AI’s Environmental Impact and the Importance of Hope
Tennessee state representative Justin Pearson speaks in opposition to a plan by Elon Musks's xAI to use gas turbines for a new data center. Credit: Brandon Dill—The Washington Post/Getty Images
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of my newsletter whose name is still forthcoming, generally sharing insights from my research on technology and society as well as ways you can take action.
AI has been all over the news lately, with what seems like dozens of stories every day. It’s nearly impossible to keep up.
This edition, the newsletter explains some of the environmental issues rapid AI development is causing, highlights local battles against data centers, and discusses the necessity of having hope in these difficult times.
AI’s Growing Ecological Battle
This past week, I was honored to be asked to speak about the intersections of AI, militarism, and the climate crisis for the Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community (UUJEC).
While I was preparing this talk, I learned a lot about AI’s ecological impact and recent fights in local communities around the U.S. Here are a few of the major impacts AI is posing for the environment:
Massive electricity requirements: MIT researchers estimated that training Generative AI models (like ChatGPT, Grok, or Copilot) takes nearly 7-8x the energy of the same computational workload for other tasks. They also estimate one ChatGPT query consumes nearly 5x the electricity of a web search. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated that data centers’ energy usage will at least double or triple by 2028.
Data centers powering AI require a lot of water for cooling: Data centers generate a lot of heat while running massive computational workloads. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab estimated that in 2023, water consumption by U.S. data centers was roughly 17.5 billion gallons. A recent report by the Alliance for the Great Lakes warned that data centers could even threaten the water supplies of the Lakes, the largest bodies of fresh water in the U.S.
Big Tech is meeting energy requirements by polluting: In some cases, companies cannot meet energy requirements with localities’ existing power plants. To improve energy capacity in the short term, they are bringing in cheap, dirty energy. One recent example has been in Boxtown, outside Memphis, where xAI boosted energy capacity for training its Grok AI system by bringing in unpermitted gas turbines, which University of Tennessee Knoxville researchers found significantly increased air pollution for residents.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not even to speak of material requirements from mining rare earth elements used to make chips, or the waste created through Big Tech plans to produce energy with nuclear power.
The encouraging part is that local residents are fighting back against data center construction in their communities. They are rejecting promises of jobs and economic benefits in favor of protecting their land, air, and water.
Protestors rally against Google’s proposed Franklin Township data center at a previous City-County Council meeting. Credit: WTHR
In Boxtown, residents have been protesting against xAI at their local Health Department, mobilizing nearly hundreds to express their desire for clean air.
In Franklin Township, Indianapolis, Google withdrew its proposal to build a massive data center after public protest against the economic impact and water strain it would cause the community.
Maintaining Hope in Dark Times
While AI is spreading through society at an uncontrolled pace, and contributing to chaos and partnerships with an increasingly authoritarian Trump administration, it can be easy to feel hopeless.
But my recent research has led me to conclude that, if we want the world to be better and contribute to change, hope is a prerequisite. In a recently released paper that was published as part of the 2025 Annual Conference of the American Society of Engineering Education, me and my co-author, Dr. Desen Ozkan at UConn, write about lessons we learned about hope from a class we co-taught at Tufts University.
Academic Publication: Maintaining Hope Amidst Critique: The Role of Social Change Frameworks in Sociotechnical Engineering Ethics Education. In the Proceedings of the 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition.
Our class was centered around teaching sociotechnical ethics via critiquing digital surveillance technologies — material that our own students told us was pretty depressing. When we were planning the course, we figured we should include some material on social change and how to resist so we don’t depress students too much.
To our surprise, as we conducted research analyzing their writing throughout the course, we found that students frequently referenced these materials on change-making as pieces of the course that made them feel more hopeful: ready to act, wanting to speak up, and believing in collective power to make things better.
One of the most interesting things I learned about hope while doing this research was that hope is a complex mental state. In contrast to what many people may think — hope being a sort of naivety as in “things will get better” or a way of avoiding reality — hopeful attitudes can take many forms. One of the most prominent that inspires me is, as Joana Macy, the creator of the Work That Reconnects, puts it: active hope — a process of assessing the reality as it is, and choosing to do something about it through action.
I think that in these times, we all could use some hope. But in the framework of active hope, we need to take it upon ourselves to cultivate it through action.
If you’re interested to read more, you can read the full paper or check out a blog post I wrote on the topic earlier in the year. I also recently posted a Reel on Instagram summarizing these points, so check that out and share it around.
Blog Post: Finding Hope in Dark Times.
Upcoming Events
I’m very grateful to have been asked by the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security to be part of an October 9th webinar titled: “Some Way Out of Here: Peace & Justice Movements & Priorities.” In this webinar, I’ll be joined by Cole Harrison from MA Peace Action and Ann Wright from CODEPINK— two amazing lifelong activists who inspire me every day.
We will discuss the state of the anti-war movements in the U.S. and around the world, giving insights into where we are and where we should go from here.
You can register to get the Zoom link when the webinar approaches.
This newsletter provides you with critical information about technology, democracy, militarism, climate and more — vetted by someone who’s been trained both as a scholar and community organizer.
Use this information to contribute to your own building of democracy and fighting against technological domination! And share it with those who would be interested.
Until next time 📣