#climate change ai

[animentality]

[muffinlevelchicanery]

[latestnews69]

Saving bluefin tuna: The sushi delicacy threatened by climate change

Read more click here

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[correctopinionhaver]

"i just don't think i can bring a child into this world" said person in a developed country whose child would have a greater life expectancy and more resources than 99% of humans throughout history

[probablyasocialecologist]

Google has ended its mass purchase of cheap carbon offsets and thus stopped claiming that its operations are carbon neutral, according to the tech giant’s latest environmental report. The company now aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. The Alphabet Inc. unit has claimed that it’s been carbon neutral in its operations since 2007. The status was based on purchasing carbon offsets to match the volume of emissions that were generated from its buildings, data centers and business travel. But in its latest report, the company states: “Starting in 2023, we’re no longer maintaining operational carbon neutrality.”

[...]

The changes to its carbon credits purchase strategy have coincided with Google and Big Tech’s push on artificial intelligence, which a Bloomberg News investigation has shown is extremely resource intensive. As a result, Google’s total planet-warming emissions in 2023 are 48% higher than 2019. In that period, its total energy consumption has doubled. It’s a similar story for Microsoft, which has seen primarily its AI activities cause emissions to rise by 30% relative to 2020, even as it still aims to be carbon negative by 2030.

8 July 2024

[reasonsforhope]

"The world’s coral reefs are close to 25% larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers of coral reefs — an area the size of Ireland.

That brings the total size of the planet’s shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers — the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.

Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there’s a hard bottom — rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral — the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.

You might wonder why we’re finding this out now. Didn’t we already know where the world’s reefs are?

Previously, we’ve had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world — and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.

We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba and Australia.

To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is — and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.

The result: the world’s first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas.

The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs...

In good news, these maps are already leading to real world change. We’ve already seen new efforts to conserve coral reefs in Indonesia, several Pacific island nations, Panama, Belize, Kenya and Australia, among others."

-via GoodGoodGood, May 2, 2024

--

Note: You can see the maps yourself by going here!

[novella-november]

I can't believe that people in December 2024 are really trying to talk down to people who are anti-ai by claiming we

"don't really care about the environmental costs," (because apparently we're just *pretending* to care about the planet?)

while they also go around claiming that AI somehow *doesn't* use up any more electricity than any other thing on the internet...

and uh. You can tell these people really never do any kind of fact checking outside of probably asking chatgbt itself for info because they're clearly so desperate for people to accept ai generated content into their lives.

Anyways, here is a really great video from a small crafter and enviornmentalist !

[ganondoodle]

the company i work for decided that its switching from the german formal "You"(Sie) to the informal "you" (Du) in all of our websites so now we have to scour the entire database to change it and i quite frankly hate that, not just bc the unecessary extra work but especially bc its such a weird and unecessary change

i bet its bc everything here is getting englishfied (both literally and culturally it feels like, when my new boss talks its half in english bc every second german word is just replaced by an english one despite there being perfectly fine words for it in german too, its so annoying) and bc they want to sound more personal in hopes of getting more clients bc 'company is your fwiend uwu!!', i know this here is the amercian tm site so you wouldnt understand really but i do not want to be greeted with 'du' by companies, no, thats too personal, you dont know me and im not giving you my data, stay away!!

i guess thats how i would describe it .. the formal you is like a polite distance, like someone you dont know staying outside your personal space, but when its the informal 'you' it feels invasive unless i told you you can call me that, and that goes double for companies

maybe its a small thing that doesnt seem important but i cant stand it, im just a little part time worker doing data work so i got no say in it but the companies founder also announced hes giving his post to his kids some time ago so ...... since then theres been alot of changes and new projects that solely aim to imitate whats popular and whats done by other companies, despite ours being one that is, or used to be, intentionally different, like, that was the POINT, but i guess chasing trends is just too appealing for CEOs

[mindblowingscience]

The algorithms behind generative AI tools like DallE, when combined with physics-based data, can be used to develop better ways to model the Earth's climate. Computer scientists in Seattle and San Diego have now used this combination to create a model that is capable of predicting climate patterns over 100 years 25 times faster than the state of the art. Specifically, the model, called Spherical DYffusion, can project 100 years of climate patterns in 25 hours–a simulation that would take weeks for other models. In addition, existing state-of-the-art models need to run on supercomputers. This model can run on GPU clusters in a research lab.

Continue Reading.

[camilieroart]

You animate super good! Ye!

Thanks ! Here is some more, I continued it.

[makethatelevenrings]

Hi im very sorry for what is happening in LA and im not trying to be rude

I didn’t know AI used water can you please explain how?

“According to a report by Goldman Sachs, a ChatGPT query needs nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search query.”

“Google said its greenhouse gas emissions rose last year by 48% since 2019.”

“AI requires computer power from thousands of servers that are housed in data centers; and those data centers need massive amounts of electricity to meet that demand.”

“AI server cooling consumes significant water, with data centers using cooling towers and air mechanisms to dissipate heat, causing up to 9 liters of water to evaporate per kWh of energy used.”

“Already AI's projected water usage could hit 6.6 billion m³ by 2027, signaling a need to tackle its water footprint.”

“The huge computer clusters powering ChatGPT need four times as much water to deliver answers than previously thought, it has been claimed. Using the chatbot for between ten to 50 queries consumes about two litres of water, according to experts from the University of California, Riverside.”

Sources:

[rjalker]

"you only think AI is bad for the environement because you were told it was"

Yeah, environmentalists whose life's work is studying what impacts the environment do in fact know that AI is bad for the environment and I am in fact going to listen to them.

These people are like 5 steps away from denying that climate change is real if it means they can defend the newest billionaire tech scam

What kind of spooky scary boogeyman are they trying to imply is ~telling~ everyone that AI is bad for the environment? Who do they think they are siding against when they side with and rabidly defend the literal billionaires?

[why-ai]

[marvelsmostwanted]

Didn’t need another reason to never use AI but the California wildfires are a pretty good one. There are many factors causing this situation, particularly climate change, but Silicon Valley investing millions in AI and not caring how much water it wastes as the world literally burns around them does come across as cartoonishly evil. Stay safe out there.

Sources:

Forbes, 2/25/24, AI is accelerating the loss of our scarcest natural resource: Water

LA Times, 1/8/25, Fire hydrants ran dry as Pacific Palisades burned

[robsheridan]

Spectagoria Magazine’s 1978 “Swimsuit Issue” mocked the popular institution with themes of pollution and global warming, depicting melting, skeletal, oil-drenched models on apocalyptic beaches. “Just a decade after the carefree innocence of the ‘Endless Summer,’ we are careening towards an uninhabitable future of poisonous air and a deadly summer that truly does not end.” Editor Sera Clairmont said she was inspired by her experience in the record-shattering British Isles heatwave of 1976, which “felt as though the whole of my skin was surrounded at all times by the bone-dry specters of imminent death, crowding ever-closer around me, nipping at my flesh.” The playful, sexy tone of “the swimsuit industry’s most lucrative marketing stunt” felt absurd to her after that experience, as she witnessed what she described as “psychic visions of a future where our relentless destruction of the planet boils it with rage, and dooms mankind to melt and crumble into the dust of our own ruin.”

It was far from the only time Spectagoria’s fashion photography drew influence from supposed visions or “visitations” from the future. But the British Isles heatwave was widely regarded as a standalone extreme weather event, and Clairmont’s prophecy of an imminently burning planet was mocked as the latest example of her supposed “mania” since going into hiding two years prior and shifting the magazine’s focus towards darker and more other-worldly themes. But while critics found its predictions easy to dismiss, still no one had any explanation for where the magazine was staging such elaborate photo shoots, who the models were, or how some of the seemingly impossible visuals were executed. Rumors intensified that Clairmont had powers to commune with realms beyond our own…

Two years later, the 1980 heatwave in the United States was among the most destructive and deadly natural disasters in US history, claiming at least 1700 lives. It was reported as an isolated extreme weather event. As was the next one. And the next one. And the next one…

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NOTE: Spectagoria is an ongoing work of fiction created by me. This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and interconnected alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

If you enjoy my work, consider subscribing to my free newsletter to stay up to date on my projects, or supporting me on Patreon for frequent exclusive hi-res wallpaper packs, behind-the-scenes features, downloads, events, contests, and an awesome fan community. Direct fan support is what keeps me going as an independent creator, and it means the world to me.