Recent reports reveal that Google's greenhouse gas emissions surged by 48% from 2019 to 2023, attributing the increase to the energy demands of AI technology. Despite promises of future decarbonization, AI currently consumes vast amounts of energy and water, with significant ecological impacts. Thomas Davis and Scott Stoneman critique AI's resource-intensive nature, emphasizing its role in perpetuating capitalist exploitation and environmental degradation. They argue for a critical examination of AI's material needs and its socio-economic impacts, urging a move towards more equitable and environmentally-conscious AI practices within a post-capitalist framework.
Historian Daniel Macfarlane introduces his new book, Natural Allies: Environment, Energy, and the History of US-Canada Relations from McGill-Queen's University Press. The book shows that the Canada-U.S. energy/environmental relationship is historically the most consequential in the world, spawning important changes in international environmental law and transboundary governance, while also fostering the voracious consumption of resources and and large-scale ecosystem change. In addition to analyzing this history, Macfarlane offers the concept of "natural security" as a potential guide to international environmental agreements and pathways.
In the third Forum on Fossil Capital essay, Andrew M. Rose puts Fossil Capital into conversation with Timothy Mitchell's Carbon Democracy, emphasizing the need for green social movements to reconsider their approach in appealing to democratic states and institutions–entities which are not simply captured by fossil fuel interests but fundamentally and at their very origin an outgrowth of the carbon economy.