Your Convenience Or Our Future?

The author is a Sophomore at Herron High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. This story first appeared in Herron’s ‘Indy Underground’ publication on Sept. 17, 2025. We reprint this story with their permission.

Though many view Artificial Intelligence as a helpful new innovation that can do your homework or write your essays, it is actually extremely harmful to our environment. While tech companies hype up AI as an ‘all-solving’ invention, they are simultaneously sacrificing the future of our planet for their own financial gain.

Most people don’t know about the detrimental effects of AI on the environment and community health because our current government has put laws in place to protect and benefit wealthy tech corporations. One way the Trump Administration is doing this is through the “AI Action Plan.” This plan enables tech companies to buy and sell public land, which includes national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife conservation areas, and much more. The Trump Administration is allowing them to buy these lands to build more energy infrastructure, which they need due to how much power AI takes to operate. The project also makes it so no data can be collected regarding how much energy and water AI plants use, making it even harder for nearby communities to get help with the pollution in their area.

The plan would allow companies to go directly against the Clean Water Act, which means they don’t have to tell communities about how their power plants will affect water sources or about the harmful toxins emitted by them. In Loudoun, Virginia, a new power plant with 4,000 truck-sized diesel backup generators has recently been opened. Even when not in use, AI plants still emit extremely harmful pollutants into the air, causing a spike in respiratory diseases and a higher risk of lung cancer and heart problems. The plan that the Trump administration is trying to pass will greatly affect those in low-income areas. The increase in power plants is leading to energy becoming more expensive, resulting in some families having to pay an average of 31% of their income on energy bills.

*Photo courtesy Brett Sayles, pexels.com*

In addition to the problems from the new power plants, training AI takes a lot of power and emits many pollutants into the atmosphere. Training just one model produces 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide and takes up 4% of global energy annually, which may not seem like a lot, but is about as much as Japan uses in a single year. The Trump Administration and the EPA are erasing the cap on how much greenhouse gases can be emitted into the atmosphere by private businesses. This won’t just affect those in the U.S., though. Once the pollutants are in the atmosphere, they end up mixing together to affect it equally everywhere, and can stay anywhere from a few decades to thousands of years.

Greenhouse gases aren’t the only way that AI is polluting the earth; it is also contributing to fast fashion through targeted ads. AI is set up to learn about a user and their activity to send them ads for products they might be interested in, which leads to impulse buying and overconsumption. Fast fashion, or any widely affordable item, is typically made from cheap materials. These materials often end up in the ocean, which leads to garbage patches, hurting wildlife as well as human life. These materials, normally some type of plastic, stay in the ocean and on our Earth for thousands of years.

Not only does it affect our natural environment, it also affects our social environment. AI is taking people’s jobs, leading to higher rates of unemployment. Along with this, Generative AI also harms artists. While artists put in hours of work, AI users think it’s easier to generate a photo in a matter of seconds out of convenience. Many argue that AI ‘art’ is good because it is ‘accessible,’ although that has never been the case; for example, Frida Kahlo, Chuck Close, and many more artists, found unique ways to create despite their disabilities.

Ultimately, the multi-billion-dollar tech companies don’t care about your well-being-they only care about what makes them profit. They are so far detached from reality that they would give up your health, the planet’s future, and the protection of those with no voice just to make a few bucks. The way these companies are able to keep their power is because of those who use their AI bots. So, are you willing to exchange our future for your convenience?

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