Essay by Eric Worrall
Are greens market testing a pivot from climate activism to anti-AI activism?
Climate advocates outraged at Trump administration plans to fast-track AI sector
Scheme rolled out Wednesday reveals intent to dismantle some environmental and land-use regulations
Dharna Noor Thu 24 Jul 2025 06.27 AEST
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“We need to build and maintain vast AI infrastructure and the energy to power it. To do that, we will continue to reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape, as the Administration has done since Inauguration Day,” the plan says. “Simply put, we need to ‘Build, Baby, Build!’”
…
“At its core, President Trump’s AI agenda is nothing more than a thinly veiled invitation for the fossil fuel and corporate water industries to ramp up their exploitation of our environment and natural resources – all at the expense of everyday people,” said Mitch Jones, a managing director Food and Water Watch, an environmental advocacy group.
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“Under this plan, tech giants get sweetheart deals while everyday Americans will see their electricity bills rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI datacenters,” said JB Branch, a big-tech accountability advocate with the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. “States are held hostage: either stop protecting their residents from dangerous, untested AI products, or lose federal funding.”
…“We can’t let big tech and big oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality, workers and families’ wellbeing,” the coalition wrote.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/23/trump-ai-climate-change
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As the public support base for climate action narrows, greens have long been searching for a replacement for the climate crisis which could re-engage groups which outright reject their climate crisis claims. From 2016;
I predicted in 2017 that AI would be the winning replacement ticket. It was already obvious by then that the political right in key nations was less than enthusiastic about the climate crisis narrative. The threat to greens of permanently losing a large chunk of their audience was obvious.
What I didn’t predict in 2017 was the enormous energy footprint of AI and the AI jobs crisis would be the trigger which convinces climate activists to experiment with anti-AI activism. I thought the trigger would be fear of malevolent AI. I knew the energy demand of AI would be large, but Microsoft rehabilitating Three Mile Island nuclear plant just so they can power their AI is next level.
It is difficult to remember now, but 25 years ago the greens enjoyed bipartisan support. The greens lost bipartisan appeal when Lord Monckton convinced mainstream Republicans the climate crisis is pseudoscience.
Ever since greens have been searching for a way to reach people who are no longer convinced by their climate messaging.
The threat of millions of jobs being automated by AI dangles the possibility of resurrecting broad based political support for the green movement. If greens succeed in amplifying public fear of AI job losses, they could split the Republican base. The climate crisis component of green messaging might leave unbelievers unmoved, but you don’t have to be a Democrat to fear losing your job to AI automation.
Add to this mix the green left’s visceral hatred for President Trump, the fact President Trump is a major advocate of AI, and the fact AI campuses really do cause significant problems for communities when the supporting infrastructure is inadequate, and all the ingredients for a major green pivot to anti-AI activism appear to be in place.
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“Claim: Plastic pollution threat ‘on par to global warming'”
If you consider both threats near zero, then sure, okay.
(Though I have a hard time coming up with an argument that plastic waste might be a net benefit)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rld0KDcan_w
The Prophet Carlin on plastics
We’ll know the panic has shifted when the Youtube warning banner changes from climate to AI.
I don’t like seeing plastic waste pollution either, but doing away with shopping bags is not well thought out. I wouldn’t mind more thoughtful consideration being given to AI and its impacts, but that genie is out of the bottle.
Well, the Green Blob are also Luddites, who reject technology as they do not understand it.
Remember, having cheap abundant power is like “giving an idiot child a machine gun”.
Yes, and we should learn from the folly of others.
Anti AI Activism, keeping Greta Thunberg relevant one protest at a time
Plastic burns well to generate electricity of course. Don’t need any recycling which is pretty much a make work occupation.
Generally, yes. PVC can be problematic though as HCl formed from its combustion is very corrosive.
Here in Northwest Washington, the “recycling” places will only take types 1 and 2 plastics. Which isn’t even 1% of the plastics we generate at home. So we just throw them away.
AI induced job shifts are coming. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the US, Europe or China that leads the AI wave.
No matter who develops AI, the jobs are going to be gone. The only difference is which country gets the AI generated jobs.
Every single technological improvement, every last single one of them, from fire and the wheel, has created more jobs and improved people’s well-being, comfort, and wealth. What makes you think AI will be the first net negative?
AI can definitely replace most of what passes for journalism–present company excepted!
I didn’t say that it will be a net negative, however there will be disruptions. The nature of AI means that those disruptions are going to be greater than those created by other technologies.
My big concern is that by opposing AI here in the US, they won’t stop AI from happening, but they will ensure that other countries reap most of the benefits of AI.
I’ve spent the last month or so creating WordPress plugins to replace the ones I was paying for. I doubt I will pay for another WP plugin again. I’ll just sit down with Github’s Copilot (chatGPT 4) and create what I need. And the best part, no begging developers for features that are important to me. They never do them anyway.
Looks like you are right.
Something called ‘greenwebfoundation.org’ purports to be “a coalition of groups working on environmental and climate justice.” They have already issued 5 demands:
Deal made. Sorry greenies, no mention of constraining energy usage in the new Trump tariffs agreement with EU. Though he denies it, I wonder if any info from Epstein files was used for leverage.
4 «Equitable»? Hmm.
Spambots shall not make the shills obsolete, in return shills support spambots against Twitter purges? :]
As long as the Progressives/Marxists/Socialists control the media they can pick their next narrative. But they’ve lied so many times and for so long they are losing their audience to common sense. Good riddance.
They are all for the fake “energy revolution”, but against the real tech revolution. Got it.
They hate plastic, but are opposed to the alternative, which uses trees. Got it.
They hate “fossil fuels”, but use a lot of them anyway, because it’s “the system”. Got it.
Did I miss anything?
In the movie Mrs. Robinson, the way to go was plastics
First of all, there’s a substantial minority who oppose anything Trump says, does or proposes, because Trump.
Second, the state of the power grid is entirely the fault of climate activists. They worked to cripple or destroy the existing power grid without building a practical, affordable alternative first. One might correctly observe that progressives only know how to destroy, not create.
Europe agreed to the deal, because it is the best they could get.
They prefer to “negotiate” forever, until the other party goes bananas and gives up
Not this time, because Europe is in big do-do in many areas, to the point of becoming dysfunctional
In reality, the US is saving Europe and making money doing it.
AI is coming. The only thing that will stop AI is if it doesn’t work. AI is like the arms race during the Cold War, except worse. Instead of two opposing camps, we now have dozens. Even second- or third-rate nations can be players. Not going along with AI is not an option. Trusting other nations to abide by agreements is not an option.
The AI transition is already here. If AI progresses as predicted, the revolutionary changes will be bigger than the printing press, telephone and internet combined. The disruption will be bigger than the combined effects of the Protestant Reformation, the industrial revolution and the automation revolution.
Even if AI doesn’t advance as expected, the disruption is still unstoppable. We’re only now beginning to apply AI to everyday tasks. Past disruptions eventually created more jobs, including new fields that never existed before.
Greens go Luddite.
Sounds about right.
Greens have always been luddites.
These and most climate activists do not have even one tiny bit of science to back up their loony environmental and anti fossil fuel alarmism.
The references to “AI” in the post and comments implies a lot. Robotics is part of the deal. See this strawberry harvesting robot:
I’d like to have a bot that could eradicate Japanese beetles.
A British boffin came up with a really simple way to kill garden slugs. Under infrared light slugs are really shiny and reflective so build a robot to kill slugs is as simple as picking off the bright spots.
Never heard of it being commercialised.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eli/tmp/slugbot.html
I think you are missing a big point; The green movement as useful idiots.
The climate change agenda put pressure to decarbonize in the industrial powerhouses of North America and Europe. Coal which had powered the Industrial Revolution, became a dirty word. Ironically, it became a big opportunity for Exxon Mobil the biggest natural gas producer, particularly since nuclear energy was the green bogeyman through the 80’s and 90’s. Natural gas was a bridge fuel then.
Corporate America was also sending more manufacturing overseas as environmental laws, labor rules, rising wages and benefits made domestic manufacturing more expensive. Then came the division of the world into developed and developing countries by the IPCC. Corporate America could be better corporate citizen if it they could show reduced domestic energy consumption and moving production to developing nations with low energy costs, low labor costs and few environmental constraints. The lower costs of production meant lower prices for Americans and higher profits for Corporate America. Everyone wins but blue collar American workers. There after the green movement patted itself on the back at how easy it was to decarbonize the developed nations of the west. They did not care that global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 50% during this period.
Unfortunately it was not long before those foreign suppliers soon became formidable competitors.
Now along comes AI as the next big thing that’s going to power American prosperity, probably at the expense of white collar workers. The bankers, Wall Street and Corp America see it as a big opportunity if only they can find the energy to power the technology. Wind and solar are inadequate, natural gas can carry the day for short term needs but nuclear will be needed to power the long term. Given that computing and electronics tend to use energy less and less energy to get the job done as time goes on I don’t see AI demanding as much power as people project. However, it’s been fun to watch artificial intelligence become the buzzword that turned bountiful energy from a curse to a blessing and has left the green movement wondering what happened.
Re AI energy demand.
The IEA expect AI in the US to account for almost half of electricity demand growth by 2030 when it will be using more electricity than that used for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy intensive goods combined.
IEA ‘Energy and AI’ (April 2025)
It’s always a good day when the Climate Caterwaulers are outraged about something. Which seems to be about every day now.
Russia, India, and China don’t give a whit about climate whatever, but they are all in on AI development. As long as AI shows significant promise in advancing multiple fields, including defense, developing AI will be a national security issue. That, uh, Trumps any curtailment of reliable 24×7 power generation. Those worried about the climate best get use to riding in the back of the bus.
No riding
They will be walking barefoot
He [DJT] is also against Artificial Intelligence / AI.
He proposed the word Genius in place of Artificial.
But GI already abbreviates Gastro-Intestinal, ugh.
Other instances of his use of that word Genius include this memorable line:
VSGI <=> very-stable-genius intelligence
That has a suitable technophile ring to it.
*P.S. It’s not original. I once wore a cheap T-shirt, picked up at the da Vinci museum in Tours:
Je suis un genie! inscribed on Leonardo’s profile on a bad-hair day.
I don’t give a damn what climate advocates say or think.
The AI thing is very interesting. I had a lengthy discussion with ChatGPT about sea surface temperatures, and at the end if it, I asked ChatGPT to provide a self-reflection on its role in stimulating critical thinking.
I published the response in Quadrant (https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/uncategorized/ai-and-the-illusion-of-consensus/). I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
So using AI is the ultimate logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority;
AI makes me think of the Dune Trilogy Sci Fi books written by Frank Herbert. In them a future human race has destroyed computers because they began to control the humans
“Are greens market testing a pivot from climate activism to anti-AI activism?”
Of course not. They’re just anti-Trump, even if it was being nice to puppies and kittens.