Artificial intelligence has gone from quietly shaping what we see online to landing squarely in our laps. This surge in AI adoption coincides with a critical moment in the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. Every AI-powered query, slimy deepfake, and prosaic Google search consumes massive amounts of energy. That energy is pulled from power grids, cooled with vast amounts of water, and run on computing hardware built from mined metals. And, as AI becomes more advanced, those demands are only growing. AI gobbles up huge amounts of energy because it relies on powerful computers to process vast amounts of data. Is AI bad for the environment ?