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Chookbot

@gerrymcgovern They can hide it from others outside the trade, but they can't hide it from the citizens who own the water.

11 comments
MylesRyden

@marnanel @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern

I am going to guess that their competitors already have a pretty good idea of the amount of water and electricity that Google is using. They have similar set ups, so the only variable is the actual volume of data traffic (which I understand is what they are trying to hide). But surely Meta and Amazon have pretty good estimates of how much data Google is moving.

Gerry McGovern

@MylesRyden
I think that would be a very good guess. Of course, the competitors know. It's not about them. It's about keeping the public ignorant because when you dig deep into data centers, you find that they are really terrible for a local community. A community becomes a sacrifice zone for the data center.

@marnanel @anne_twain

MylesRyden

@gerrymcgovern @marnanel @anne_twain

Agreed 100%.

BigTech is also depending on the misperception on the part of the general public that Data Centers are totally benign -- just taking the computers that would be found in the average office building and putting them in a warehouse, right?

BigTech does not want the public to know the actual amount of resources that are actually being consumed by their "clean" industry.

DelRider

@anne_twain @gerrymcgovern Water rights in the US are regionally determined and can be really strange. It's not always a public resource. Some laws are even "hands tied" by agreements made a hundred, or more, years ago. Check out the documentary "Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008)" to see how corporations are trying to lay claim to "public" resources. It's really amazing the noose people will willingly put their own necks into.

Lewis Cowles

@DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern
Also, check out:

Mos Def "New World Water (1999)"

Some people have known about this for quarter of a century, and even published popular music about it.

That's not to say there is nothing to be done, but it's probably more pitchforks and molotovs at this point than polite discussion.

marnanel

@DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern I was shocked to learn that the Colorado River doesn't reach the sea any more

Bryan Beauseigneur ⎇🦀⎇

@marnanel
The 1900s called looking for you 😉. I'm not sure when but I think it's been many decades.
@DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern

バツ子(心古く言葉新し
@RustedComputing @marnanel @DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern
mmm, this is mostly the fault of meat-eaters, as 3/4 of all crops grown go to feeding livestock

california's almond boom has made the problem even worse though, as almonds are a horribly wasteful crop no one should eat ever, and city infrastructure also matters to some extent (e.g. phoenix uses the same amount of water today as it did in the 1970s, while los angeles has hardly even tried

see https://onthepublicrecord.org/ for a nice resource
@RustedComputing @marnanel @DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern
mmm, this is mostly the fault of meat-eaters, as 3/4 of all crops grown go to feeding livestock

Harris👍Trump👎

@DelRider @anne_twain @gerrymcgovern

Took a class on (US) water rights in grad school. Fascinating. "Riparian" generally east of ~100° W and "prior appropriation" (that's the "agreements made > 100 years ago thing") to the west. First Nations areas have different rules as does Hawai'i.

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