
The bottom line
So, the bottom line is Alibaba is polluting more.
Well, increasing the number of datacenters is going to have that effect. As such, you can apply that argument to every single tech giant today. Amazon, IBM, Borkzilla, they're all doing it. And ?
The bottom line is this : nuclear (fusion when we get it) is the future.
You don't like that idea ? Fine, throw away your smartphones, your IoT shit, your electric car, your washing machine (and dryer), your dishwasher and everything else but your LED lights, your fridge, freezer, TV and sound system.
If we get back to the bare minimum, then yeah, solar, wind and a few coal plant will be enough. But we're not going to do that.
So, while Greenpeace studiously ignores all the coal plants that are being fired up to cope with the fact that its activities for the last fifty years have stifled the only viable solution we have, don't blame datacenters for doing their job.
We need nuclear. Not pressure water reactors that make plutonium so we can get yet more world-destroying nuclear bombs, no. We need Thorium reactors, and fusion reactors when we can get them. Once we have that, two smartphones and an electric car per person will be less of a problem, and datacenters won't be a problem at all.