Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Corner (Photo Illustration/MetroCreative)
One of the more pernicious forms of climate denial taking hold in recent years has come in the rampant spread of techno-optimism.
These are the folks who have admitted to themselves that climate change exists, as is the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, but to them, the potential destruction of organized life on Earth is less of a problem and more of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To the capitalist cult leaders of Silicon Valley and their ilk, the challenges of the climate crisis offer us an incentive toward rapid and widespread technological revolution. And if they happen to make an ungodly amount of money in the process, then by God, that’s just the price they’ll have to pay.
Technological Innovations: A Double-Edged Sword?
To date, tech bros have advocated such technological innovations as carbon capture and storage, which is prohibitively expensive and simply doesn’t work, and geoengineering, which is wildly unpredictable and potentially destructive on an unthinkable scale, as panaceas for the climate crisis and the complex tangle of challenges it presents. Time and again we’re told not to worry about the flambeing of the planet, because “Miracle Technology” is here, or it will be in a few years, or decades, and when it does it will surely fix this entire mess. If it works. And in the meantime, we’re free to continue stripping the planet for parts as we’ve been doing, even as predictions for warming continue to grow more dire and surpass official IPCC estimates to a horrifying degree.
AI: The Latest Silver Bullet?
Silicon Valley’s latest silver bullet for the climate crisis, as well as its current obsession more broadly, is artificial intelligence. From A.I.-powered washing machines to the dangerous, potentially legally actionable A.I. gunk clogging up Google search results, this sometimes incredible, often unnecessary and increasingly threatening technology appears well on its way to taking over the world. There are some, however, who contend that it might just save the world instead.
Advocates in favor of using artificial intelligence to combat the climate crisis point to a number of beneficial applications for the technology, from mapping deforestation to predicting climate disasters, aiding reforesting projects and decarbonizing industries and even helping to clean up the oceans.
Potential Benefits and Drawbacks
I frankly have no problem with any of these ideas. To the extent that I believe that the human race “needs” A.I. at all, these are exactly the sorts of projects I’d prefer to see it being used for. The problem, however, is the same one that plagues every bright and shiny new toy that rises like a Space Odyssey monolith out of Silicon Valley: Its creators vastly overpromising on what that technology can deliver and dismissing out of hand the myriad of potential drawbacks that come along with it.
As British theorist Stafford Beer famously put it, the purpose of a system is what it does. In other words, there is “no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” If A.I. advocates want to claim that the technology they’re forcing us all to adopt will ultimately benefit humankind and the planet, then surely there must be some evidence that this is taking place.
As it stands, the tech industry’s insatiable gluttony for A.I. everything is gobbling up the world’s energy resources, “outstripping the available power supply in many parts of the world,” as one Bloomberg article puts it. Goldman Sachs has described this surge in demand as “the kind of electricity growth that hasn’t been seen in a generation.” The International Energy Agency estimates that electricity “needs” for A.I. and global data centers may double by the year 2026.
The Fossil Fuel Connection
Fossil fuel companies are, of course, thrilled about this development. EQT Corporation CEO Toby Rice has out and out stated that the maligned climate bomb known as the Mountain Valley Pipeline will contribute directly to the skyrocketing use of A.I. Meanwhile, Energy Capital Partners founder Doug Kimmelman has referred to natural gas as “the only cost-efficient energy generation capable of providing the type of 24/7 reliable power required by the big technology companies to power the A.I. boom.”
What’s been described as a “golden age” for natural gas and the fossil fuel industry is quickly proving to be a death knell for the climate. It was recently revealed that Google, previously seen as a corporate leader in terms of its relatively ambitious climate commitments, has been falling short of its targets as it stumbles headlong into the A.I. race, with its energy use climbing up by 13% in 2023, rather than falling. So sure, they may be melting the polar ice caps and causing the earliest Category 5 hurricanes ever observed, but isn’t that a small price to pay for A.I.-enhanced Google search results instructing you to eat rocks and glue the cheese onto your pizza to make sure that it sticks?
Real Solutions Needed
At the end of the day, new technologies can and will play an important role in combating the climate crisis. But it’s crucial that we aren’t simply throwing money and resources at miracle cures that are worse than the disease. What’s the point of having the most precise A.I. measurements in the world when that same technology is rapidly escalating the very destruction it’s designed to measure?
At some point, we’re all going to have to wake up and realize that our endless appetite for consumption simply isn’t compatible with life on a finite planet. There’s more than enough on this blue marble we call home for us all to have what we need, but not enough for everyone, or even the very wealthy few of us, to have it all. And more often than not, that’s exactly the problem techno-optimists are trying to solve — not meeting humanity’s needs, but rather the capitalist urge to devour beyond all natural limits for as long as possible, before it all comes tumbling down around us. We need to resist the temptation of shiny toys and jingling keys that promise a utopia they can never deliver and focus on real, serious solutions to the crisis we now urgently face.
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Aaron Dunbar is a member of Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.
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