cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/461229

The leap in emissions is largely due to energy-guzzling data centers and supply chain emissions necessary to power artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The report estimated that in 2023, Google’s data centers alone account for up to 10% of global data center electricity consumption. Their data center electricity and water consumption both increased 17% between 2022 and 2023.

Google released 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide just last year, 13% higher than the year before.

Climate scientists have shown concerns as Big Tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to invest billons of dollars into AI.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/460748

Scientist Erica Chenoweth, who studies civil resistance at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge in the U.S., showed that every movement that mobilized at least 3.5% of a population was successful. This led to what’s known as the 3.5% rule — that protests require this level of participation to ensure change.

But the figure can be misleading, Chenoweth cautions. A much larger number of people are probably supporting a successful revolution even if they aren’t visibly protesting.

A new generation of engineers has realized they can push heat pumps to the limit.

I just got my first bill since going to a community choice power provider. Here in California, the investor owned utilities (commercial companies, not the publicly-owned utilities) act as retailers of energy. They buy power on the open market from generators, then sell it to their customers. They bill both for the cost to generate the power, and also for power delivery (which includes maintaining the grid). An option that recently became available is for a city government to join a community choice power provider, which then buys power from generators on our behalf. The utility still delivers it, so it’s not real competition, but partway there. The community choice provider then bills the utility, who passes that bill along to individual customers.

So, the generation cost went down by about 30% for power used during the day, and a few percent for power delivered at night (three different time-of-use categories). Our community choice provider has an option for 100% renewable power, which I chose, so this is a pretty tangible demonstration that renewable power really is cheaper than fossil fuels.

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It is reversing a ban on oil and gas drilling, and is proposing a “fast-track” for big projects, including mines, that bypasses environmental checks. It has cut climate programs and jobs, scrapped electric vehicle subsidies, abandoned plans for one of the world’s largest marine sanctuaries and set aside a world-leading cow “burp” tax as it questions the science on methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

Archived copies of the article: archive.today ghostarchive.org

Archived copies of the article: archive.today web.archive.org ghostarchive.orghttps://ghostarchive.org/archive/AWOpu