Opinion: AI is destroying our planet. We must act to check its growth — and save ourselves

Ramesh Srinivasan is a professor in the UCLA Department of Information Studies and the director of the UC Digital Cultures Lab. Emily Jacobi is founder and executive director of Awana Digital, an environmental nonprofit.

This piece was originally published Feb. 27 in the Mercury News. (Used with permission of the Mercury News© 2026.)

Although the topic of AI is seemingly inescapable, its stunning environmental impacts remained mostly hidden. New studies reveal a clearer picture - one that should spur us to take action this year. Evidence shows that AI's carbon emissions last year were equivalent to the entirety of New York City; and consumption of freshwater resources from 2025 alone exceeded the global consumption of bottled water.

Corporate AI's destructive impacts on our planet are only set to expand. Consider that by 2034, the data centers that power AI are expected to consume as much energy as all of India, the world's most populous country with over 1.5 billion people.

AI proponents may want us to think that AI only lives online, in the "cloud", but the reality is big tech's AI systems rely upon vast amounts of minerals, water and energy, all of which have a very real physical footprint. The prices we pay for energy and drinking water are increasing, and new data centers are straining existing energy grids.

The increased energy costs are being passed onto everyday households.

Exacerbating affordability

The climate crisis requires us to reduce our energy consumption and switch to renewable energy sources. Yet in communities across the nation, AI companies are relying on dirtier energy and jeopardizing their climate pledges.

These companies are directly contributing and accelerating a climate and affordability crisis, threatening our access to the basic resources we rely upon to survive. AI is strip mining our planet and ourselves because it is built upon surveillance without compensation for our personal data.

We've heard repeated promises from leaders like Sam Altman, who says AI will solve climate and affordability crises, if only we feed it enough water, energy and minerals. As technologists who have worked on machine learning tools, we know this to be a fantasy. Machine learning and language models can be helpful tools, but they cannot rewrite the basic facts of material reality.

We are at an inflection point. There is a better way to build technology that protects our data and benefits the earth, but it requires reigning in some of the most powerful and profitable companies in the history of the world. It's high time for us to collectively act. Technology doesn't need to destroy our planet and empty our pocketbooks. Rather it can be designed to enhance the protection of both.

What we can do

First, we must take back democratic control over data.

Even if President Trump's recent executive order attempting to ban any state from regulating AI comes to be, we still have power. We can stop 24-7-365 warrantless surveillance of our lives and extraction of our data to fill the coffers of big tech. We must demand that data collection and surveillance be halted without our informed consent.

Secondly, we need transparency and accountability for the environmental and economic impacts of the actions of these AI companies. The public must know exactly what water, energy and rare earth minerals are being taken and at what cost.

Third, we must halt the construction of all new data centers. Last month, more than 230 environmental organizations called for a moratorium on data center expansion.

As technologists, we believe the myth of a super-intelligent machine is cover for the very real climate and economic catastrophe that AI company leaders are advancing by pursuing profit at the cost of all else. By treating their vision of AI as inevitable rather than a choice, they seek to pull the ultimate con job - to the detriment of us all.