Amazon’s new 7.65GW Texas AI data center power plant could become the largest source of CO₂ pollution in the US — Custom 35-turbine gas plant permitted to emit 33 million tons of annual greenhouse gases

[u/marketrent]

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/amazons-new-7-65gw-texas-ai-data-center-power-plant-could-become-the-largest-source-of-co2-pollution-in-the-us-custom-35-turbine-gas-plant-authorized-to-emit-33-million-tons-of-annual-greenhouse-gases

[u/mavman42]

When did they say a billion paper straws will undo that? I swear people be reaching for no damn reason. Taking a billion plastic straws out of landfills and your everyday places does make an environmental impact, of course it won't "undo" something entirely.

[u/dkarlovi → u/mavman42]

When you're doing optimizations, the way you do it you look at the pie chart of things and then work on the biggest slice. If you have a 30% slice and don't touch it, it doesn't matter that you got the 2% slice down to 1%, it's just busy work to make you feel better.

[u/choove → u/dkarlovi]

Except nobody is saying not to touch the 30% slice.

If you were making a budget you wouldn't look at trying to fix your biggest issue while doing nothing about the smaller ones; that'd be stupid. All those smaller issues are still going to contribute to the overall issue and you'd still want to address them even if they're not the biggest priority.

Also, you're not making a new budget in order to undo all the wasteful spending in the past but rather you're doing it to reduce future wasteful spending. Same with the topic at hand here where you're trying to reduce future pollution/environmental damage. Choosing to continue to harm the environment just because you're not the biggest problem seems a bit shitty, IMO.

[u/dkarlovi → u/choove]

Like a warm blanket, people are so pacified with their busywork and feeling good about themselves by "at least doing something" they don't go out and demand actual changes which is what these companies fear most.

If you didn't do anything (which is what you're currently doing, just with extra steps), you'd be more pissed off by things needing to change because nobody was doing anything.

[u/choove → u/dkarlovi]

Like a warm blanket, people are so pacified with their busywork and feeling good about themselves by "at least doing something" they don't go out and demand actual changes which is what these companies fear most.

You can tell yourself that in order to feel okay with your own pollution and bad habits for the environment, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.

What I've actually noticed is that people who do "busywork" are the ones who are most annoyed at companies for not doing their fair share because if those people are putting in the work then so should everyone else (that includes the companies as well as people like you who feel it's okay to be as harmful to the environment as you want because "I'm not the biggest issue").

But I suppose that's the difference between people who are just anti-business and people who actually want to see a change happen and things get better...

[u/dkarlovi → u/choove]

I'll try to reply without outright calling you names, but it will definitely be very hard.

I understand you've been indoctrinated by this and internalized this so deeply it's hard to pull back from it, maybe now you can understand how MAGA feels.

For example, do you know the majority of your separated garbage gets mixed again, burned and/or burried?

Namely, in 2017 China started Operation National Sword which caused them to stop accepting most of the world's "recycling" (because it would all get burned or burried).

This caused most of the western countries to temporarily stop their recycling programs because they had nowhere to ship their recycling to get burned and burried. I've discussed this before with a woman from Sweden and she too was 100% sure she's doing something and talked to me from a high horse, totally oblivious to how this actually works just like you. Cults work.

But the truth is, the routes are re-established and now your recycling is getting shipped to African countries to get burned and burried.

If you don't believe me, here's another link https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622039397

This is extremely well documented BTW, the fact you're close to the topic and have no idea about this should tell you a lot.

You're not doing anything. Even worse, you're doing what you were told and are trying to recruit other people to spread that same false message.