Can Artificial Intelligence Be A Solution To The Climate Crisis?

Stefan Zweig, in his work Decisive Moments in History, describes the telegraph cable connecting the two sides of the Atlantic as one of the turning points of human history. The laying of the cable is the symbol of the power of human will to overcome the obstacles of nature.

During the pulling of the line, the cable broke, and it was laid again. After years of unsuccessful attempts, the cable that was finally laid became the “representation of humanity’s patience and persistence.” Finally, in 1866, “for the first time, continents could communicate with each other within seconds.”

Today, under the oceans of the globe, approximately a total of 1.5 million kilometers of cable lines are circulating. Why? To keep the digital world alive. Public opinion thinks that the digital realm consists only of satellites. However, this is not the case.

Cables have geopolitics, and against the possibility of sabotage, their locations are supposedly kept secret. How possible is that today? I recommend a film related to this subject: The Hummingbird Project.

Cables are much more important than thought. I wrote the above lines to provide information. However, the purpose of this article is to seek an answer to the question of whether artificial intelligence can be used as a remedy for the climate crisis.

From Homo Sapiens To The Moral Crossroads Of Humanity: Homo Detritus vs. Homo Relatus

Homo Sapiens, who exists with his logic, was described in economics as Homo Economicus, in the sense of protecting his self-interest. He turned into Homo Faber, which expresses his production capacity, and then into Homo Consumens, which expresses his consumption capacity. Now, he is in the stage of Homo Detritus. In other words, a being who now produces and lives in waste.

Do we have the intention to evolve the economic order into an understanding that “puts life at the center”? Do we have the intention to live in harmony with nature, as Stoicism describes?

As of July 24, 2025, we consumed all the annual resources the planet offered us. This means that what we will consume for the rest of the year will not be replaced. We consume without allowing nature to renew itself.

According to the logic of “net calculation,” we are destroying the planet. So, perhaps Homo Sapiens is a species that does not have the characteristics to live in harmony with nature. As soon as it discovered industrialization, it entered the process of destroying the planet.

The Enlightenment was humanity’s project of controlling nature. Industrialization was also based on the Enlightenment. There were those who suggested managing this project with morality, as well as those who remained indifferent to morality. We saw the consequences of being indifferent to morality in the example of Oppenheimer. We saw it in economics, in Friedman and Hayek.

What is the next subject? Can we derive a Homo Relatus from these lessons? What is Homo Relatus? It is the approach that defines human not as a subject, but as a relational being, constantly connected with nature, modes of production, institutions, historical heritage, culture, and technology. In other words, Homo Relatus reveals how the economic order transforms social bonds, how consumption habits are connected in ecological chains, and how global inequalities are established through relationality.

While in capitalism the individual is seen only as an “economic actor,” Homo Relatus rejects this reductionist approach. Human is not only a “subject within the market.” It is a being shaped by ecological, cultural, and ethical bonds. In other words, Homo Relatus has a “sense of responsibility.”

Homo Detritus is in the stage of surrendering itself to machines. The determinant of how machines will develop behavioral models also comes from Homo Detritus, rooted in Homo Sapiens. If general artificial intelligence is coded by Homo Detritus, one kind of future will emerge, if coded by Homo Relatus, another kind of future will emerge.

Solution To The Ecological Crisis In Super Machines

General artificial intelligence has much higher capacity than humans and deserves the analogies of super intelligence or superhuman. It is still at the theoretical stage and has not yet come into operation. However, at some point, it will very likely be used.

We are faced with the climate crisis, the extinction of biodiversity, the decline in the oceans’ carbon absorption capacity, etc., a large number of very complex environmental problems. Could it be that human intelligence has reached a point where it is impossible to solve these problems? All problems are interconnected, and there is no doubt that “holistic approaches” are needed.

We cannot solve any problem by considering it “only in itself.” In nature, everything is in interaction with each other and affects each other. Since Alexander von Humboldt, these interactions and balances of nature have been known.

I had written a short answer to the question of whether general artificial intelligence can be used to save the planet: AI and Energy: A Double-Edged Sword in the Climate Fight.

There is no possibility of escaping from the digital world. Such a possibility no longer exists. So, we have to look for the solution within the digital world. The digital world is at the source of all the ecological problems I mentioned above, and at the same time, it can also be developed to contribute to their solution. More precisely, it must be developed. Therefore, there is a “double-edged responsibility.”

If Homo Relatus exists within the framework of “responsibility,” then the algorithms of general artificial intelligence must be written by Homo Relatus. Otherwise, we will make Prometheus, who rebelled against Zeus “for humans,” regret what he did.

“General artificial intelligence” must become “green general artificial intelligence.” From Condorcet’s approach of analyzing the past of human intelligence to technology-supported approaches analyzing the future of human intelligence, we need to move within the framework of “moral philosophy.” We will have to make green general artificial intelligence solve this complex problem. I was surprised to see that PwC also had a study on this subject.

Social Problems That Algorithms Can Create: Green e-Leviathan

Even if the algorithms of green general artificial intelligence come from among our Homo Relatus, humanity will inevitably have to experience some problems. The solution of ecological crises will have passed the stage where they can be solved in harmony with the “laissez-faire” philosophy of liberal democracy. Moreover, we must also remember that liberal democratic thought undermined itself: When Innovation Outpaces Ethics.

If we do not mention Svante August Arrhenius, who introduced the first climate modeling in 1896, Jack London, who imagined a great epidemic together with a climate crisis in 1912 and had his novel’s hero tell it in the year 2073, George Orwell, who showed in 1949 how the digital world could turn into an instrument of oppression, and Aldous Huxley, who criticized the Fordist production model in 1932, we would be disrespectful to history. More importantly, we would not have adequately expressed the despair that humanity cannot find a solution to today’s problems.

For a long time, I have been telling that humanity cannot escape from evolving into a dystopian world.

Is it possible to be “nature-friendly” while being “human-friendly”? No longer. The stage where both concepts could go hand in hand has passed. I specifically mentioned the dates of the above warnings. They support my answer of “no longer.” If we are to save nature, which is the reason for the existence of the human species, the species called human now has to make sacrifices.

Artificial intelligence can bring some mandatory restrictions against this picture, which expresses despair in my above narratives. This means the restriction of people’s freedoms. This is what I mean by sacrifice.

For example, while on one side there are people who cannot find drinking water due to the increasingly severe drought problem, others may be prohibited from entering the pool. This is an approach that expresses responsibility. However, it is restrictive of freedom. Similarly, bans such as private jet use, private yacht use, and private car use may also be included in the restrictions. Going further, artificial intelligence may propose or even implement the elimination of elements that do not comply with the restrictions. The meaning of the restrictions is this: Green e-Leviathan.

What I have described above closely concerns philosophy, morality, social life, law, politics, economics, sociology, and natural sciences.

Artificial intelligence will produce inequality at the beginning. It has already started to produce. As in all technological revolutions in history. However, from then on, it depends on who will write the codes. If Homo Detritus writes, we evolve into one kind of world, if Homo Relatus, who acts with “responsibility,” writes, into another kind of world.

We have no chance to solve problems on the morally indifferent ground of the market where the concept of “survival of the fittest” rules. Then, we need the “moral state” that Spinoza described. The end of decentralization in every field in the name of freedom is also a separate source of disaster. Yet, in the understanding of the state hand in hand with the market, will the codings be implemented by Homo Detritus or Homo Relatus?

Now, no option is without problems. Even the results to be produced by the machines we are forced to see as the solution.