• 3 Posts
  • 646 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle


  • Cost-to-benefit analysis, sure. But you still need a realistic comparison of the costs side of the equation to do that.

    People were whining about the energy costs of regular data centers long before AI came along.

    That invites a lot of questions like is it lower carbon to have a zoom call than fly out for a meeting? Do the travel emissions of an imported tomato offset the heating emissions for a local out-of-season hothouse tomato? If I’m going to make one personal sacrifice, is it more effective to give up red meat, bike to work, or make my next holiday less far away?

    Intentionally ignoring evidence is just dumb; decisions made purely on vibes are often going to be wrong.




  • Anaerobic bacteria produce methane. When oxygen is present, the aerobic pathway outcompetes anaerobic because more energy is available, producing CO2 instead.

    GHG are usually measured in tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GWP) where methane is about 80x as much warming as the same mass of CO2 over a 20 year period, or about 25x as much warming over a 100 year period.

    This is also what’s going on in the steady replacement of various refrigerants with lower-GWP alternatives.












  • It recognizes Zionism as Israel’s foundational ideology that has created and maintains an apartheid regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It further affirms the right to self-determination and liberation of the Palestinian people and supports

    the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital.” This effectively would eradicate the State of Israel.

    I am not sure these two are fundamentally the same.

    “Palestine should exist as a state” does not necessarily imply “Israel should not exist as a state”.