From https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/1vh6391/environmental_impact_of_ai_datacenters_vs_animal/
Sources:
Water use:
https://www.foodfacts.org/articles/how-much-water-does-ai-use-vs-livestock
Land use:
https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
Greenhouse gas emissions:
https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167658 https://www.fao.org/statistics/highlights-archive/highlights-detail/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-agrifood-systems.-global–regional-and-country-trends–2000-2022/en
- To the many comments along the lines of: „But we need food“ – This is actually another great point against Animal Agriculture, as every calory of food produced by Animal Agriculture wastes several calories of feed. https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/
- For people pointing out energy consumption, AI uses ~500 TWH per year, Animal Agriculture uses~ 13000 TWH per year, so it is 25x worse on energy need.
(This is a quick estimate based on:
https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-supply-for-ai https://www.fao.org/energy/resources/facts-and-figures/en#%3A%7E%3Atext=%28+World+Bank%2C+2025%29+*+30+percent%2Cor+wasted+due+to+lack+of+refrigeration. )
Ah, ok then lets continue burning the fucking planet with datacenters
That’s… not the point of the post
that’s the point you’re making.
The point is: if you’re (rightfully) concerned about the impact of AI datacenters, you probably shouldn’t turn a blind eye to the several-orders-of-magnitude-worse impact of animal agriculture.
As a vegan this was what i got from the post without additional commentary. Ive felt this way for a long time and while I’m glad people are vaguely aware of the environmental impact of data centers, i do wish they would be concerned enough to learn about other things negatively impacting the environment.
then you should have said that in your post.
your post is showing a stark difference between AI DCs and industrial farming that makes it believable that AI isn’t harming the environment.
instead of putting out the effort of understanding the implications and the data at hand, you regurgitated Reddit slop along with all the sources having never read them.
if you would have looked closer you would have identified the glaring flaws in your data that it doesn’t take into account.
not only that but the user on reddit that is promoting this garbage is clearly only interested in setting a narrative and not the truth. their argument was in such bad faith that the charts subreddit removed the post.
just look at the blatant lies they’re shilling.
and their response
so yeah…you want to make the argument that industrial farming is bad, understand the data and form your own opinions.
when you can only quote fools, everyone will think you’re a clown.