Are you a nature lover?
It's ok if you don't, not every person is a lover of the great outdoors.
The reality we all share is we can't live without it.
Some appreciate and love being outdoors. Others just go about their day not giving it much thought as they walk from the car to their house.
We're all in it to some degree every single day.
Even in landscaped cities, the sun shines on all just as the rain falls.
Nature supports all life without preference to human beliefs and ideologies.
Nature is bountiful, beautiful and can also be treacherous.
Nature is a survivor and can survive and thrive without us.
We cannot survive or thrive without nature.
We need clean air, water, healthy soil and thriving ecosystems.
After missing several growing seasons, I picked up gardening again this year.
The urge to embrace slow living practices (i.e. doing a lot of things like our grandparents did) has been growing in me for awhile now. Fermenting vegetables instead of buying probiotic pills. Cooking meals with real ingredients. Stocking up on Mason jars- I even bought a pressure canner.
We've drastically eliminated processed foods.
We can do better here and will.
Gardening is another step for us in this slow living lifestyle which is really a return to the old ways— healthier ways.
Growing up gardening with my grandparents is a treasured memory from my youth.
It's all about self sufficiency.
What can we do for ourselves?
I will also be learning how to properly compost.
Free garden nutrients!
I also have a love for tech which never seemed to conflict with my preference for nature until now.
As an AI enthusiast, I illustrate my poetry, short stories, & essays with generative images.
Each image produced is my written work visualized in pixels, a process called synthography.
It's quite a satisfying process.
I've invested a lot of time learning about how AI works and aquiring skills, though I'm no where close to an expert.
I'll be writing about the other ways AI has been valuable tool (along with my concerns) on my blog and have already talked about it freely online. It's valid to call me an AI ally.
As a long time supporter of nature conservation, above all else, I'm grateful for clean air, water, healthy soil, birdsong and bees and all of nature's life sustaining blessings bestowed on us.
These things are God given to everyone.
Reports are coming out on the effects data centers are having on nature combined with the effects on people (issues with water, electric, effects of sound/infrasound) has given me a reason to pause image generations with AI until a more sustainable AI is available.
I'm not only talking about the studies coming out of the universities.
What I'm talking about are the reports from people living near these centers and the issues they are having with water, air quality and the constant sound. These issues also inevitably have a direct effect on nature.
Understanding the impact my input to an AI model is having on another community and creating any degree of human suffering isn't something I can presently engage in for illustrating my creative endeavors.
"Do no harm" is one of my core values.
In the cloud my generations are but fractional numbers in comparison to power users.
Now knowing life and nature is affected in a negative way because of it on the other end called for some serious reflection time.
Shame on me for not seeing and speaking to this sooner. I feel like a hypocrite.
When we know better, we do better.
With this thought, I'm also looking at the apps I use and researching every potential potential new app.
If it contributes to these issues it's a no go for me.
I'm going minimalist on my devices.
Questions I'm asking as I review:
Where is the center based for this app?
Is there harm to nature or man where my output is returning from?
Is there a sustainable option?
I believe it's valid for apps to disclose the data center where they are housed in the app stores so we can research the what effects are going on in those communities in order to decide whether or not we really want to use their app.
Maybe if developers see that potential users and subscribers care about these things they will also and advocate for transparency, regulation, sustainability in AI and data centers.
Sometime ago, we cancelled all our streaming subscriptions. We're cord cutters and found that all the subscriptions we were paying nearly equaled our old cable bill. It's insanity. So I got rid of them for a long time. Tubi and Pluto are free. Only recently have I added Hulu back. My husband added Prime & Paramount. Streaming services are also getting my scrutiny.
I'm over here thinking about going back to rabbit ears. Not sure my husband will be on board if it interferes with College Football Game Days.
(It's an on going discussion.)
Most of the time our television is just on for background noise anyway.
We got a personal weather station recently. I was excited to hook it up to the internet & add our weather data. For now, we're not connecting it to the web for this reason. What harm does it cause in another community?
Digital conservation is a concept I'm currently investigating.
What can I delete or move out of the cloud to an offline storage device?
I'm deleting tons of emails as I learn.
Until I find a sustainable way to create images with generative AI my posts will use photos I've taken or use no image at all.
Minimalist style.
I'm a life long nature lover and supporter of nature conservation. I've lived in rural America most of my life and count being raised in the country a tremendous blessing.
Nature conservation and Artificial Intelligence don't need to be at odds. But here we are with the current building and operations of the data center boom. This is happening because of policy to build infrastructure mandated by the Genesis Mission on November 24, 2025.
The concern for our resources was already a discussion then.
I see a beautiful future unfolding- a hybrid life where tech blends in and enhances our daily lives. I believe it's possible. Doable. Let's learn from past errors of prior industrial revolutions to correct course so we arrive together with nature and all it's bounty intact.
Don't we love to talk about learning from history? Of vital necessity is need to actually learn from history instead of talking about learning from it.
Haste makes waste.
Advancements in how these can be net positives for our planet & people are emerging.
Let's let technology catch up.
I'm a transplant to my home town which is a gateway to Mammoth Cave National Park is facing this issue on a city and county level. Our City Council voted in favor of passing a one year moratorium to allow time for research and informing ourselves. I'm thankful for our council woman, Leticia Cline, that spoke up to let our community know via social media. She's a descendant of Floyd Collins, famous for exploring the caves. Collins became trapped in the Sand Cave where he unfortunately lost his life. Follow her on Facebook as this story unfolds. She shares extremely helpful information that you can ask of your city council to find out their stance on this issue.
Also thankful to our 3 council men- Adam Bagshaw, Clifton Parsley, and Ronald Coffee helping raise this issue with her in our community. A lot of communities and counties aren't getting any notification at all until it's too late.
(I don't know any of them personally. Most of our years so far living in this community was as caregivers to my Father in law first and then for my Mother. Which didn't leave room for much community involvement.)
Mammoth Cave National Park is on karst topography. Anything that goes wrong with a center built near the park would have massive consequences and could leak chemicals into our water table affecting over 160 modern cave-dwelling species, including pale eyeless fish, translucent crayfish, cave crickets, and several bat species like the Rafinesque big-hearted bat.
Local communities would also be dramatically effected.
Mammoth Cave, the world's longest cave system is also famous for its prehistoric fossil record, with over 70 ancient shark species discovered in its limestone passages.
Before European settlers arrived in this area, the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes of Native America called the caves and surrounding area home.
The cave is also decorated globally, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981 and an International Biosphere Reserve in 1990.
What affects would the constant sound which also includes infrasound have on people, wildlife, and karst topography?
I don't know, that's why I believe studies need to happen by experts on these matters.
I'm not opposed to progress or the jobs building data centers bring to communities. I'm only advocating for safer building and operations. I'm concerned about our resources, toll on human health and nature.
The way they are currently built and operate just isn't sustainable.
I'm also concerned about the lack of transparency, public information, and regulation of both data centers and AI. All of which are practically non existent.
While I have paused my use of generative AI in my creative endeavors I'm not saying you should as well, that's a personal decision. My chats with models will be minimal as I search for sustainable AI models.
Local AI is the most obvious front runner as a sustainable option. Installed on your local device, it can even run without being connected to the internet. Most of my fellow AI enthusiast favorite models are available in local AI.
It's worth pointing out there are helpful and life enhancing apps housed in the cloud, like apps for controlling insulin pumps diabetics use to manage their glucose. Especially helpful for parents of Type 1 diabetics. I've done a little research on how much apps use and health devices use incredibly small amounts of resources because those files are compressed in the cloud.
What I am doing is advocating for attention to responsible building and placement of these centers to eliminate risk to valuable resources, our planet, and population health. Also for regulation of AI.
We need guardrails in place.
This planet is the only place any of us have to call home.
Start attending your local city council meetings and your county level meetings. Ask questions.
Thanks for reading.
Full disclosure:
I have a back log of images I've never shared. If one of them fits something I've written going forward it's possible I'll use it. Just no new generative images for now from me until I identify a sustainable option.
Image credits:
Header photo is the leaves of one of my daisies. It was an accidental shot and a happy find when I reviewed my camera roll.
Adding more photos of our daisies & garden below. Taken with my Pixel. Minimally post processed.
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