I wish there was more transparency and discussion brought to the water and power consumption of other major industries today, as well as the historical use and environmental impact of pre-EPA industries and early manufacturing. I want to believe that relatively, AI data centers and hyperscalers are much less damaging than the industrial revolution-era factories, but without knowing the absolute impacts of both to compare, all this fear mongering and propaganda is going to continue to drive knee-jerk reactions as opposed to well-informed analysis and discussion.

Does anyone have any sources for this sort of data?