These Angry Dutch Farmers Really Hate Microsoft Over Data Centers (wired.com) 97
Wired pays a visit to a half-finished Microsoft data center that rises out of the flat North Holland farmland — where the security guard tells a local councillor he's not allowed to visit the site, and "Within minutes, the argument has escalated, and the guard has his hand around Ruiter's throat."
The security guard lets go of Ruiter within a few seconds, and the councillor escapes with a red mark across his neck. Back in his car, Ruiter insists he's fine. But his hands shake when he tries to change gears. He says the altercation — which he will later report to the police — shows the fog of secrecy that surrounds the Netherlands' expanding data center business.
"We regret an interaction that took place outside our data center campus, apparently involving one of Microsoft's subcontractors," says Craig Cincotta, general manager at Microsoft, adding that the company would cooperate with the authorities.
The heated exchange between Ruiter and Microsoft's security guard shows how contentious Big Tech's data centers have become in rural parts of the Netherlands. As the Dutch government sets strict environmental targets to cut emissions, industries are being forced to compete for space on Dutch farmland — pitting big tech against the increasingly political population of Dutch farmers.
There are around 200 data centers in the Netherlands, most of them renting out server space to several different companies. But since 2015, the country has also witnessed the arrival of enormous "hyperscalers," buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet and are set up to service a single (usually American) tech giant. Lured here by the convergence of European internet cables, temperate climates, and an abundance of green energy, Microsoft and Google have built hyperscalers; Meta has tried and failed.
Against the backdrop of an intensifying Dutch nitrogen crisis, building these hyperscalers is becoming more controversial. Nitrogen, produced by cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery used in construction, can be a dangerous pollutant, damaging ecosystems and endangering people's health. The Netherlands produces four times more nitrogen than the average across the EU. The Dutch government has pledged to halve emissions by 2030, partly by persuading farmers to reduce their livestock herds or leave the industry altogether. Farmers have responded with protests, blockading roads with tractors and manure and dumping slurry outside the nature minister's home.
Farmers object that Microsoft is building its data center before it's even received government permits certifying that it won't worsen the nitrogen problem, according to the article. In response the Farmer Citizen Movement has sprung up, and last month it became the joint-largest party in the Dutch Senate. One party leader tells Wired, "It is a waste of fertile soil to put the data centers boxes here."
And Wired adds that opposition to datacenter development is also growing elsewhere in Europe.
"We regret an interaction that took place outside our data center campus, apparently involving one of Microsoft's subcontractors," says Craig Cincotta, general manager at Microsoft, adding that the company would cooperate with the authorities.
The heated exchange between Ruiter and Microsoft's security guard shows how contentious Big Tech's data centers have become in rural parts of the Netherlands. As the Dutch government sets strict environmental targets to cut emissions, industries are being forced to compete for space on Dutch farmland — pitting big tech against the increasingly political population of Dutch farmers.
There are around 200 data centers in the Netherlands, most of them renting out server space to several different companies. But since 2015, the country has also witnessed the arrival of enormous "hyperscalers," buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet and are set up to service a single (usually American) tech giant. Lured here by the convergence of European internet cables, temperate climates, and an abundance of green energy, Microsoft and Google have built hyperscalers; Meta has tried and failed.
Against the backdrop of an intensifying Dutch nitrogen crisis, building these hyperscalers is becoming more controversial. Nitrogen, produced by cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery used in construction, can be a dangerous pollutant, damaging ecosystems and endangering people's health. The Netherlands produces four times more nitrogen than the average across the EU. The Dutch government has pledged to halve emissions by 2030, partly by persuading farmers to reduce their livestock herds or leave the industry altogether. Farmers have responded with protests, blockading roads with tractors and manure and dumping slurry outside the nature minister's home.
Farmers object that Microsoft is building its data center before it's even received government permits certifying that it won't worsen the nitrogen problem, according to the article. In response the Farmer Citizen Movement has sprung up, and last month it became the joint-largest party in the Dutch Senate. One party leader tells Wired, "It is a waste of fertile soil to put the data centers boxes here."
And Wired adds that opposition to datacenter development is also growing elsewhere in Europe.
Re: Just eat the boogs (Score:5, Informative)
Clickbait is so clickbait and very clickbait, wow (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is rather more pointed than that. The government made all sorts of promises to do something about "nitrogen" (meaning NOx and whatever else) to greenies and eurocrats. To the point that the greenies sued the government to "do more" and won. And they're using "models" to blame the farmers for just about all the ills, down to inability to build because "not enough nitrogen budget" (there's also a housing crisis, exacerbated by a "refugee" crisis), while at the same time complaining that it's "too expensive" to actually measure the models' predictions upon which now rest the farmers' livelihoods.
This with a long history of mandating (and forcing farmers to pay for) measures that didn't work on their faces and turned out to not work so many years later, well after all the farmers had had to pay for all the malarky. The farmers, they feel shat on, ignored, and made the bogeyman of a largely eurocratically-invented horror fairy tale.
Against that backdrop, adding more large datacentres is oil on the fire. Giving them planning exceptions and breaks and whatnots, moreso.
The problem isn't microsoft per se, it's the government who've been making a right hash of things for quite a bit. But I'm not surprised farmers aren't happy with microsoft and their big sheds full of not-so-very-ecologically-friendly "cloud" machinery either.
The farmers are facing forced buyouts and worse "to make room for more houses", and how do you explain new "hyperscale" computer sheds getting preference within that narrative?
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Forcing the sale of farmland while letting big tech build without permit just sounds like corruption behind the scenes. A little like how people non-arm's-length from the Sri Lankan government stood to benefit from them banning synthesized fertilizer: scratch the green paint off an environmentalist to reveal corruption and kickbacks.
Re:Clickbait is so clickbait and very clickbait, w (Score:5, Informative)
Nitrate and Nitrite water pollution from farming in the Netherlands is not some made-up problem. It's readily measurable. Agricultural sources contribute 58% or 3.6 million kilos of nitrogen compounds to Dutch lakes annually [source [www.rivm.nl]]. There have been cyanobacterial blooms in fresh water bodies that threaten human health.
There is also a longstanding problem of nutrient-fed algal blooms in Dutch coastal and estuarine waters which are killing/displacing native plants that are important fish habitat and creating anoxic zones, although this has been reduced in recent years due to efforts since 1990 to reduce nitrogen runoff [source [coastalwiki.org]]
Farmers aren't the bad guys here. This is a country with a still-living memory of famine; consequently half the country's land is given over to producing food. Even though the country is just the size of Maryland, it is the second largest exporter (by value) of agricultural products in the world after the United States. That's an extraordinary accomplishment, but you have to expect some negative consequences from that concentration of activity. It's not that individual farmers are doing that bad, it's the sheer number of them.
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Nitrate and Nitrite water pollution from farming in the Netherlands is not some made-up problem. It's readily measurable. Agricultural sources contribute 58% or 3.6 million kilos of nitrogen compounds to Dutch lakes annually [ source [www.rivm.nl]].
According to the "models" [youtube.com], that were "too expensive" to actually measure, and that ignore, say, aircraft emissions over a certain height because out of sight, out of mind.
It's not that there aren't problems, it's how blame is being allocated and how that stands in the way of real solutions. The (ab)use of "models" that must be adhered to at all costs, no corrections or even measurements allowed, and so on.
And moreover, that the idiots in charge are failing to notice how they are squandering their integrit
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As the statistician George Box famously quipped, "All models are wrong, some are useful." Any practical model of a real world system leaves out factors which are likely not to be material and which would only add pointless cost. Do you seriously think airplanes are a more significant source of aquatic nitrogen pollution than agricultural runoff?
We know eutrophication is an environmental problem in the Netherlands, but it sounds like the usual question of who is going to pay to address the problem? Well c
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The model has been accepted as standard by scientists for quite some time now, and of course it has been verified by measures. It's just that the farmers have discovered they don't like the implications so they try to cast doubt on it.
It's blatantly obvious where the nitrogen problem is coming from, and has been for years. Until now, the quite powerful ministry of agriculture got away with telling the EU one thing, the public another thing, and the farmers quite another. Now the EU has put its foot down ove
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And they're using "models" to blame the farmers for just about all the ills
Not sure why you put quotes around "models". They are actually models, backed by analysis and matched with real world recorded results. Proper defined and scrutinised models of NOx emissions sources and they show very much the source of the problem is the insane amount of high intensity farmland and its proximity to nature reserves.
Now the thing is, no one is "blaming the farmers". They are simply trying to stop farming. The blame lies in the government which for decades has positioned the Netherlands as an
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>But the reality is the farming has to be dramatically reduced
Correction: dutch farming has to be dramatically offshored to corrupt foreign regimes who are bribing the government to destroy their own domestic economy as part of a plan to implement a nation of debt-enslaved renters who will "own nothing and be happy".
That farming isn't going to stop, it's just going to be moved somewhere else, and in the process the entire dutch economy is going to be gutted for everyone except a handful of oligarchs and
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Correction: dutch farming has to be dramatically offshored to corrupt foreign regimes
Horseshit. It's a question of concentration. Simply spreading out farming a bit in nice Western countries would already solve the problem. Literally no one is proposing we outsource it to some corrupt 3rd world.
Stop making up things to be senselessly angry about.
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If we held farming accountable for the damage it's doing, apart from nitrogen, they would all be bankrupt.
Yes, please let other countries share in the misery. A bit more nitrogen might not hurt them and removing about 50% of the farmers should improve matters considerably.
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The problem is usually emissions of nitrous oxide coming from diesel engines used in heavy machinery. Nitrous oxides are neurotoxins and in high concentrations, or over a long exposure to toxic levels, can impair or damage brain function.
Not the whole story (Score:2, Interesting)
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Cops in the USA are tired of the asshole criminals.
So you're saying these US cops are so fed up, they're flying to the Netherlands and causing issues there?
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The problem is cops think everyone is potential criminal. In the USA it takes more schooling to cut hair than it does to become a cop. Other countries require college education for police recruits.
Re: Not the whole story (Score:1)
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So what you are saying is America needs cops who are criminals to balance out the other criminals. Guess that is why criminals are so popular in the States.
Re: Not the whole story (Score:1)
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So it is like a perpetual motion machine of harmful criminals enabling other criminals that cause harm. Sad.
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The problem is cops think everyone is potential criminal.
Security Guard is not a Cop.
In the USA it takes more schooling to cut hair than it does to become a cop.
This isn't in the USA, and I'm pretty certain Police Academies are a bit more rigorous than any state's beautician and cosmetology licensing boards.
Other countries require college education for police recruits.
Well, here in the US certain groups have made it very hard to recruit candidates for police forces. Many, many officers come from the military, some have college degrees, and some departments have lower requirements. For example, the US Capitol Police only require a high school diploma (or GED) [uscp.gov] The NYPD requires EITHER 60 credit hours [chron.com]
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right, security guards have never been on power trip and beat the crap out of people for the lulz.
you are hilariously naive, hope a security guard doesn't break your rainbow farting unicorn fantasy and your bones.
Re: Not the whole story (Score:3, Insightful)
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Your criminal deduction powers are incredible!
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wow you made up a fiction and that must be what happened because it makes sense to you?
Re: Not the whole story (Score:2)
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right, security guards have never been on power trip and beat the crap out of people for the lulz.
You're going for a funny, but you're absolutely right. Security guards don't just go on random power trips and beat the crap out of people. They wait until they are provoked.
Now imagine if it was your job to keep a place safe and someone who you have literally kicked off the premises before who knows they aren't welcome comes with media in toe. What do you do? Roll over and literally not do the *one job* you are paid to do?
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pry your head out of your ass and watch mainstream news sometime
https://theblackwallsttimes.co... [theblackwallsttimes.com]
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https://www.advocate.com/news/... [advocate.com]
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The councillor had apparently already given the guard problems before...so, the councillor was being antagonistic by even entering into the situation. I'm sure he probably tried to muscle his way past the guard, and forced the escalation. When details like that are omitted...it's generally because they aren't flattering to the narrative.
What do people expect the guard to do? Wave the councillor through the gate? Give him a guided tour?
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"What do people expect the guard to do? Wave the councillor through the gate? Give him a guided tour?"
How about passing the buck to someone with the authority to make decisions? This wasn't some random passer-by or corporate spy, it was a local government official, apparently accompanied by a reporter. Since the government gave the company a license to build in the first place, shouldn't they have a right to inspect the facilities to make sure the company is abiding by its agreements?
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This wasn't some random passer-by or corporate spy, it was a local government official, apparently accompanied by a reporter.
So what? A local elected official isnt a empowered to visit any structure in their "district" anytime they want
Since the government gave the company a license to build in the first place, shouldn't they have a right to inspect the facilities to make sure the company is abiding by its agreements?
That's the building inspector's job, not the job of an elected official with a journalist in tow.
I'm pretty sure EVERY building in the city was licensed by the local government, does that mean local politicians can parade journalists thru any building in town?
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How about passing the buck to someone with the authority to make decisions?
The guard has the authority to make the decision - evict forcefully if need be from a private premisis. Guarding the place is his one job. You seem to be confusing security and a receptionist / PR person.
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The councillor had apparently already given the guard problems before...so, the councillor was being antagonistic by even entering into the situation. I'm sure he probably tried to muscle his way past the guard, and forced the escalation. When details like that are omitted...it's generally because they aren't flattering to the narrative.
What do people expect the guard to do? Wave the councillor through the gate? Give him a guided tour?
Stop him sure, physically restrain him if necessary (and legally justified), but put his hands around the councillor's neck?
The only reason to do that is to restrict airflow, a pretext to strangulation. In domestic violence situations strangulation is a massive red flag that the abuse may escalate to murder [mobileodt.com].
I have no idea what the councillor did to aggravate the situation but there's absolutely no scenario where the guard should have reacted in that way. This isn't just a "fire the guard" situation, it's a
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As stated previously...you do not have the full story...none of us do. But, you're immediately jumping to the most hyperbolic interpretation.
Nope, I went off the literal stated fact.
If someone is getting pushy with you...you may react reflexively. You're assuming the "councillor" is the saint in this story.
I don't assume anything of the councillor, he might be a saint or he might be the world's biggest asshole. And if the security guard had just pushed him to the ground or punched him giving him a broken nose and concussion I'd be more ambivalent about what happened. Even if he shot and killed the councillor I'd wonder if the guard had somehow feared for his life.
But hands around neck isn't an "I'm angry and lashing out" reaction, it's a "I have a literal urge to murde
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You seem to forget (or never have cared to know) that US-legislation doesn't apply in the Netherlands. Or anywhere else in the civilized world.
What does this have to do with the US? I'm not even American.
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Your immediate jump-to-conclusions accusing the security guard of domestic violence says a lot about you.
Yes, it says I'm concerned for the well-being of others. You know what behaviour usually precedes mass shootings? Domestic violence.
Attempting to strangle another person is an unusual and troubling behaviour. And if it shows up in public I'd be very concerned about what's happening in private.
Projecting your foibles on others?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
I'm fortunate to have no first-hand experience with domestic violence (nor to my knowledge do any of my friends or family). Nor do I have any first-hand experience with one adult trying to choke another, perhaps I'm ov
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but put his hands around the councillor's neck?
You're getting angry about one side of the story. Don't do that. One party said put his hands around the councillors neck. That is all we know. You seem to think this implies he was choked, strangled or otherwise. Those words don't appear even in this completely and entirely one sided article.
The only reason to do that is to restrict airflow, a pretext to strangulation.
Oh yeah, you're the type of person who shouts rape when someone raises an eyebrow at you, because the only reason to do that is to indicate the person fancies you, a pretext to you getting raped? Is that it?
Honestly yo
Re:Not the whole story (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing with security guards, as with any jobs with a license for violence, is that the people working there have low pay, lacklustre training and almost no consequences to unwarranted use of violence. So these kind of positions attract people who might otherwise find it difficult to find jobs for all of the wrong reasons, like anger management issues and inability to judge social situations.
And we as a society are actually mostly happy about it, because we do at least get net value out of them, instead of locking them up on taxpayer dime for violence on a regular basis. And if you put a violence worker in a situation where violence is called for, it absolutely helps if they have anger management issues. You will not want them debating the pros and cons of violence when being two seconds away from the receiving end of it.
But there really is no excuse to not be aware of the flip side of this in 2023. Just as we have been somehow taken by surprise in the recent years that the police would shoot someone who did not have it coming, so you should not be surprised if a security guard put their hands around someones neck without of what we would think to be a valid reason. Even more so when whether line was crossed or not depends a lot of who you ask what the line is. But any kind of solution or mitigation to this problem requires a level of introspection, honesty, goodwill and hard work that is just never going to happen in our fubar society.
But you also have to remember, provoking state violence is how Gandhi won India. So if you were let's say an activist who wanted to gain public sympathy all the while painting your opposition as evil brutes, all you have to do is exploit the dynamics I have described and go and get a few bruises.
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Typically a security guard's mandate is to observe and report. They are put in place to warn people off, and to observe infractions and report on the activity they observe.
Violence is restricted to protecting yourself or others.
The expectation is that a security guard will stand their ground vs an assailant. As they are not expected to give way before an aggressor, they are sometimes required to act pre-emptively to subdue a hostile person before the person commits violence.
If you are going for someone's
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I think its fantastic that you didn't resort to sweeping (and baseless) generalizations and stereotypes - oh, wait....
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I don't think I did, no. Could you point out some for me?
There is a difference between saying "all cops are bastards" and saying "some cops are trigger happy". The first one is a generalization and a stereotype, and the second one is a statement of fact.
There is a difference between saying violence jobs attract people predisposed to violence, and saying that all violence workers are predisposed to violence. The first one is a statement of fact, the second one is a generalization and a stereotype.
What is als
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Except it wasn't a security guard, it was an on-site traffic regulator.
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no consequences to unwarranted use of violence
This flies with qualified immunity and police (at least in America) but wouldn't fly with a private security contractor assaulting someone.
Next time the minister should show up with the cops and watch how fast security bro is in cuffs if he tries to resort to violence.
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And there are certainly cases of security guards not becoming violent for any reason.
And there are certanly cases of security guards becoming violent for good reason.
The issue is, we don't know which this is.
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Re: Not the whole story (Score:2)
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Sure enough.
The 'security guard' was not a security guard. He was an on-site traffic regulator.
And apparently he was filmed by a news crew a week before and against his will made it into a news item.
So he just had a personal grudge against media. Nothing to do with microsnot or nitrogen or the farmers.
Moreover, the man has been talked to by his employer and said he was very sorry. A talk is arranged between assaulter and assaultee after easter.
( https://www.stichting-jas.nl/2... [stichting-jas.nl] )
maybe cloud is the problem (Score:2)
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Cloud is the problem because it enables people to ignore the energy consumption issues behind an ignorance of monthly billing.
Lets go back to on premises devices that owners can walk around and feel the heat in summer and their warmth in winter.
Farmers are upset in general and rightly so (Score:5, Interesting)
The shortsightness of the Dutch government is causing tremendous distress to many lives in rural Netherlands, so it's no wonder tempers are flaring over this kind of thing. But also the government is putting the entire country at grave risk. It's as if everyone has forgotten the horrors of the last world war and also where food actually comes from. When war comes to Europe again as eastern powers march west, the disastrous affects of Dutch agricultural policies will become apparent when imports are curtailed.
In the meantime, the Netherlands' loss is Canada's gain. We're starting to see in influx of new Dutch farmers who are able to buy up farms from aging and retiring Canadian farmers at top dollar without any debt, thanks to the generosity of the Dutch taxpayer in buying and shutting down farms in the Netherlands. And then they go on to do what they enjoy doing, and also developing new, innovative, efficient, and more sustainable ways of farming, such as regenerative agriculture with cover cropping, integration of animals, and reduced inputs. The contribution of Dutch immigrant farmers in the Canadian west has been great over the last couple of decades, and will continue to be quite large.
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The only shortsightedness of the Dutch government lies in postponing dealing with the farmers for so long. It's been known for years that nitrogen deposition is playing havoc with our remaining nature reserves, but the last few governments have opted not to deal with this until they were forced to.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. An absurd statistic: we're a tiny, densely populated country, exporting more than countries that have ten times the
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The actual truth is no one really knows what is normal nitrous emissions from the soil and what is bad and caused by humans. I'm serious. We don't even know how to measure it. I read a report recently looking into the issue further and with the tools we have now they could only detect a very slight increase in nitrous emissions from farmed land over non-farmed land and in the trials applying no fertilizer to a plot released the same amount of nitrous emissions (as near as they could measure them) as the p
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I read a report recently looking into the issue further
Link to the report, please.
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Wow, you're the only one actually reporting the actual situation of agro in the netherlands and you get a 0 for it.
I guess that's slashdot for you. Sensation wins over reality.
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But also the government is putting the entire country at grave risk. It's as if everyone has forgotten the horrors of the last world war and also where food actually comes from.
Sorry but that's horseshit. A great talking point from farmers trying to scare people into thinking that if they disappeared food would to. The reality is the Dutch are net food exporters. Not just net food exporters, but the second largest in the world behind the USA (a country with 20x the population and 240x the surface area). Not just the second largest in the world, but the largest per capita but a comical margin.
You could get rid of most farming in the Netherlands without any concerns about food short
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Yes you make good points. Although I don't think farmers are luddites. In fact I know they are not. It's a bit insulting that so many people think they are.
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Yes you make good points
No he doesn't. Flowers make up 0.5% of farming in the Netherlands. It's observer bias caused by the fact that nearly all flower production in the Netherlands is done on the Schiphol airport approach path. You can stop all flower production in the Netherlands and not even make a dent in the problem. (Although funny enough it would solve the local issue of the Noord-Holland region which is excessive NOx emissions near the airport).
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You only have to take one flight over the Netherlands in Spring/Summer to see that vast majorities of farmland are not used for food, but for flowers.
Schiphol airport flight approach literally takes you over the one area in the Netherlands that is famous for flowers. That is not the entire country. It's an incredibly tiny and very insignificant part of farming in the Netherlands which in basically the entire rest of the country is overwhelmingly for food.
To give you actual numbers, 110 km^2 of Dutch farmland is for planting flowers, out of 22,000 km^2 which is farmland. 0.5% of farming.
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But also the government is putting the entire country at grave risk. It's as if everyone has forgotten the horrors of the last world war and also where food actually comes from. When war comes to Europe again as eastern powers march west, the disastrous affects of Dutch agricultural policies will become apparent when imports are curtailed.
What the fuck are you talking about? 70% of the argo output of the netherlands go to export. What grave risk are you hallucinating about?
When war comes to Europe again as eastern powers march west
Fun fact, canada is closer to russia than the netherlands. And the russians are mostly pissed of at the US, which is even closer than russia than canada. Also china is closer to north america.
Good chance the eastern powers, in sofar you can call them powers, will march east.
At least they have appropriate footwear (Score:2)
When your data centers are below sea level, it does make sense to wear wooden shoes on the job in case there's a ground fault in the server room.
Poorly written (Score:5, Informative)
* "As the Dutch government sets strict environmental targets to cut emissions, industries are being forced to compete for space on Dutch farmland"
How are emissions related to farmland? Is there some difference between emissions in the cities and emissions in farmland?
* "But since 2015, the country has also witnessed the arrival of enormous 'hyperscalers,' buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet ...."
10,000 square feet is not big at all; it's 100 feet square, smaller than one floor of most office buildings. Did a decimal point slip somewhere? (Elsewhere, "hyperscalers" seems to be used more often to refer to companies than to data centers.)
* "Nitrogen, produced by cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery used in construction, can be a dangerous pollutant,"
As noted, nitrogen is the main component of air, so what are they talking about? Presumably nitrogen oxides in the air and/or nitrogen compounds in the soil and water. How much of these pollutants do these data centers emit? Nitrogen dioxide forms from emissions from cars, trucks and buses, power plants, and off-road equipment. So, not farms and not data centers, except for the "power plants" part. Which could potentially be addressed by generating electricity without burning fossil fuels.
"cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery" seems to conflate different types of nitrogen.
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The emissions we're talking about are nitrogen oxides in the air, and nitrogen compounds (fertilizer) in the soil and groundwater. The issue is called nitrogen deposition, which encompasses both. Basically we're poisoning our nature with excess nitrogen compounds. Limits on nitrogen deposition have been put in place, and many places in the Netherlands are already over this limit which is a barrier for new construction (of housing and industry, and we have a big housing shortage already), agriculture, road u
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So, not farms and not data centers
False. The single largest emitter of Nitrogen Oxides in the Netherlands is farming. It is also the single biggest topic right now in the Netherlands. Through many years of prioritising farming above all other things the Netherlands have become the largest emitters of NOx in Europe, and not just by a bit, by a really large margin (nearly triple EU average). Combine this with an EU mandate to limit nitrogen emissions near protected nature reserves and it's reached the point of an actual crisis. I don't use th
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10,000 square feet is not big at all; it's 100 feet square, smaller than one floor of most office buildings. Did a decimal point slip somewhere? (Elsewhere, "hyperscalers" seems to be used more often to refer to companies than to data centers.)
The Dutch government defines hyperscale datacenter as '10 hectare' or bigger. So it should be more than about 1 million square feet. Probably just a sloppy journalist.
As noted, nitrogen is the main component of air, so what are they talking about? Presumably nitrogen oxides in the air and/or nitrogen compounds in the soil and water. How much of these pollutants do these data centers emit?
Indeed ammonia and nitrogen oxides. Ammonia is a big one for farms. As for data centers, it's best not to try to apply too much logic there. Netherlands has fairly large emissions of those for various reasons. Through a highly unlikely series of events the government has found itself legally forced (against their will, effectively) to strictly
Poor poor farmland (Score:2)
A lot of context is missing here. The key bit is that the Netherlands has no business dedicating as much of the country to farmland as it has. It's absolutely absurd. They are the world's second largest food exporters behind the USA, and the largest per capita by a really large margin. The country is way WAAAAY to small for the level of high intensity industrial farming that is taking place there.
The saying often goes: the solution to pollution is dilution. But the reality is that this applies to everything
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They are the world's second largest food exporters behind the USA, and the largest per capita by a really large margin.
I think you've misunderstood something you've read. Dutch agricultural production I don't think is even in the top 20, and a large fraction of their agricultural exports are actually due to importing raw goods and then exporting higher-value processed goods. There is a reason that area has been at the heart of European trade networks for hundreds of years, it's positioned in a prime location.
Also, something like 20% of their agricultural exports by value are flowers, the Netherlands is the source of great
10k sqft is a closet not a data center (Score:2)
The smallest shittiest data center I've ever had the displeasure of hosting in was 50k sqft.
10k sqft is the store room in a small-mid sized data center.
If they can't get the basics right how can we trust the rest of what the article says?
Hyperscaler? (Score:2)
arrival of enormous "hyperscalers," buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet
I'm sorry, a 10,000 square foot structure is called a "hyperscaler"? Here in America we call it a big McMansion...
These data-centers produce heat (Score:2)
...that can be used to heat vegetable and fruit glasshouses.
Throw A Big Blanket Over Microsoft (Score:2)
Big agriculture industry (Score:1)