Gerry McGovern

Author of '99th Day: A Warning About Technology'.

99th Day: A Warning About Technology: https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/99th-day/

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Last Notes

2026-08-15 10:27:40 GMT

In Texas and New Mexico, AI data centers may consume 10 times more water than Big Tech says
With drought already pressuring parts of Texas and New Mexico, farmers and other residents are questioning how valid Big Tech's claims are about its resource use.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/texas-mexico-ai-data-centers-173800131.html

2026-08-04 13:36:58 GMT

From an "efficiency" point of view, where is the best place to put a water-guzzling data center?
A desert.
Yes, a desert.
Process Engineer Explains: The Math Behind "Water-Efficient AI Data Centres" Is Laughably Wrong
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbe-Ev-Yns

2026-08-04 12:53:52 GMT

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Some people are commenting--with the best will in the world--that once data centers are using 'renewable' energy, then basically everything is heading in the right direction.
I'm told that there are plans around Foyle, Derry to build even more huge wind factories on the mountains to supply these new data centers. This will be sold as a "green" win. The local communities are very much opposed. What we are seeing is the industrialization of the countryside sold as "green".

2026-07-29 11:51:42 GMT

Big Tech has a 'solution' for its water use!
"While liquid cooling systems may reduce—but not eliminate—data center water use, they often rely on dangerous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are highly toxic, lab-made chemicals that persist in the environment and harm many systems of the human body. Data centers are poised to increase the use of these “forever chemicals” just as some other industries are phasing them out."
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/FSW_2607_DataCenterPFAS.pdf

2026-07-20 16:05:18 GMT

The Valley of Pimps and Pushers (aka Silicon Valley) keep the drugs out of their own neighborhood
"As far back as 2010, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs told a New York Times reporter his kids had never used an iPad and that “we limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
https://fortune.com/article/peter-thiel-tech-billionaires-limit-kids-screen-time-social-media-smartphones-short-form-video-risks/

2026-07-12 10:50:47 GMT

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In the heatwaves of the future, the data centers will get to drink, you won't
"Meeting the growing water demand of data centers requires substantial peak water withdrawals, which many communities in the United States cannot supply, especially during the hottest days of the year."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02705

2026-07-12 10:29:28 GMT

Why so secretive about all your water use, Big Tech?
What have you got to hide?
"The Dalles spent 13 months fighting to keep Google’s water use secret — then records showed the data center campus consumed roughly a third of the Oregon city’s supply."
https://scienceblog.com/j-the-town-of-the-dalles-oregon-spent-two-years-fighting-google-in-court-just-to-learn-how-much-of-its-river-water-the-companys-data-centers-were-using-and-when-the-numbers-finally-came-out-they-revea/

2026-07-08 11:18:25 GMT

Big Tech has an amazing, innovative solution to global drought crisis
They're going to replace all golf courses with data centers!
"A golf course in Kogarah, in Sydney's southern suburbs is being replaced by a data center'
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-golf-course-in-the-middle-of-sydney-s-data-centre-land-rush-20260706-p60cyn.html

2026-07-05 13:48:04 GMT

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When I was a child in the 1970s, living on a small farm, my brother worked in Dublin about 100 km away. He'd sometimes drive home at weekend. A job I had was to clean the car grill and the windscreen. There were so many insects, so many insects. Not anymore.
@npub1r8k…ddv2

2026-07-05 10:18:37 GMT

More than half of South Dakota is experiencing drought.
They're planning for a huge data center there anyway
The question now is not whether data centers are coming. It is who pays.
The environment, of course!

2026-07-04 11:11:19 GMT

"This is why degrowth is not merely a hard sell. It is a politics without a base. It asks democratic governments to pursue deliberate contraction in systems where parties compete on prosperity, voters punish governments for economically bad times and organised interests fight to protect their gains. The ecological realism of degrowth is strong. Its political theory is weak."
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2026/07/03/climate-change-politics-degrowth/

2026-07-03 11:05:03 GMT

"Both Google and Amazon released their sustainability reports this week, and the numbers aren’t pretty. Each company has pledged to zero-out its carbon emissions in the coming years, but AI has made those goals a lot harder to hit. Google’s total carbon emissions are up 25% since last year, Amazon’s are up 16%."
https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/a-warning-sign-about-ais-real-cost-courtesy-of-google-and-amazon/
This is a massive environment-destroying crisis caused by Big Tech. What are we going to do?

2026-06-09 10:47:11 GMT

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it's gambling and grifting and criminal behaviour. Business as usual.

2026-06-09 10:25:46 GMT

Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land
“The AI industry is sprinting as fast as it can to gain market dominance, and the rest of us have to deal with a great increase in water demand in places already in drought,” said Christopher Dalbom, an expert in water resources law at Tulane University.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/08/datacenter-ai-drought-water
The tech bros will burn everything to the ground to be the last man standing over a pile of bones and ashes
#datacenters

2026-05-23 13:18:19 GMT

'Insect apocalypse' is already fueling malnutrition in some regions, first-of-its-kind study reveals
Science did this.
Congratulations, science
https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/humanitys-ancient-bond-with-biodiversity-is-visible-in-rock-art-analysis/
Since 1970, there has been a:
50% decline in insects
73% collapse in wildlife numbers
49% decline in marine life
69% decline in vertebrates
83% decline in freshwater species
And now we have AI
So much progress.
So much winning.

2026-05-08 16:11:26 GMT

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There's nothing remotely "clean" about solar. Just because something is less dirty in one area does not make it clean. Modern tech is inherently toxic. We must seek to radically reduce energy use.
@npub1yq0…hfrz

2026-05-08 15:34:24 GMT

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well, that's it. China controls 80% of the global solar market and 70% of the wind power market, and a growing slice of the EV market ... all made with coal!

2026-05-08 15:29:15 GMT

Coal produces about 33% of global electricity
Solar and wind produce 8–9% each
Electricity meets about 20% of total energy demand
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/coal-still-powers-more-electricity/
"The year 2025 recorded the largest net addition to global coal capacity in over a decade, driven largely by China amid the country’s heightened energy security concerns."
https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2026/04/28/resurgence-to-retirement-global-insights-on-transitioning-away-from-coal/
China accounts for 55.8% of global coal consumption
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-worlds-biggest-coal-consumers/

2026-05-04 12:47:04 GMT

'Unprecedented drought conditions': More than 500 data centers across Nevada, California, and Arizona could feel the pinch as the iconic Hoover Dam potentially loses 40% of its power output because of poor rainfall and abnormally low snowpack numbers.
https://www.techradar.com/pro/unprecedented-drought-conditions-more-than-500-data-centers-across-nevada-california-and-arizona-could-feel-the-pinch-as-the-iconic-hoover-dam-could-lose-40-of-its-power-output-because-of-poor-rainfall-and-abnormally-low-snowpack-numbers
A surging global water crisis and an AI boom do not mix well

2026-04-30 10:20:49 GMT

I know that we are in a bad water situation and are under restrictions. Then, why do so many companies get to use so many tons of water, but we can’t?
Are these Artificial Intelligence Units using more water than a little city does in total in one day?
Per “Unit” (Data Center): A single, large, data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, which is comparable to the daily water usage of a town with 10,000 to 50,000 people.
Really?
https://www.ocala-news.com/2026/04/28/i-dont-know-if-water-usage-restrictions-apply-to-data-centers-using-millions-of-gallons/

2026-04-20 15:16:55 GMT

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Remember, if "Earth has become a huge mine" then Earth has become a huge dump, because 99%--sometimes 99.9%--of metals mining is toxic waste that will destroy air, water and soil for generations. The marketers and branders from the energy industry have told us all this is green and clean and renewable. Now, who would believe that sort of garbage?

2026-04-08 19:51:35 GMT

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I have tried to get true total environmental costs and found it almost impossible. For example, what's the cost of wiping out entire Andes ecosystems for lithium? What's the cost to enslaved Uighur for building Chinese solar? Any time I hear "cheap" solar or batteries, I shudder.
@npub1san…jgxu

2026-01-28 10:43:25 GMT

A.I. Was Supposed to “Revolutionize” Work. In Many Offices, It’s Only Creating Chaos.
So he posted a third “article” on his own LinkedIn account in which the AI described how our company collaborated with the CDC on researching a certain disease and published a groundbreaking study. Then, according to the article, we apparently went into underserved communities and funded a bunch of clinics and immunizations.
None of this happened.
https://slate.com/life/2026/01/work-artificial-intelligence-ai-office-chaos.html

2026-01-28 10:22:29 GMT

"An expert has warned that the large-scale smuggling of electronic waste (e-waste) into Malaysia is a public health emergency, with consequences that extend beyond environmental pollution."
When it can, the Global North dumps its e-waste in the Global South
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2026/01/1366057/toxic-trade-expert-raises-concern-over-public-health-risks-linked-e

2026-01-28 10:20:34 GMT

E-waste contains harmful elements like:
Lead
Mercury
Cadmium
Brominated flame retardants.
These materials can seep into soil and groundwater. This impacts:
Vegetation
Wildlife
Whole ecosystems.
https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/72690/20260127/growing-environmental-cost-electronic-waste-why-regulation-matters.htm

2026-01-28 10:18:15 GMT

All over the world, politicians are being forced by their communities to address the evils of data centers
Resistance to data centers fuels flood of Georgia bills targeting the industry
Georgia legislators have proposed seven bills regulating data centers by eliminating tax breaks, prohibiting costs from being passed on to residential electricity customers, or temporarily barring their construction entirely.
https://capitol-beat.org/2026/01/resistance-to-data-centers-fuels-flood-of-georgia-bills-targeting-the-industry/

2026-01-28 10:16:06 GMT

The unrelenting depraved greed of the AI tech bros.
"Artificial intelligence has become deeply entwined with all sorts of human enterprise. It pervades business, medicine, scientific research, and, increasingly, everyday life — OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, said recently that the platform processes 2.5 billion queries each day, or 29,000 per second. All that computing, intangible though it seems, requires a lot of energy."
https://www.discovermagazine.com/ai-data-centers-come-with-a-hidden-environmental-cost-is-sustainability-possible-48590

2026-01-28 10:14:09 GMT

Microsoft Pledged to Save Water. In the A.I. Era, It Expects Water Use to Soar.
Driven by the artificial intelligence frenzy, Microsoft is internally projecting that water use at its data centers will more than double by 2030 from 2020, including in places that face shortages.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/technology/microsoft-water-ai-data-centers.html
Big Tech is accelerating us on a path to environmental collapse. All for dodgy AI and greed. And all the AI grifters are along for the ride, for a few cheap bucks.

2026-01-28 10:11:43 GMT

"It was also dawning on me that degrowth is difficult to organize around precisely because of how all-encompassing a societal transformation it entails, with a multiverse and plurality of potential solutions. I’d been feeling unsupported by my degrowth community because I was gung-ho heading in one direction, but we all were doing degrowth in our own ways — and it didn’t have to be the same way!"
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2026-01-27/the-being-way-of-degrowth/

2026-01-28 09:04:27 GMT

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So sorry to see this has happened to you, Aral, and thanks for the wonderful and kind work you do.

2026-01-27 10:25:34 GMT

Does it seem like electronics don't last that long anymore?
"Does it seem like our electronics just aren't built to last as long as they used to? Kind of like they were made to self-destruct after a few years? Maybe that's why you got a new phone or laptop for Christmas. And now you're wondering what to do with all the old cellphones piled up in your junk drawer."
https://www.wvxu.org/show/cincinnati-edition/2026-01-27/electronics-dont-last-long-ewaste

2026-01-26 19:46:00 GMT

“Data centers do not bring high-paying tech jobs to local communities.” A recent analysis from Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit tracking corporate overreach, found that in Virginia, the investment required to create a permanent data center job was nearly 100 times higher than what was required to create comparable jobs in other industries.
https://grist.org/energy/data-centers-are-facing-an-image-problem-the-tech-industry-is-spending-millions-to-rebrand-them/

2026-01-26 10:31:01 GMT

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Thank you so much, Aral, and I very much look forward to meeting you at the Dublin launch

2026-01-18 17:39:05 GMT

Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them.
In these politically divisive times, there’s one thing we all agree on—we don’t want a giant data center in our backyard.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/14/1131253/data-centers-are-amazing-everyone-hates-them/

2026-01-17 10:41:27 GMT

“With this proposed Ring of Fire, with these minerals being extracted, we are concerned how it affects us as Indigenous people; our rights are being violated,” Koostachin said during a Jan. 13 webinar hosted by Above Ground and MiningWatch Canada.
“So also our land, the environment, it's going to be destroyed. So anything where there's going to be destruction is going to be devastation within the Treaty 9 area where the proposed Ring of Fire is.”
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/regional-news/far-north-ring-of-fire/were-protectors-indigenous-groups-call-for-mining-safeguards-11750950

2026-01-17 10:40:18 GMT

"During past century, resource extraction has doubled every 20 years or so. Indeed, humanity reached a grim milestone in 2021, when the global quantity of human-made mass — that is, the total weight of all things our species manufactured or constructed — surpassed the total weight of all living plant, animal, and microbial biomass on this planet. And worse yet, that mass of human-made stuff continues to grow, year by year, even as the natural world diminishes further."
https://scheerpost.com/2026/01/15/were-racing-down-the-highway-to-a-mad-max-world/

2026-01-17 10:36:25 GMT

Utah needs to know where the next generation of data centers will get their water and power
Utah’s leadership seems far too eager to impress AI creators so they will build here.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/editorial/2026/01/16/tribune-editorial-utah-needs-know/

2026-01-17 10:32:18 GMT

Inside the invisible e-waste economy of Delhi’s Seelampur
Toxic debris from wealthier nations is redirected to informal settlements such as Seelampur under the guise of second-hand goods. E-waste markets flourish because informal, marginalised spaces allow hazardous, illicit economies to operate beyond regulatory oversight.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/connecting-the-unconnected/inside-the-invisible-e-waste-economy-of-delhis-seelampur

2026-01-17 10:26:25 GMT

"AI data centers on the East Coast are gobbling up so much juice that nonprofit grid operator PJM may be forced to enact rolling blackouts on its customers during both heat waves and exceptionally cold weather just to protect the grid’s integrity. These blackouts would impact a staggering 67 million people in 13 states, which will no doubt fan more anger from customers and politicians who are already deeply ticked off about the mass construction of AI data centers."
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-data-centers-electric-grid-meltdown

2026-01-12 15:12:42 GMT

"Alarmed by what companies are building with artificial intelligence models, a handful of industry insiders are calling for those opposed to the current state of affairs to undertake a mass data poisoning effort to undermine the technology. Their initiative, dubbed Poison Fountain, asks website operators to add links to their websites that feed AI crawlers poisoned training data. It's been up and running for about a week."
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/11/industry_insiders_seek_to_poison/

2026-01-10 12:04:08 GMT

URGENT: If you're Irish read this. Please spread the word
"The government now wants to make it super expensive (>€100,000) for ordinary people to go to court to protect the environment.
The Government is currently engaged in an extremely short consultation on proposed rules to cap legal costs when you go to court and hold the state to account for breaking environmental law.
If you think this is wrong, make your views known by emailing
[email protected] by 15 January.

2026-01-10 11:55:02 GMT

Communities are rising up against data centers
Allen Park planning commission postpones data center approval after resident concerns
https://www.wxyz.com/news/data-centers/allen-park-planning-commission-postpones-data-center-approval-after-resident-concerns

2026-01-10 11:53:57 GMT

We’re suing to protect one of the most important conservation areas in the South from data centers
New data center development in ACE Basin could include one of the largest in the U.S.
https://www.selc.org/news/were-suing-to-protect-one-of-the-most-important-conservation-areas-in-the-south-from-data-centers/

2026-01-09 10:27:00 GMT

So Big Tech has started undressing our children so as to make even more profit off them.
Where are the Irish, UK and USA governments? An Irish Minister blames users. While the EU is complaining about Twitter on Twitter.
Big Tech own our governments. They own our politicians.
It's all about innovation and progress. Here we are having our children stripped of their rights and clothes to be sold for Big Tech profit. Here we are, with women facing an onslaught of Big Tech misogyny.
Toxic men.

2026-01-06 10:20:03 GMT

"More than 3,000 people from U.S. territories have signed a petition opposing proposed deep seabed mining in waters near the Mariana Islands and American Samoa, warning of irreversible environmental damage and the exclusion of Indigenous communities from decision-making."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/583276/petition-against-deep-sea-mining-near-mariana-trench-gaining-support

2026-01-04 10:26:55 GMT

"A comprehensive study published in Nature Sustainability projects that AI server deployment across the United States could generate between 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030. To put this in perspective, that's the same as adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roads."
https://vegoutmag.com/news/r-tns-ais-carbon-footprint-could-equal-10-million-cars-on-the-road-by-2030-study-warns/

2026-01-04 10:25:12 GMT

But as more people hear about a data center coming to their community, once-sleepy municipal board meetings in farming towns and growing suburbs now feature crowded rooms of angry residents pressuring local officials to reject the requests.
“Would you want this built in your backyard?” Larry Shank asked supervisors last month in Pennsylvania’s East Vincent Township. “Because that’s where it’s literally going, is in my backyard.”
https://fortune.com/2026/01/03/data-centers-town-halls-angry-citizens-affordability-zoning-utility/

2026-01-02 11:09:55 GMT

"Microsoft and Google keep the energy consumption of their Dutch data centers secret, despite European reporting obligations. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland, RVO) received blank forms or no data at all. The Dutch newspaper NRC reports that the government has no legal means to request the actual figures."
https://www.techzine.eu/news/infrastructure/137595/how-much-energy-do-microsoft-and-google-consume-the-dutch-dont-know/

2025-12-20 11:29:37 GMT

"Human-in-the-loop (HITL) safeguards that AI agents rely on can be subverted, allowing attackers to weaponize them to run malicious code, new research from CheckMarx shows. HITL dialogs are a safety backstop (a final “are you sure?”) that the agents run before executing sensitive actions like running code, modifying files, or touching system resources."
https://www.csoonline.com/article/4108592/human-in-the-loop-isnt-enough-new-attack-turns-ai-safeguards-into-exploits.html

2025-12-19 10:12:12 GMT

"Company-wide metrics from the environmental disclosure of data center operators suggest that AI systems may have a carbon footprint equivalent to that of New York City in 2025, while their water footprint could be in the range of the global annual consumption of bottled water. Further disclosures from data center operators are urgently required to improve the accuracy of these estimates."
https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(25)00278-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2666389925002788%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

2025-12-18 11:43:54 GMT

"The wealthy world has been burning vast resources on a zero-sum status competition — in which workers must perpetually increase their consumption just to “keep up with the Joneses.” By abandoning such spiritually corrosive consumerism — and embracing more egalitarian and communal ways of life — rich countries can downsize their economies and uplift their people simultaneously."
https://www.vox.com/politics/472466/america-money-inflation-happiness-vibecession-degrowth

2025-12-15 05:56:31 GMT

Big Tech tells us it can't exist without forever chemical (PFAS). A pity these chemicals are killing us.
"It is estimated that 836 kg/yr of volatile PFAS are emitted from US landfills in uncollected gas with a 95% confidence interval (2.5% to 97.5% of the distribution) of 15–5,590 kg/yr. This estimate is comparable to ∼600 kg of PFAS released annually into landfill leachate."
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.5c08763

2025-12-15 05:38:23 GMT

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It's astonishing, isn't it. And this is the multi-billion dollar enterprise that is driving 80% of growth in world economies. What a total scam. There will be consequences.

2025-12-15 05:32:51 GMT

A book on AI ethics full of fake citations
You can't make this stuff up.
Publisher under fire after ‘fake’ citations found in AI ethics guide
A book published by Springer Nature includes dozens of questionable citations, including references to journals that do not exist
https://www.thetimes.com/article/8f7d14db-dfd3-4776-8538-f5ce0a5707b2?shareToken=405c6237994f00a2e6ac41636e4ce159

2025-12-14 19:09:49 GMT

"The research reveals that LLMs can be overconfident in their own answers yet quickly lose that confidence and change their minds when presented with a counterargument, even if the counterargument is incorrect. Understanding the nuances of this behavior can have direct consequences on how you build LLM applications, especially conversational interfaces that span several turns."
https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-study-shows-llms-abandon-correct-answers-under-pressure-threatening-multi-turn-ai-systems

2025-12-14 10:30:40 GMT

"The City of Lowell announced Friday that it will suspend its participation in a proposed data center. According to a post on the city's Facebook page, Lowell will resume engagements in the project if and when the prospective tenant provides specific details about their water and wastewater asks."
https://wwmt.com/news/local/lowell-halts-participation-data-center-project-over-lack-water-wastewater-details-township-alden-nash-avenue-franklin-lowell-llc

2025-12-13 11:30:31 GMT

"Despite being valued at billions of dollars, data center companies like Switch are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies. Annually, Nevada spends $139 million in public subsidies for data centers. That means that taxpayers like us foot the bill twice: first, we give data center companies a massive tax break to build in Nevada. Then, we pay for the energy upgrades and ongoing energy use they require through our increased utility bills."
https://nevadacurrent.com/2025/12/12/dirty-data-centers-will-drive-up-our-utility-bills/

2025-12-13 11:28:00 GMT

Data Center Growth Draining Global Water Supplies
A new report says the race to build data centers amid booming AI demand is a serious threat to the world’s water supply.
We have a global water crisis. Big Tech is accelerating it. Big Tech greed will destroy life on earth. It has no bottom.
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/infrastructure/data-center-growth-draining-global-water-supplies

2025-12-13 11:26:32 GMT

Arizona city rejects data center after AI lobbying push
Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's intervention in a local rezoning effort has sparked a fight over local control.
“If you can’t show me what’s in it for Chandler, then we are not having a conversation,” Ellis said before voting against the project.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/12/arizona-city-rejects-data-center-after-ai-lobbying-push-00688543

2025-12-10 05:27:45 GMT

Gas Networks Ireland recently announced plans to build a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal near Kildysart Co. Clare and gave the local community just 24 hours notice of a public meeting. As Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment, the decision to build the terminal falls under Darragh O Brien's remit and it is important to put public pressure on him and to highlight the negative implications of the proposal.
Please sign and share:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TzuZIaVH1Gu4T5GqomXNgEo9u6Jf_Ls0Lfddw6Ekhu8/edit?usp=sharing

2025-12-06 11:18:36 GMT

"Fifty years ago, following the discovery of vast mineral deposits, Leaf Rapids was designed and built in a span of four years and heralded as the town of the future. Today, it's hanging by a thread."
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2025/12/04/bright-past-bleak-future
Mining always leaves devastation in its wake. It comes, it extracts and what it leaves is toxic waste, destroyed Nature and lost people. We will soon be mining a Mount Everest of materials every year to feed our devouring civilization. Collapse is coming.

2025-12-05 13:47:18 GMT

How the rise of massive datacentres strains Australia’s drinking water supply
"Water demand to service datacentres in Sydney is forecast to be larger than volume of Canberra’s total drinking water within the next decade. In Melbourne the Victorian government has announced a “$5.5m investment to become Australia’s datacentre capital”, but the hyperscale datacentre applications already exceed the water demands of nearly all of state’s top 30 business customers combined."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/04/thirsty-work-how-the-rise-of-massive-datacentres-strains-australias-drinking-water-supply

2025-12-03 13:41:00 GMT

The energy needs of 30 data centers that are planned or under construction across the Carolinas, according to one industry report, would more than double the current energy needs in the Carolinas.
Projected demand on the power grid creates a slew of unknowns that North Carolina utility regulators have only recently begun to grapple with publicly.
Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article312306586.html#storylink=cpy

2025-12-02 18:11:29 GMT

One 10-second AI video on OpenAI’s Sora app takes about 1 kilowatt hour of energy – about 10 per cent of the daily energy used by an average German household.
Netflix 1 hour’s streaming takes around 18 watt hours.
One 10 sec Sora Video takes the same as watching 5 and a half of hours of Netflix.
Alastair Alexander
https://substack.com/@reclaimedsystems/note/c-183329975

2025-12-02 13:45:16 GMT

"The irony was hard to miss: the same month our union received layoff threats, OpenAI’s education evangelists set up shop in the university library to recruit faculty into the gospel of automated learning. The math is brutal and the juxtaposition stark: millions for OpenAI while pink slips go out to longtime lecturers. The CSU isn’t investing in education—it’s outsourcing it, paying premium prices for a chatbot many students were already using for free."
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself

2025-11-26 13:33:37 GMT

"AI's rapid growth is depleting local water reserves around the world, from drought-stricken Chile to South Africa. Its physical footprint reflects a new form of colonial extraction; instead of silver and soy, now it is the cooling water that keeps the digital economy running."
"These community struggles highlight a familiar pattern in which corporations and governments present data centres as engines of modernisation while downplaying their environmental costs."
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/3144490/ais-growth-is-depleting-water-reserves.

2025-11-25 10:19:08 GMT

"So, when we arrived here at COP30, we were abandoned. We didn’t have access to water. We had a hard time finding meals. It was very difficult for our people, who had traveled for so long to get here. And the people wanted to be heard. We came in a large delegation, and we wanted to speak, and we wanted to be heard. But we were blocked."
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/11/24/full_interview_indigenous_amazon_defender_alessandra

2025-11-24 09:49:48 GMT

"Degrowth offers a counter-narrative. By deliberately reducing consumption, scaling back wasteful production, and prioritizing sufficiency over excess, societies can redistribute resources more fairly. Degrowth is not about poverty or stagnation; it is about shifting priorities. Luxury consumption, speculative finance, and high-emission production are curtailed, while public services, social welfare, and environmental protection are expanded."
https://dailyasianage.com/news/344847/the-equality-hidden-in-degrowth

2025-11-19 10:28:32 GMT

Google Strives To Keep Data Center Water Use Secret After Judge Orders Records Released
A Roanoke judge has ordered the Western Virginia Water Authority to release information related to a potential Google data center.
https://www.roanokerambler.com/google-strives-keep-data-center-botetourt-county-water-use-secret-judge-orders-records-released/
All over the world, Google tries to keep secret its water use

2025-11-18 13:42:20 GMT

Serious $1 Trillion Crypto Price Crash Warning Sparks Panic As Bitcoin Drop Suddenly Accelerates
"The bitcoin price has fallen almost 30% from its peak last month, plunging bitcoin into bear market territory and wiping $1 trillion from the combined $3.2 trillion crypto market, with traders panicking over a bitcoin crash nightmare scenario that could be suddenly coming true."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/11/18/serious-1-trillion-crypto-crash-warning-sparks-panic-as-bitcoin-drop-suddenly-accelerates/

2025-11-16 17:13:54 GMT

Informal recycling can involve washing the e-waste—often using bare hands—in acids such as “nitrates, sulfates, hydrogen fluoride, etc., to create slurry. Gold is extracted by mixing sodium cyanide to run off gold cyanide. Lots of toxic wastewater results from this process. The remaining slurry is dried and buried or burned. It’s very toxic and problematic to handle. Burying causes terrible leaching 10 or 20 years later, poisons the land and makes large areas unfarmable.
https://gerrymcgovern.com/nature-will-recycle-us/

2025-11-16 10:21:20 GMT

Data centers are driving up electricity bills
"The reasons for price increases are often complex and vary by region. But in at least three states with high concentrations of data centers, electric bills climbed much faster than the national average during that period. Prices, for example, surged by 13% in Virginia, 16% in Illinois and 12% in Ohio."
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/data-centers-are-concentrated-in-these-states-heres-whats-happening-to-electricity-prices-.html

2025-11-15 15:28:03 GMT

"The plans formally surfaced in July. Four months later, they have the green light, a deal with Michigan’s largest utility to draw more power than a million homes and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer heralding them as the largest one-time investment in state history. The project? A sprawling warehouse filled with servers to fuel Big Tech’s rising demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence."
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2025/11/as-ai-arms-race-data-centers-hit-michigan-rural-farm-town-feels-left-in-the-dust.html

2025-11-15 15:04:41 GMT

“We are just making these reports pretty much in the dark — since there’s almost zero information,” said Shaolei Ren, an AI researcher at UC Riverside and co-author of the report. “We have extremely little information about data centers in California.”
https://calmatters.org/environment/2025/11/data-center-environmental-report/
Big Tech wants to know absolutely everything about us. It works incredibly hard so that we know as little as possible about them

2025-11-14 10:21:38 GMT

"The availability of freshwater is already a concern globally. By 2030, demand for freshwater will outstrip supply by 40% — which will mean those reliant on water will become increasingly dependent on the extraction of non-renewable or unreliable water sources. In essence, the data centers needed to power the AI revolution are already drinking from a drying tap. Some tech accelerationists argue that AI isn’t the cause of this crisis."
https://www.techpolicy.press/artificial-intelligence-water-consumption-and-the-trillionradish-conundrum-/

2025-11-14 05:48:01 GMT

"The water crisis is really a crisis of groundwater. 99% of freshwater is groundwater, and groundwater supplies 40% of our food, and 70% of irrigation, but many major aquifers are already overdrawn. The Ogallala, which grows a sixth of the world’s grain, could be largely unusable within decades."
https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/the-big-groundwater-crisis-food-water
The Growth Death Cult will kill us all, and Big Tech want more and more water. All for super greedy AI.
Time to resist!

2025-11-13 14:28:42 GMT

ChatGPT Now Linked to Way More Deaths Than the Caffeinated Lemonade That Panera Pulled Off the Market in Disgrace
"As of last week, ChatGPT maker OpenAI is facing a total of eight distinct lawsuits alleging that extensive use of its flagship chatbot inflicted emotional and psychological harm to users, resulting in mental breakdowns, financial instability, alienation from loved ones, and — in five cases — death by suicide."
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/chatgpt-deaths-panera-lemonade

2025-11-13 13:27:48 GMT

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You're right. The whole planned obsolescence system is rotten. Every year, digital design, from semiconductors up, becomes less repairable and recyclable.

2025-11-13 10:13:27 GMT

"A sharp increase in e-waste has accompanied the surge in electronic equipment. In 2022, 62 million tons of e-waste was produced globally. Canada’s e-waste tripled between 2000 and 2019 and is expected to reach 1.2 billion kilograms by 2030. These statistics demonstrate an urgent environmental crisis that demands new ways of thinking and educating future generations."
https://theconversation.com/to-tackle-e-waste-teach-kids-to-be-responsible-consumers-265712

2025-11-11 12:03:00 GMT

Increasingly Big Tech will compete with food for water. Big Tech will win.
The people who run Big Tech would let half the world die of thirst and see that as merely the price of progress, innovation
"Rice farmers in the south were forced to stop planting rice for three years in a row, from 2021 to 2023. “Farmers say they are being sacrificed for [the] semiconductor industry, and I think that’s a fair assessment,” said Po-Jen Hsu."
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-ecological-cost-of-ai-is-much-higher-than-you-think/

2025-11-11 10:11:58 GMT

AI is devouring life on earth, and it's only getting started. And for what? A tech bro scam
"By 2030, the current rate of AI growth would annually put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the emissions equivalent of adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roadways. It would also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year—equal to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans."
https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ai-centers-strain-energy-resources.html

2025-11-10 10:28:03 GMT

AI power use forecast finds the industry far off track to net zero
Several large tech firms that are active in AI have set goals to hit net zero by 2030, but a new forecast of the energy and water required to run large data centres shows they’re unlikely to meet those targets
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2503556-ai-power-use-forecast-finds-the-industry-far-off-track-to-net-zero/
Net Zero was always a joke to Big Tech. They were never serious and never will be. Their growth depends on environmental destruction.

2025-11-10 10:16:03 GMT

"From Chile and Mexico to Georgia in the US and Scotland, serious concerns have been raised around data centres guzzling excess water and consuming vast amounts of energy at the cost of local communities. In an energy starved, water-scarce India, these challenges are even more accentuated. According to the World Bank, India has 18% of the world's population, but only 4% of its water resources, making it among the most water-stressed countries in the world."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr417pwek7o

2025-11-08 12:09:19 GMT

"The latest version of Elon Musk’s Grok AI model cost nearly $500 million to train and consumed enough energy, water, and resources to match the needs of an entire small city."
"The carbon footprint of training Grok 4 reached 154,000 tons of CO₂, comparable to what a commercial Boeing airplane emits over three years of flights. Cooling the data centers and running power systems took 754 million liters of water—enough to fill around 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools."
https://www.dagens.com/technology/elon-musks-grok-ai-used-city-scale-energy-and-water-to-train

2025-11-06 15:17:47 GMT

Data centers in Ireland article
I'm doing an article on the impact of data centers in Ireland. Anyone got some interesting insights or information?

2025-10-31 05:26:24 GMT

"‘Degrowth’ is as clear as it gets. Definitely no less clear than ‘equality’; or ‘economic growth’ for that matter (is it growth of welfare or activity? monetised or all activity? if only monetised, why would we care?). Beyond a critique of the absurdity of perpetual growth, degrowth signifies a decrease of global carbon and material footprint, starting from the wealthy."
https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/youre-wrong-kate-degrowth-is-a-compelling-word/

2025-10-30 10:04:22 GMT

What are the real world implications of "aggressively" rolling out solar, wind and EVs?
All over the world, the mining oligarchs are hungry and hunting. In Ireland, right now young geologists are knocking on farmers doors, saying they're doing PHDs and could they survey the land for lithium. The farmers know the game, ask for written confirmation, find out its all a ruse by multinational lithium company. In Global South, they're coming with guns and bombs to make Green Sacrifice Zones.

2025-10-29 10:29:10 GMT

AI cannot be a moral agent with an understanding of difference between right and wrong and is held accountable for its actions, he said.
“AI can produce the same decisions and recommendations that humans would produce,” he said, “but the causal history of those decisions differs in important ways.” Unlike humans, AI lacks free will and cannot be held morally responsible. If an AI system causes harm, the blame lies with its developers or users, not the technology itself.
https://stories.tamu.edu/news/2025/10/27/can-artificial-intelligence-have-morality-philosophy-weighs-in/

2025-10-29 10:23:22 GMT

"More than 15 new data centres are being built on Swiss soil, partly to power AI applications. With over 120 server farms, Switzerland now has one of the highest densities of data centres per capita in Europe. Experts estimate that these currently account for around 7%External link of total Swiss electricity consumption. By 2030, consumption could rise to as much as 15%."
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-ai/swiss-concerned-by-electricity-consumption-of-data-centres-and-ai/90233764

2025-10-28 10:23:22 GMT

"If you're wondering what happened to your computer from 20 years ago, it just might be at a massive e-waste dumpsite in Ghana, one of the major destinations for discarded electronics from Europe and North America. In the r/UrbanHell subreddit, one user shared photos that captured a haunting scene at an e-waste graveyard."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/disturbing-photos-reveal-astonishing-truth-063000800.html

2025-10-26 10:35:22 GMT

The data centers are coming. Resist!
"I never thought that a data centre would be built across the street from my house," she said. "I would not have bought this house if I had known what was going in across the street."
"There are no birds around here anymore," he said, noting the humming or buzzing noise the centre emits scares away a lot of wildlife from his area.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93dnnxewdvo

2025-10-25 15:34:21 GMT

AI is a racist, bigoted, imperialist male white supremacy tech bro shithead
"When prompted to visualise Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, Sora privileges the European settler viewpoint: pre-colonial landscapes are rendered as empty wilderness, Captain Cook appears as a calm civiliser, and Māori are cast as timeless, peripheral figures."
https://theconversation.com/historical-images-made-with-ai-recycle-colonial-stereotypes-and-bias-new-research-268070

2025-10-25 15:16:07 GMT

Big Tech: climate terrorists, gangsters
"Big Tech’s promises of “green AI” mask an uncomfortable reality: massive energy demands, growing carbon emissions, and a shifting narrative that sidelines sustainability."
“Almost all sustainability messaging is now framed through the lens of AI,” Riemens noted. Microsoft promises AI will “accelerate climate action.” Google highlights its “AI for sustainability” tools. Yet, behind these claims lie troubling contradictions."
https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/green-myths-and-platform-power-how-ai-reshapes-a-climate-debate

2025-10-24 16:36:59 GMT

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the reality usually is they get the water at half the price the public pays--all sweetheart deals and corporate welfare

2025-10-24 12:00:13 GMT

"It’s no wonder that companies are silent about exactly how much water their facilities use. The Data Center Coalition, an industry lobbying group, opposed the California disclosure bill—the one that Newsom then vetoed. In 2021, a city in Oregon sued a local newspaper to prevent it from reporting on Google’s water use. After the case was finally settled, news reports revealed that Google’s data centers accounted for more than a quarter of local water consumption."
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ai-zuckerberg-tech-regulation-data-security/#

2025-10-24 04:55:25 GMT

"He saw how easy it was for environmentalism to lose its teeth by shifting from a call to restructure society into a personal quest for harmony with nature. For Bookchin, ecological problems were not the result of a rupture in some metaphysical human consciousness, but of hierarchical systems that perpetuate domination—first of people, then of nature. If we want to address ecological crisis, we have to confront those systems. We have to make ecology political."
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-10-22/against-ecological-consciousness-why-we-need-ecological-literacy-not-mystified-unity/?mc_cid=2d798db552

2025-10-23 10:48:38 GMT

Tech Giants Are Trying to Cover Up the Environmental Impacts of Their Data Centers
Silicon Valley is using legal loopholes and NDAs to keep the public in the dark about the water and energy being consumed by generative AI.
"A new Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, will require more than eight million gallons of water each year to operate, according to records that Microsoft did everything in its power to keep hidden from the public."
https://progressive.org/latest/tech-giants-are-trying-to-cover-up-the-environmental-impacts-of-their-data-centers-cooper-20251022/

2025-10-23 10:46:17 GMT

"While Angelenos must curtail their water use, California data centers won’t even be forced to disclose their water consumption. Earlier this month, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required the facilities, which can guzzle millions of gallons in a single day, to report their water usage."
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ai-zuckerberg-tech-regulation-data-security/

2025-10-22 13:02:51 GMT

Super-secretive data centers creep up on communities to get go-ahead before anyone can object
“Why so secretive about this whole topic? It’s really not a good look. If it’s a legitimate process, why so secretive about it."
“Slow all this down. Be honest. Just don’t try to shove it all down our throats."
“We need a David to this Goliath. You did not take an oath to represent the interests of Fortune 50 companies. You took an oath to represent the citizens of Hermantown"
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/10/21/hermantown-data-center-moves-forward-despite-opposition

2025-10-21 05:59:00 GMT

"Unfortunately, the technology of the future demands a high price. On top of the exorbitant energy cost fueling a return to industrial-era levels of pollution, AI is also propped up by a massive global sweatshop operation, where low-wage workers in underdeveloped countries are tasked with doing the hidden intellectual labor that makes the tech useful."
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-industry-traumatizing-contractors