• protist@retrofed.com
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    6 days ago

    You’re going to shit your pants when you see how much water is used to grow vegetables

      • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        True.

        The point however is that we’re growing a lot more vegetables, because we need the food.

        Human water consumption is also higher than data center consumption, the conclusion should be that the chart is dumb, not that we should kill humans to support data centers.

      • protist@retrofed.com
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        6 days ago

        Yes, and the total quantity of water used to grow vegetables is significantly higher

        • zqps@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          What are you comparing against? Only the water drank by cattle? That’s laughably ignorant.

          It doesn’t matter if you go by weight, volume, or calories - eating plants is a ton less water-intensive than feeding it to cattle raised for slaughter.

          • protist@retrofed.com
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            6 days ago

            Ok dude, you’ve strayed way off topic. I’m not arguing against you at all. The chart in the post is comparing the water used in the entire US cattle industry against AI water usage. My point is that the total amount of water used to grow vegetables for human consumption in the US would dwarf that beef bar, and this chart is dumb.

                • Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  5 days ago

                  so does that mean we should be comparing it to water usage for all animal agriculture instead of just one specific “crop” of livestock?

                  • protist@retrofed.com
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                    5 days ago

                    Jesus, the point is that the chart is dumb. Comparing water used in beef production to water used in data centers is dumb. You could make the same chart with water to grow corn or soybeans or chickens and it will still be dumb

        • Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          And a shit load of the vegetables grown are feed for livestock, as well as corn for biofuel for cars (in the States, at least).

          Sorry I don’t have time to find any solid numbers.

      • protist@retrofed.com
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        6 days ago

        You’re going to shit your pants when you see how much water is used to grow vegetables for human consumption.

        The point being this chart is dumb, because of course we use water to grow food, because we only eat life and life requires water, and comparing this stat to data center water usage makes no sense. And of course beef uses significantly more water to raise than an equal caloric amount of vegetables, but the amount of water used to grow vegetables for human consumption still dwarfs the amount of water used to raise cattle. Why not throw that on the chart too?

        • PlaidBaron@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          No. Thats my point. The grain we dont eat uses water to grow. Water that would otherwise be used to grow food we do eat.

          This is why beef uses more water than veggies.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          If a cow can eat it, so can we.

          If we don’t want to eat it, we’re choosing to feed cows with that land instead of people.

          Some things really are a zero sum game.

      • protist@retrofed.com
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        5 days ago

        People think I’m somehow defending eating meat when I’m just saying that growing food of any kind takes a lot of water, and the comparison in this chart is dumb