Super heroes, formidable villains and how we can all protect our way of life. Read on 🙂
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In every great comic book story, there’s a moment when there is a seemingly impossible challenge. The city is in danger, the villain is unstoppable, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Colourful cape and all, the hero appears.
“To the rescue,” he shouts. People cheer.
“Hurrah, we are safe!”
We are living through the most challenging crisis of our times. Not war, not corruption, not fascism, not inequality, though these are all horrific crises on their own, it’s climate change that is the most formidable villain of our times.
We are losing valuable forest cover due to uncontrolled logging and increasing wildfires; forests we desperately need at this time of Earth’s warming. Our lakes, rivers and other freshwater sources are polluted due to rising plastic waste and unenforced waste disposal. Plastic is a highly resource-intensive material, so it harms us 2X – in production and in disposal. Our underground water tables are dipping to never-before-seen low levels. Changing rain patterns and increasing water consumption mean that Mother Nature isn’t able to replenish for us as quickly as she used to. Soil quality is diminishing, and though regenerative practices are widely available to create more soil, instead, we are leaning towards using more chemical fertilizers that harm the soil long term.
In this time of deafening distractions, we are getting pulled in multiple directions. But the evidence is impossible to ignore.
Climate change is here, and it’s everywhere.
The summer of 2026 is forecast to be a doozie of a wildfire season in Canada. Metro Vancouver, an incredibly lush city, is running out of drinking water. Toronto’s forest cover and green spaces are under direct threat from construction and deregulation. Food shortages and contaminated drinking water are becoming more common in Canada. They are already occurring widely in other places around the world. And we are making this worse.
3 years ago, Artificial Intelligence was hailed as a way to innovate quickly – on climate, health and in general to make our lives easier, faster, safer. But instead of human-centred living and thoughtful implementation, large corporations are rolling out AI in a rampant and unregulated manner. Small and medium-sized corporations are rushing to adapt to keep up. This is being done without assessment/ acknowledgement of the long-term harm that will be caused to the economy, our society and environment.
Today, various versions of generative AI are being embedded into our everyday lives, versions that are taking away our autonomy and creativity while consuming large quantities of water and electricity.
“Large?” Frankly, this word isn’t appropriate here…perhaps “horrendously enormous”?
Environmental Impact of AI Data Centres in Canada
One Large AI Data Centre = One Large Town
One large AI Data centre will use “up to 5 million gallons of drinking water per day” (see link below). This is equivalent to the water use of a large Canadian town with a population of 10,000 to 50,000 people. There are 100+ mid to large-sized AI Data centres planned for Canada. I don’t have the numbers for the US or for India, but a quick research (not AI!) shows a steep rise in total AI data centres worldwide.
Not all climate innovation is related to tech
AI use is accelerating, and it’s not just because of our prompt-based casual searches, but also in the way the tech is being embedded into our digital world – from social media to Google searches to banking, research and more. A small number of extremely large corporations are already making billions of dollars in profits. That’s billions with a B in a few short months.
This, in a time when our collective economies and social structures are already fragile.
This, at a time when political leaders and governments are ignoring what’s in the interest of the people and our long-term health and safety.
Our overproduction and consumption practices are already causing incredible harm – to us personally and to the environment. Now, with the unrestrained rollout of AI, we are accelerating our carbon emissions, water and electricity use and waste.
I don’t have all the answers, but what is clear to me is that the only way to navigate through this mess is by conserving our resources, protecting nature and across the board choosing low-waste, low-impact activities, products, services, and food. I talked about this more in an earlier newsletter.
“What does this all mean, Puneeta?” you ask.
If you signed up recently, welcome to my newsletter, Grounded, where I share how we can all work to build a safe, sustainable world. From big picture thinking to little step taking, there is so much we can do.
Community resilience and Climate innovation
Whether you are self-employed, work for a corporation, cook, coach, teach, drive, work at home, or in an office, this one is for you
Reduce plastic. Reduce food waste. Reduce water consumption.
Protect all trees.
Support renewable energy projects to cut down on dependence on fossil fuels.
No more casual use of AI.
Write to your government, at every level, demanding a full stop to the AI rollout.
Before one more prompt is typed on CHATGPT, Gemini or Claude, we, the people, demand a full assessment of this technology’s impact on our environment, the economy, and our overall quality of life.
We are owed the cost of choosing this technology. Because it is our choice after all.
Climate change is the formidable villain of our times. This is a villain we can fight by protecting our trees, our water, and our soil and by reducing our carbon footprint. This is a battle we can win because, wonderfully enough, we have all that we need. And rescue is here! You and I and everyone else, we are the heroes. It’s time to meet the villain, not with superpowers or capes, but with something even more powerful and innovative – a mindset shift, followed by collective action.
“To the rescue,” people shout.
“Hurrah, we are safe,” we cheer.
With love,
From a human,
Resources:
What’s behind the growing backlash toward AI data centres? On CBC News.
The Unsettling Environmental Footprint of Artificial Intelligence and Some Options – Western U paper.
The Environmental Impact of Large-Scale AI Data Centres – CBC News