Yes and no. It is possible for someone earning 70k/year to emit below the average (let’s also keep in mind that the goal is not to be below the average, but to be at 0 emissions/impact), but everything you can buy has a CO2/environment-cost related to it.

As soon as you spend more, you have a higher impact. Of course there are more and less impactful ways of consumption, so you do raise a good point, but we’re not going to consume our way out of this misery.

A really nice book I shove down the throat of every single one of my friends who’s not running away fast enough is The Day the World Stops Shopping, in case you have way too much time at hand ^^

Or the printed copy!

It’s not like those major social media sites don’t have some kind of data center (or rent one) in every “major” (population wise) timezone they operate in. Your other arguments still hold true, but I think even then it would be better for all of us if those websites went down every now and then.

Yeah, that’s surely gonna work. As if the people dying from the heat right now aren’t too many already. I’m somewhat sure you’re not being serious, and while I see where you’re coming from, that would be treating symptoms at best. As long as society doesn’t fundamentally change, other “high consumers” would emerge again, and we’d be back where we started

That’s also what’s so frustrating to me. The world could be so much better, people just seem to not care. Summer really sucks currently, now I don’t just have winter depression, but also summer… anxiety? Haven’t thought of a good term yet. I’ve had this post open in a tab the last two days, and I do intend to write something, I just haven’t found the time yet, as I’m quite sure the length of the comment will get out of hand. Just know that you’re not alone with those thoughts.

Then I misunderstood that, but I still don’t agree. The “surplus energy” of the renewables is not really there. Granted, in some regions (not really sure about the USA, though, I don’t have data on that), renewables can provide > 100% of the required electricity for a few hours per day, but that’s not really a lot of surplus energy. If it was, they wouldn’t have to build power plants just for the data centers.

You even kind of mention that with

because this demand is outstripping even the excess supply

Electricity price definitely is a factor for data centers, but having electricity 24/7 is even more important to them. Also, what made AI feasible was the usage of GPUs or even more specialized hardware, that is tailored to those tasks. Machine learning as a concept has been around since the 1980s or even earlier, not just the last 20 years. Paradoxically, that increase in efficiency caused a drastic increase in total power consumption for AI.

Germany 1923.

Now that it’s not completely unfeasable thanks to renewable energy

Are we living in the same reality? Renewable energy has nothing to do with machine learning or especially LLMs being feasible. The data centers used/being built for AI use some of the dirtiest form of energy you can use, because it’s cheaper or easier available.

Point in case: Data centers are being built off-grid using gas turbines. In fact, the planned amount of gas-powered data centers use more electricity than Germany.

Also, they are not even using proper gas power plants for that, mostly just gas turbines, which are cheaper and faster to install, but way less efficient.

They don’t care about the power use of their data centers, and especially not whether they are renewable.

Naja gut, etwas Eigenverantwortung würde ich bei Betrachtung der Werte dann doch erwarten. Die meisten Messstationen haben sogar eine “Clear Sky” Prognose (also die maximale UV-Belastung bei wolkenfreiem Himmel), und selbst wenn nicht, kann man den etwaigen Verlauf aus vergangenen Tagen gut abschätzen. Wenn dann die näheste Messstation einen Wert angibt, der sehr niedrig ist, aber bei einem selbst die Sonne runterbrennt, dann könnte man eventuell selbst erahnen, dass das nicht ganz passt.

An sich spricht ja nichts dagegen, dass alle gut aufgeklärt über die UV-Belastung sind, aber bei solchen Geräten denke ich mir, das ist halt wieder ein Stück Elektroschrott mehr, das dann - im Besten Fall - irgendwann ungenutzt rumliegt.

Würde mich interessieren, was genau der Anwendungsfall von solchen Messgeräten ist. UV-Strahlung ist jetzt nichts sonderlich lokales, wofür man ein eigenes Messgerät braucht, das BfS stellt die Daten der Messstationen online zur Verfügung (Hier die Übersichtskarte mit auswählbaren Messstationen und hier z.B. Berlin).

Und es ist auch nicht so, als würde sich die UV-Strahlung von Tag zu Tag stark ändern, das Wetter sorgt ja höchstens dafür, dass die Strahlung niedriger als erwartet ist.

Sure, those are valid things to get “nervous” about, but that’s also possible with other pots and pans. Usually cooktop glass is hard enough to withstand metal moving on top of it, as long as you don’t deliberately try to scratch it.

As for the abrasiveness, I have a cast iron pan that’s coated with I think enamel at the bottom only. Not sure how common that is. But I also haven’t had problems with the ones that are not coated.

The weight is definitely a good point - handling them is a bit more difficult than the “lighter” pans, that can’t be argued away.

Haha, okay, if you’re juggling with your pans… But I also wouldn’t recommend doing that with other pots and pans, I don’t think the cooktop would handle them that much better.

I also can’t really come up with reasonable uses for excess power, there is only so much a household can use.

I just looked up the law and it’s even more fucked up than I remember. It only applies to installations with > 2 kWp, so the famous Balkonkraftwerke are not affected.

As long as you don’t have a smart meter (only about 5% of homes in Germany have a smart meter yet, disregard the 23.3% “Pflicht-Rollout”, they are misleading)), you are only allowed to feed up to 60% of the installed power back to the grid (e.g. if you have 10 kWp installed, and you generate an excess of more than 6 kW, you have to limit its output so that you only feed 6 kW to the grid).

The regulations for installations with a smart meter also changed, the details are too convoluted for me to really care, but in the end the new law aims to reduce solar power output during “noon”/peak production hours.

There are several reasons this annoys me, but the worst is, that the grid is not really “overloaded”, it’s mostly just that coal/oil/gas power plants don’t get regulated down as much.

Take, for example, this months electricity generation in Germany (You can click on the legend below to filter out generation types) - even though solar, wind and biomass is regularly able to provide enough power to meet demand for several hours a day, fossil fuel power plants are running during those times. Even gas, which supposedly is so flexible and only there to provide power when necessary.

Anyway, this is getting way too long already - the blame is put on solar and renewables, when it is also fossil fuel power plants that are not properly regulated.

That’s an interesting concept, sounds similar to the german WG (Wohngemeinschaft), but that’s, to my knowledge, also mostly used by younger people that are still studying or similar.

Should have mined bitcoin.

And since we’re already straying off topic, germany “recently” introduced a law where you have to limit rooftop solar production to 60% of the installed peak power (you’re not allowed to feed more than that back to the grid). Now I’m wondering whether I should start mining bitcoin at my parents place, despite my disgust for bitcoin. I’ll have to see whether I can get some E-waste to put together an appropriate rig, I’m definitely not getting new hardware for that, if at all.

I can’t help with stainless steel pans, but just wanted to add my two cents to

I don’t want cast iron, because it’s more likely to break the glass-topped induction cooktop.

I’ve been using cast iron pans on glass-topped (induction or not) cooktops with no problems whatsoever. I don’t see how they would cause more or less damage to the glass surface than other pans.

But I do understand that they’re not very suited for shared usage with housemates that don’t take proper care of them.

Even better is “Haare wachsen lassen”. One meaning is letting your hair grow, the other is waxing your hair. Pronounced exactly the same

I like your positive outlook on things, even if I personally don’t share it. I hope you can keep it :)

Sag das bloß nicht zu laut, sonst kommt wieder der Lynchmob und will die Veganer essen.

Das Tolle ist ja auch, dass die Diskussion sich mit dem Artikel verschoben hat von “weniger Fleisch, um das Klima zu schützen” zu “weniger Fleisch, damit wir es trotz der Auswirkungen des Klimawandels noch essen können”. Kann man sich echt nicht ausdenken.

Ich find’s auch bezeichnend, dass der Forscher schon vor der eigentlichen Aussage zurückrudert und sagt “man kann niemandem Fleisch verbieten”. Vor allem, da der Artikel davor warnt, dass man bei Ernteausfällen Soja aus Ländern importieren muss, “die dafür Regenwald abholzen”. Haben die mal ausm Fenster geschaut? Das passiert schon lange, und Fleischkonsum ist mit einer der Hauptgründe, warum der Regenwald verschwindet.

Aber klar, bei großflächigen Ernsteausfällen denke ich auch zuerst daran, wie ich in Zukunft noch an mein Fleisch komme, nicht, wie die Ernteausfälle und deren Ursachen zu bekämpfen wären…

That’s a very unfortunate shortening of the title - it’s not sea levels, but rising sea temperatures that are causing the problems. Just like with thermal plants everywhere. In Europe the rivers get too hot to provide adequate cooling for the plants, so they face the same problem

I’m curious whether the 2000 Watt goal can be achieved without some kind of “degrowth”, but it’s hard to argue with the current approach, as it still sounds so much better than what most other nations are doing.

As for housing and apartment sizes, I think that’s a trend that’s visible in almost all developed nations. I’m not sure how it was in other European countries, but at least in Germany up until a few generations ago it was not that uncommon to live in a house with multiple generations. (That’s a point that maybe doesn’t really belong here, but one could argue that there is no “real” housing crisis - in the sense that it’s self-inflicted - as living space per person and the size of apartments have been increasing over the last few decades, so obviously there won’t be enough housing)