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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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so fucking what? stop trying unless you're perfect? every bit helps! fuck you
You're vegan too, I presume, since animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to global warming?
all of agriculture is only like 1/5 of our emissions, and we need to eat.
Animal agriculture contributes between 10-20% of total ghg emissions, depending on the estimate.
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environment/livestock-dont-contribute-14-5-of-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions
The entire digital economy footprint, including AI and all internet infrastructure, is less than 4% of global emissions.
https://www.climatiq.io/blog/measure-greenhouse-gas-emissions-carbon-data-centres-cloud-computing
But sure, AI is the problem we should be focusing on.
I haven't said anything about AI.
but that Xu et al 2021 paper has some dubious methodology. the conclusions might be correct but the methodology can't prove it.
What is the issue with the methodology exactly? In any case, the lower end of estimates is still twice the emissions of all of the digital economy. We would do more for climate change going vegan than we would fighting data centers.
I mentioned AI because that is the topic of the thread we are in.
well I skimmed specifically for lca study combinations, and found them quickly. that invalidates all the data. if I read further, who knows what else i might find
Skimming is usually not a great way to make definitive conclusions about a study. Would you care to elaborate on what about the LCA methodology "invalidates all the data", and how you could make such a claim with certainty simply by skimming it?
if you had read this study, and understood the underlying science, the fact that I skimmed it would not interfere with your abilitiy to defend it.
I have not had any issue defending it, but you apparently have an issue with providing rigorous citations for your claims.
you haven't explained why you think combining disparately methodized lca studies produces good data.
Where did they combine LCA methodologies exactly? They cited exactly one LCA methodology, so I'm not sure what you are referencing when you mention "combining".
the LCA studies themselves are disparately mthodized. they can't be combined at all.
No one combined them. Xu, who you are calling into question, used one LCA methodology.
xu didn't conduct any LCA studies at all. they combined multiple LCA studies
Ok, now I'm questioning your literacy. From the study:
"Methods To quantify the total food-related GHG emissions, we first estimated the total crop and grazing biomass, including livestock feed, and then partitioned the total biomass between plant- and animal-based food (livestock feed) and other utilizations. Based on the estimated biomass, we calculated and partitioned the production-based GHG emissions from plant and livestock to plant- and animal-based food and other utilizations. After that, we calculated GHG emissions from the consumption-based perspective, taking into account transportation, international trade (import and export) and stock variation. We estimated the consumption-based emissions to explicitly account for the GHG emissions caused by trade. This was especially important for regions and countries which import and/or export large amounts of plant- and animal-based food in the context of better tracing food systems’ global and regional GHG footprints."
And it goes in. LCA is mentioned one time, and they mention the single methodology that they used.
open fire, he's reaching!
no i'm not, but i have been reducing my meat intake a lot, because of global warming and ethical issues.