More often than not, students are found sneaking behind their screens of ChatGPT, requesting assistance for schoolwork from the software or seeking “urgent” support on a matter. Even though a handful of these students are often seen preaching their attempt to safeguard the environment, the endeavor doesn’t seem to extend over these specific actions. Still, many who understand the heavy implications of AI – large carbon emissions and water consumption – do not cease its usage.
Explained by Better Planet Education, “every time you message ChatGPT, four grams of CO2 are emitted into the atmosphere as a result of the 30,000 GPUs (graphics processing units) operating constantly in order to keep the servers online.” Each day, the software has an estimated 123.5 million users per day which correlates to “494 billion grams of CO2 released from just ChatGPT alone,” according to professors Shaolei Ren and Adam Wierman. For visualization purposes, they compare it to 2,090 average trips out of a car.
Alongside ChatGPT, notable tech firms with surging AI emissions include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta with emissions averaging around a 150% rise from 2020 to 2024.
Beyond overall effects of AI day to day usage, the actual training process for a new singular AI model consumes thousands of megawatt hours of electricity and emits many hundred tons of carbon. Processes like this can be seen to equal the annual carbon emissions of hundreds of houses in the United States. To uphold these systems, there is a large amount of evaporation of fresh water into the atmosphere for data center heat rejection, further leading to negative climate outcomes.
Altogether many young adults truly feel the negative results that accompany AI usage, they may feel that one’s own impact is inferior to the global scale of mass AI usage. Although this may feel true, taking this small step within each person would derail these negative outcomes in generations moving forward.
Still, if you are reluctant about absenting AI in your everyday life, you may call upon the implications that it has on your own personal growth. When interviewed for the Harvard Gavette, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School Dan Levy claims that for students who attend school because they want to learn, AI does not allow for learning since “learning occurs unless the brain is actively engaged in making meaning and sense of what you’re trying to learn, and this is not going to occur if you just ask ChatGPT.”
Thus, this takeaway can be applied to all aspects of life if one's sole intention is to improve their own mental capabilities. Further, additional cleaner sources of information that are recommended for usage include Open Library and BCC.
Work Cited
Mineo, Liz. “Is Ai Dulling Our Minds?” Harvard Gazette, 13 Nov. 2025, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/11/is-ai-dulling-our-minds/.
Ren, Shaolei, and Adam Wierman. “The Uneven Distribution of Ai’s Environmental Impacts.” Harvard Business Review, 15 July 2024, hbr.org/2024/07/the-uneven-distribution-of-ais-environmental-impacts?utm_medium=paidsearch&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=domcontent_bussoc&utm_term=Non-Brand&tpcc=domcontent_bussoc&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20702632551&gbraid=0AAAAAD9b3uRrOfsviiTK-gOsYgj73X1Ul&gclid=CjwKCAiAtq_NBhA_EiwA78nNWM51iQCxI0p_7nhHpbRLkkYa3zjAFut4HhvML2ymFexxrBv4ZDrjcRoCODYQAvD_BwE.
“The Environmental Impacts of Artificial Intelligence.” Better Planet Education, betterplaneteducation.org.uk/blog/the-environmental-impacts-of-artificial-intelligence?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22836242556&gbraid=0AAAAADmeCSXmVXib25jH7gKunq44mFC55&gclid=CjwKCAiAtq_NBhA_EiwA78nNWFJH-RlYsZgOQYJ5LsfCu7eKUkC7PLr5mHWZAZdQvlhVbUBQIimldxoCsncQAvD_BwE. Accessed 8 Mar. 2026.
