English Learning for Curious Minds | A More Interesting Way To Learn English #585 | Is AI Really Destroying the Planet?
Dec 18, 2025
Is AI really a threat to our planet? The discussion unpacks the environmental impact of AI, from Scotland's water usage to energy demands. It reveals that data centers consume only a small fraction of resources. Each AI query may seem small, but cumulative usage can scale up quickly. Misleading headlines exaggerate AI's emissions, while local energy sources play a crucial role. The show highlights promising efficiency improvements in AI tech and suggests focusing on personal lifestyle changes may be more impactful than avoiding AI altogether.
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Sensational Scotland Water Headline
- A BBC Scotland report claimed data centres powering AI used enough water to fill 27 million bottles a year.
- Alastair Budge explains this sounded dramatic but Scotland is extremely wet and has plenty of water.
Data Centres Are The Physical Backbone
- Data centres are physical warehouses full of thousands of computers that store and process internet data.
- They consume large amounts of electricity and require cooling, sometimes using water, which creates environmental costs.
AI Requests Are More Compute-Intensive
- AI computations create new content in real time and require powerful GPUs that use far more energy than traditional servers.
- This makes individual AI requests much more energy intensive than simple web searches.