By Catherine, Student Environmental Action Society Member and Hunter College Campus Schools student
The Sierra Club’s SEAS Program
The Sierra Club’s Student Environmental Action Society (SEAS) is an online, virtual club that engages youth in environmentally focused discussions monthly. Students get to connect with like-minded environmentalists, learn more about the broader world picture of the climate crisis, and filter out the disinformation from so much of the world today.
I have been involved with the SEAS program for a little over five months, and it is a great experience. Before SEAS, I wasn’t really aware of the other people in my age group who were passionate about environmentalism, but SEAS is a great way to connect with fellow students and learn more about the climate crisis!
AI and the Environment
In a recent SEAS meeting, we discussed Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) impact on the environment, pulling information from our own experiences with AI as well as articles we read before the session.
We mainly discussed AI’s water and energy consumption, how AI is used today, and next steps for sustainability.
AI’s Water and Energy Consumption
AI uses a lot of water to cool down its machines, and it is often extracted in irresponsible ways, which can lead to environmental catastrophes like drought further down the road. AI is also very energy-intensive, even when doing a simple search. A lot of the electricity from the grid right now comes from fossil fuel sources, meaning that many greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the intensifying climate crisis.
How AI is Used Today
AI is used today for many purposes, but much of it is content generation and web searching. Sometimes, though, it isn’t a choice to use AI. In many Google searches, Google’s AI model, Gemini, automatically generates a response.
Even with AI responses, AI often can make mistakes, and training new models is very energy and resource-intensive.
Next Steps
By the end of our discussion, we concluded that it was important for legislative action and broader infrastructure changes to lessen the environmental damage that AI brings. Legislative action must be enforced and strict to put limits on the energy that AI uses as well as to keep equity and justice in the center as we grow into newer technology. For instance, it’s important to start controlling water consumption and making AI more efficient. Broader infrastructure changes, such as renewable advancements to our grid, must be employed to keep our system viable for AI and more technological advancements further down the road.