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Original comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1uyyywv/comment/oy3cgd7/
Trees vs. Data Centers
Photo 1: Memphis, TN (top)
Photo 2: Sandston, VA
Photo 3: Abilene, Texas
Photo 4: New Albany, OH
Photo 5: Fayetteville, GA
Not even solar panels on the roofs.
There's all this talk of solar-powered space-based orbital data centers , but they can't be bothered to put up cheaper, simpler, grid-relieving ground-based solar, on the real estate they've already got, when that would start producing some juice like right now? How does this make any sense?
As long as they continue to spout pie-in-the-sky for-realsies gonna-be-fantastic totally-not-gonna-fall-apart-like-half-Elon's-schemes plans for the future, they don't have to spend ANY money on stuff like ground-based solar panel arrays, and they get more investors who get suckered by the pitch too!
VC money
Not even panels over the parking lots.
Is there a /c/extremelydepressing? This would go perfectly there.
That's just world news.
I wouldn’t really categorize rampant ecological destruction as something calling for merely mild annoyance
Yeah it needs to be c/extremelyinfuriating
Sorry shady, I meant trees causing shade
It's a bit unfortunate the second xAI is taken in the winter, so we can't really see how much of the trees are gone, but looks like a lot.
I’m genuinely confused about why the season matters?!
I can't tell from this far away, but if those trees are deciduous then they lose their leaves in the cold weather
So a winter photo might not be as good of a comparison as a summer photo because even if there were exactly as many trees in each photo, the winter one would look like there are fewer.
Summer vs winter picture, not a very honest take
It would look the same for any commercial building - a warehouse, shopping center (would be even worse), etc.
No need to be disingenuous, it just weakens the argument and gives someone who disagrees with you valid ammunition.
I don't like AI data centres, but try to get photos of the same month/season to make this point.
Not all development that removes trees are created equally, just saying. If it's a new interstate power transmission line, solar or wind farm, new non-market housing, passenger rail line, it would be better than a data centre, ICE concentration camp, oil pipeline, intensive agriculture, etc. The end use matters more to weigh against, than saying clearing trees is never worth it as a blanket statement. If it is worth developing, officials have to weigh the importance the forest as a natural habitat compared to natural bogs, lakes and meadows as alternatives, to maintain biome diversity.
You can do the same with solar panel farms, orphanages, hospitals, community owned grocery stores, or any number of things that you would be happy with being built. Things need space to be built on. More at 8.
Things need space to be built, but all of those other things you mentioned have value. It's upsetting to cut down a shitload of trees for something that is going to be useless in 3 years when the AI bubble pops.
Yeah I'm gonna defend this
lmao what a clown. There's plenty of abandoned stores in every city and empty lots. You don't have to go tear up mother nature when we don't even use the land we already have.
This in exchange for something that just invented nonsense words and inserted them into my science presentation?
Nothing mild about this
This is not mild. This is infuriating.
Controversial opinion: this is not the problem of the data centers, but the missing laws protecting the land containing a forest. Currently data centers are trendy, but they would also have made room for a regular factory. Now think about how much forest gets deforested in total, not just by data centers, each year.