Following his presidential inauguration, President Donald Trump signed almost 50 executive orders on his first day in office, ranging from keeping TikTok online, to declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, to withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. This is the second time Trump has withdrawn from the agreement, which legally binds its signatories to fight climate change, and a reversal of President Joe Biden’s decision to rejoin the agreement back in 2021. This move comes after the planet’s hottest year on record, and while fires still burn in Los Angeles. Trump also unveiled Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture to build a significant network of AI data centres across the US, in partnership with Open AI, Oracle and Softbank. You may wonder why these two things are related, and you’d be excused for that, given Trump’s magician-like skills in misdirection. Whether Trump likes it or not, climate change is happening, and extreme climate events are here to stay. And ignoring these events, apart from being morally wrong, will also prove to be extremely expensive — the estimated cost of the LA fires currently sitting at $275 billion. So what does all of this have to do with generative AI? The unfortunate truth is that while AI continues to grow in popularity, the environmental ramifications are significant and potentially dangerous. Due to the increased computational power requirements of not only training, but using AI, the data centres used to house the servers and network equipment demand huge amounts of electricity and water. A recent study by the University of California confirmed that even basic AI requests, like generating one 100-word email, consume just over half a litre of water each time. A ChatGPT query consumes almost 10 times more energy than a regular Google search. Once we factor in the pace of global generative AI uptake, the stats really start to add up. Yet there is a suspicious lack of transparency in carbon reporting by the likes of OpenAI, which means we’re relying on estimates by experts, and reports from giants like Google to get a handle on the actual environmental impact of this technology. In 2023, Google consumed 14 per cent more water and 37 per cent more electricity than in 2022, and this number is only going to rise when we look at the explosion in demand and investment by governments and businesses across the globe in 2025 and beyond. And while alternative energy sources are developing, it’s not moving fast enough to keep up with demand, estimated to double globally in the next five years. My point is that we are relying on our governments and big business to make the right decisions in balancing our rapidly changing behaviour and technologies with the environmental and ethical impacts of those changes. And when we see world leaders like Trump, and his administration, making decisions like the ones we’ve seen this week, it’s hard to have faith in the judgement that will inevitably impact us all. And while avoiding using ChatGPT for those annoying little tasks we have to do may seem trivial in the grand scheme of it all, that’s exactly what we should be doing for the sake of our environment, and future generations. Lanna Hill is a strategist, speaker and founder of Leverage Media