those in the middle. This hurts your credibility and makes it that much harder when you need to ask the government for something else in the future.
A better/more-politically-savvy approach would be to issue a softer, open-to-negotiation request/sug
Re: (Score:2)
As for water, I do not understand the problem. Municipal water flows through pipes. Does it matter if some of those pipes are hot? Clean water goes into a data center, circulates around absorbing heat, and somehow that water isn't still clean?
Why can't the water used by a data center go right back into the clean water supply? Is it not possible because they're using evapor
Re: (Score:2)
"The drinking water used in data centers is often treated with chemicals to prevent corrosion and bacterial growth, rendering it unsuitable for human consumption or agricultural use. "
https://utulsa.edu/news/data-c... [utulsa.edu]
"Many centres use evaporative cooling systems..."
https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]
Data centers a problem? (Score:1)
The problem is lack of generation capacity (Score:2)
My small town - super timely article (Score:2)
They are planning on building an AI datacenter in an industrial park at the edge of my small rural town. This industrial park already has some massive industry in it - like one of the largest Gatorade bottling plants in the USA.
On Facebook I started seeing a lot of posts in our local county gossip group casting pure FUD on the datacenter. Namely that it would pollute the water with heavy metals, and most of all, everyone would be "footing the electric bill" for this plant. With the electric bill the claim i
Lets promote this on all social media platforms! (Score:2)
Title edit (Score:2)
"More than 200 environmental groups are shown to be luddites" FTFY.
Ironically... (Score:2)
the demand was written using ChatGPT.
Re: (Score:2)
Garbage. Are you a Russian troll, or just a MAGAidiot?
Show me the tech bros who are not on the side of the Idiot - Mu$k is on his side (on and off), as is Thiel, and Bezos, and Zuck, and...
C'mon, list.
Re: (Score:2)
Only Musk. All the others - Gates, Bezos, Zuckerburg,... only attended the inauguration b'cos Trump this time won the popular vote. But the personnel in their companies are pretty much unchanged, and most of these are woke Left.
On this issue of which group is more opposed to AI and Big Tech, it's the Right, not the Left. The Left pretty much has full control of things like Google, Facebook, Wikipedia.... and so have no beef w/ them. It's people on the Right who can't stand these companies
Re: (Score:2)
Is that the Gospel according to Faux Noise? Zuck, woke?
Re: (Score:2)