"A report from Morgan Stanley suggests the datacenter industry is on track to emit 2.5 billion tons by 2030, which is three times higher than the predictions if generative AI had not come into play. The extra demand from GenAI will reportedly lead to a rise in emissions from 200 million tons this year to 600 million tons by 2030, thanks largely to the construction of more data centers to keep up with the demand for cloud services."

https://www.techradar.com/pro/generative-ai-triples-the-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-data-centers

"You might ask how AI generates something so completely bananas. It’s because AI can’t tell the difference between true and false. Instead, a complex computer program plays probabilistic language guessing games, betting on what words are most likely to follow other words. If an AI program hasn’t been trained on a subject — unusual last names, for instance — it can conjure up authoritative-seeming but false verbiage."

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/06/22/artificial-intelligence-has-spread-lies-about-my-good-name-and-im-here-to-settle-the-score/

Mining driving Indigenous extinction

"A small Indigenous community in Russia’s Far East republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is challenging a gold-mining giant owned by Russian magnate Alexei Mordashov in what they deem a last-ditch attempt to preserve their traditional livelihoods."

“We, both young and old, wish to continue our traditional way of life and pass these skills on to future generations of our people. And this is only possible if we conserve nature”.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/05/30/their-ancestral-traditions-under-threat-a-village-in-russias-far-east-stands-up-to-gold-mining-giant-a85269

"ChatGPT consumes a lot of energy in the process, up to 25 times more than a Google search. Additionally, a lot of water is also used in cooling for the servers that run all that software. Per conversation of about 20 to 50 queries, half a litre of water evaporates – a small bottle, in other words."

AI is predicted to consume twice as much energy as the whole of France by 2030

Training GPT3, took 1,287 MWh (Megawatt hours) of electricity.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/1042696/chatgpt-consumes-25-times-more-energy-than-google

Junkyard computing

For specific workloads, clusters of repurposed phones are cheaper and more carbon efficient than traditional servers.

More broadly, scavenging unwanted equipment shows excellent potential for building economic and carbon-efficient
systems, especially when renewable energy is plentiful.

Junkyard Computing: Repurposing Discarded Smartphones to Minimize Carbon, Jennifer Switzer, Gabriel Marcano, Ryan Kastner, Pat Pannuto, ACM, 2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3575693.3575710

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

In the heart of Paris, amidst the historic boulevards and bustling streets, a revolution is taking place—one fueled not by engines, but by pedals.

A vivid portrait of the city’s evolving cycling culture, revealing a surge in two-wheeled activity that has captured the attention of cyclists and urban enthusiasts alike. The article dives deep into the data, uncovering a remarkable doubling in bicycle usage on Parisian streets between October 2022 and October 2023.

https://momentummag.com/paris-cycling-numbers-double/

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/

"Japan was the forerunner of Western industrialization, but many Japanese now want less of that and more out of life. The 2008 financial crisis made Marxism trendy there; the 2011 disaster at a nuclear plant in Fukushima led to mass introspection over energy use and food supply chains. “Economic growth itself is what is destroying the very basis of what humans need to thrive,” Kohei Saito writes, in his new book, “Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto,”"

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/can-slowing-down-save-the-planet