From the above stats, a 2.3% change to USA meat consumption, up or down, has the same impact as a 100% change to data centre water consumption, up or down.
If I read the USDA stats correctly, US red meat and poultry production went up about 5.6% from Jan-Jun 2025 to Jan-Jun 2026, i.e. the increased production of meat led to an increase in water use that was twice as much as the water use of all the data centres combined.
It's not quite that simple. Most people who reduce/eliminate meat consumption are going to substitute something else rather than eat less, and what they substitute may be just as water intensive as the meat they replace.
For example, if a person's meat diet is virtually all chicken (reasonable given prices lately), substituting the chicken for almonds is a net neutral change. Almonds use every bit as much water as chickens do.
Granted, that may be an extreme example, as almonds are one of the more water-intensive crops, and chicken is one of the most water-efficient meats. There will likely be decent water savings in many cases, but at the very least, anything a person substitutes for their existing meat diet is going to use some water as well.
Give up your meat consumption because it's more about societal excess than anything else.
Meat is and mostly always has been(in euro societies) a luxury item meant mostly for the rich.
Capitalism turned meat into a MUST HAVE item for keeping up with the Joneses.
We consume absolute insane amounts of meat nowadays, and we waste about half of it, just so people can feel good cuz theyre eating a high class excess meal.
Lol most people throughout history didn't eat much meat. It's wild how modern western people refuse to see how we'll destroy the planet trying to feed 8 billion people with the most inefficient method of creating calories(beef). The inefficiency IS THE POINT.
So? Many people are not willing to give up their cloud services either?
And there are other kinds of meat that cost less water to produce. I don't think someone who isn't willing to give up beef for chicken is at a higher moral ground than someone who wants cheap tokens.
True. I was going to hate the environmental destruction being wrought for the purpose of funneling more of our wealth to a handful billionaires who will use the AI against us, but then I remembered how bad meat eaters are for the plight of the common man, and now data centers don’t seem so bad after all.
Anytime I see "common sense" adjacent to politics, it's a dodge. It's for issues that pander to their base or where they're just getting bribed. If there's a better reason, they'd say it.
If you want a trip down memory lane, go to InfiniteMac.org, spin up a System 7.5 emulator, go to the InfiniteHD/Games folder and launch SimTower!! Such a fun blast of nostalgia. I loved the game as a kid and can still very much enjoy it as a mid-40 year old.
I thought that spreading the writes and bytes around for even wear would make it even harder to piece together data from a dump without a partition table.
My health insurance company sends reimbursement as paper cheques in the mail, so I get multiple cheques per year. Some landlords still aren't recieving rent any other way than by cash or cheque. Happy for your chequeless existence tho!
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