4w ago

Microsoft buys over $1B worth of poop to counter pollution caused by AI - Dexerto

www.dexerto.com

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“Generally, what happens to these wastes today is they go to a landfill, get dumped in a waterway, or they’re just spread on land,” said Vaulted Deep CEO Julia Reichelstein. “In all of those cases, they’re decomposing into CO2 and methane. That’s contributing to climate change.”
Waste decomposition is part of the natural carbon cycle. Burning fossil fuels isn't. We should not be suppressing part of the natural cycle so we can supplant it with our own processes. This is Hollywood accounting applied to carbon emissions, and it's not going to solve anything.
- Waste decomposition is part of the natural carbon cycle
  Partially true. Factory farm animals are not natural.
  
  But their shit comes from plants and they get their carbon from the air.
  The unnatural additions to that cycle are fertilizers (more nitrates than normal) and complex organic chemicals (pesticides, antibiotics, ...). The carbon cycle is undisturbed by them.
Vaulted mixes the waste, including everything from biosolids and manure to food scraps, into a sludgy cocktail, then injects it into deep geological formations sealed off from the surface.
we're literally turning our world into a shit sandwich.
Headline is lying. This does not do that. Carbon offsets don't work.
- No shit
  
  Yes, they did in fact buy shit
- Well, to be precise - if you say you do A to get B that only says something about your intention. So the headline isn't really lying, they're just saying what Microsoft is wants to achieve. I agree they will not achieve that goal because carbon offset doesn't work.
Can I donate a turd to their door?
- As long as it's delivered by hand from about 10 feet away.
Literal Greenwashing.
Could easily do better.
Step 1: plant forests Step 2: lobby for the protection of existing forests including the one just created.
- Step 3: stop wasting our resources on running a glorified predictive text algorithm.
Coming soon to Office 365
- Or the movie where he dumps the pig shit in the lake
You're all being negative and funny about it, but have you considered you may not know better than hundreds of actual scientists?
I'm just saying, this shit is indeed hilarious, but I'm thinking they're on to something.
- I think the point most people are trying to make is that the pollution should not exist in the first place, and also that carbon offsetting doesn't work as advertised.
  
  I understand that perspective and do not subscribe to its logic.
@hellfire103 article is aptly filed under "Entertainment", good to see professionalism is alive and kicking

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