In Georgia where this data center is they have hundreds of these farms which not only drain the local aquifers but create shit lagoons that pollute mostly black neighborhoods.
It is the height of hypocrisy to complain about datacenters and support animal agriculture which is unnecessary.
You do know that multiple things can be bad at once, right? Like, yes, agriculture uses an ABHORRENT amount of water, but we at least get food out of it. What do we get out of datacenters? Chatbots that drive people insane and endless worthless slop. Both are bad.
I agree both are bad. That is why you should be vegan. “At least we get food out of it” the food is bad for you and the environment and tortures living, feeling, sentient beings. You should absolutely stop this ASAP if you are that concerned about the environment.
No one is defending them. Both are bad and you should stop eating meat if you are going to be using this as an excuse to be against data centers. Factory farms produce waste that give people cancer and destroy the environment. Optional animal agriculture causes 15% of all global emissions. You can stop today. Defending animal ag is honestly disgusting.
~30 ft subsidence at a California farm from extraction of the groundwater. Agricultural use is immense and wipes out historic rivers, lakes, even seas and slowly replenished groundwater reserves and something like 40% of water used is wasted because the sun just evaporates it before it used by the crops.
Everyone (agricultural or data center) would be far less wasteful if they had to at least pay for the true value of the water they’re extracting in their local area, i.e. a lot more if it’s scarcer/from slowly replenishing sources. Though that would probably result in a lot of economic relocation to wetter areas as many business models in dry areas become unviable.
Hey, look, it’s the Roman Polanski documentary Chinatown.
Everyone (agricultural or data center) would be far less wasteful if they had to at least pay for the true value of the water they’re extracting
Currency is, itself, just an accounting construct. There is no “true value of the water” that people pay for because the thing they used to pay for it is predicated on rapid economic growth rather than efficient allocation of resources.
One might ask the question “What is material cost-benefit of 30’ of subsidence?” Like, how is California worse (or better) off thanks to the harvesting of that groundwater? Given that the state is one of the most popular places in the country to live, I might suggest the 40M residents are better for that water harvesting than they would have been without it.
I might also suggest that a public sector dedicated to balancing the resident water demands and industry water-use demands could improve the rate/volume of consumption. But that would require a public voting base / private executive staff that valued the long-term health of the state rather than the short term economic growth of the local neighborhoods.
People would love to live in a state with Mediterranean climate mostly year-round regardless of subsidence. You can say it would reduce agricultural jobs if charging for unsustainable water use put down farms dependent on it and that would make California less attractive economically. But even assuming the entire hulk of California agriculture was destroyed, that’s in the low single digit percentage of the state’s economic activity.
It’s not just a matter of that the soil went down. The water was extracted from a matrix of soil and water, and the soil sinks because the matrix of soil and air no longer stands up to the weight above it and gets compacted down. Less voids in the soil means that when rain comes in, instead of seeping down and recharging aquifers it piles up on the surface in sheets that then race down to lower elevations in floods that sweep away whatever is in their path. And with enough extraction and lessened recharge eventually the wells stop working and force the issue. Everyone suffers from natural disasters for the benefit of a few who just so happened to get water rights from early settlement.
CAFO “Factory Farms” in Minnesota used 2.3 billion gallons of water in 2017 and the number is going up
A typical Hog CAFO uses 5-10 million gallons per month, every month, all year long.
Dairy CAFOS use 10-20 million.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/11365/ https://www.elpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/MI-CAFO-Report-Section-1-ELPC.pdf
In Georgia where this data center is they have hundreds of these farms which not only drain the local aquifers but create shit lagoons that pollute mostly black neighborhoods.
It is the height of hypocrisy to complain about datacenters and support animal agriculture which is unnecessary.
You do know that multiple things can be bad at once, right? Like, yes, agriculture uses an ABHORRENT amount of water, but we at least get food out of it. What do we get out of datacenters? Chatbots that drive people insane and endless worthless slop. Both are bad.
I agree both are bad. That is why you should be vegan. “At least we get food out of it” the food is bad for you and the environment and tortures living, feeling, sentient beings. You should absolutely stop this ASAP if you are that concerned about the environment.
The datacenter is using enough water to lower the local water pressure. Defending them is honestly disgusting.
No one is defending them. Both are bad and you should stop eating meat if you are going to be using this as an excuse to be against data centers. Factory farms produce waste that give people cancer and destroy the environment. Optional animal agriculture causes 15% of all global emissions. You can stop today. Defending animal ag is honestly disgusting.
~30 ft subsidence at a California farm from extraction of the groundwater. Agricultural use is immense and wipes out historic rivers, lakes, even seas and slowly replenished groundwater reserves and something like 40% of water used is wasted because the sun just evaporates it before it used by the crops.
Everyone (agricultural or data center) would be far less wasteful if they had to at least pay for the true value of the water they’re extracting in their local area, i.e. a lot more if it’s scarcer/from slowly replenishing sources. Though that would probably result in a lot of economic relocation to wetter areas as many business models in dry areas become unviable.
It’s not just agriculture and data centers either, manufacturing uses a lot too.
Hey, look, it’s the Roman Polanski documentary Chinatown.
Currency is, itself, just an accounting construct. There is no “true value of the water” that people pay for because the thing they used to pay for it is predicated on rapid economic growth rather than efficient allocation of resources.
One might ask the question “What is material cost-benefit of 30’ of subsidence?” Like, how is California worse (or better) off thanks to the harvesting of that groundwater? Given that the state is one of the most popular places in the country to live, I might suggest the 40M residents are better for that water harvesting than they would have been without it.
I might also suggest that a public sector dedicated to balancing the resident water demands and industry water-use demands could improve the rate/volume of consumption. But that would require a public voting base / private executive staff that valued the long-term health of the state rather than the short term economic growth of the local neighborhoods.
People would love to live in a state with Mediterranean climate mostly year-round regardless of subsidence. You can say it would reduce agricultural jobs if charging for unsustainable water use put down farms dependent on it and that would make California less attractive economically. But even assuming the entire hulk of California agriculture was destroyed, that’s in the low single digit percentage of the state’s economic activity.
It’s not just a matter of that the soil went down. The water was extracted from a matrix of soil and water, and the soil sinks because the matrix of soil and air no longer stands up to the weight above it and gets compacted down. Less voids in the soil means that when rain comes in, instead of seeping down and recharging aquifers it piles up on the surface in sheets that then race down to lower elevations in floods that sweep away whatever is in their path. And with enough extraction and lessened recharge eventually the wells stop working and force the issue. Everyone suffers from natural disasters for the benefit of a few who just so happened to get water rights from early settlement.