Growth and sustainability (part 2)
management. 3 AI is already critical to the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in its generation of functional proteins – EsmGFP – which create new drugs to cure major diseases. 4 This enhanced healthcare can deliver more
happiness, overcoming the happiness threshold limit in the Easterlin Paradox (see Figure 2). Additionally, AI analysis models have proven useful, assisting in environmental monitoring such as evaluating China’s waste-to-energy capacity, using ANN to collect accurate data and adopt suitable climate action. 5
Figure 2: Easterlin Paradox
However, AI technology is currently grounded in mineral extraction, as well as the intensive usage of water and electricity. Redesigning government policies (subsidies etc) to retire fossil fuel-intensive infrastructure supporting data centres may help to decouple AI technology from environmental degradation.
The earth seems perfectly fine. Not really. Let the human race the right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest. (Bacon, 1620)
This pervasive and destructive ideology has undermined the regenerative capacity of the earth and the importance that the environment plays in furnishing our economic welfare. The WHO estimates that climate change will have large-scale effects, forecasting that between 2030 and 2050 250 000 deaths will be caused by undernutrition and heat stress alone. 6 Many ecological boundaries have already been breached (see Figure 3), caused by intensive agricultural practices, burning fossil fuels., 7 threatening the market in critical sectors (food, water, energy).
Figure 3: The Economic Doughnut (Raworth, 2017)
In 2022, the US EPA recorded 6,343 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions which is around 13% of total global C02 emissions and this statistic is set to be exacerbated by the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. 8 Trump’s justifies pursuing GDP at the expense of environmental 3 Lutz, L. (2025, September 12). What direct risks does AI pose to the climate and environment? See https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-direct-risks-does-ai-pose-to-the-climate-and- environment/. 4 Thomas Hayes, R. (2024, July 2). Simulating 500 million years of evolution with a language model . See https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.01.600583v1.full. 5 Olawade, D. et al. (2024, October 18). Artificial intelligence in environmental monitoring: Advancements, challenges, and future directions . See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773049224000278. 6 Craggs, A. (2023, October 12). Climate Change . See https://www.who.int/news-room/fact- sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health. 7 Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics. London. 8 United States Environmental Protection Agency . (2022). Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks . See https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks.
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