Americans are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of AI, new poll finds, tell me about this news in (https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/09/16/poll-environmental-impact-ai/)

According to a national poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), public anxiety over the environmental toll of artificial intelligence and the rapid expansion of data centers has surged.Here are the key takeaways from the report:1. Significant Rise in Public Concern

• Growing Wariness: About 53% of U.S. adults say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about AI’s environmental footprint, up from 41% in 2025.
• Youth Shift: The spike is most pronounced among young adults ages 18 to 29, where high concern jumped from 38% last year to 60%.
• More Harm Than Good: Nearly half of Americans (47%) believe AI will hurt rather than help the environment (up from 33% in 2025). The poll noted that Americans are now more worried about AI’s environmental impact than about traditional high-footprint sectors like commercial air travel or meat production.

2. Anxieties Over Data Centers, Power, and Water

• Local Utility Impacts: A majority of respondents expressed serious worry about the direct local effects of data centersspecifically increases in residential electricity prices, strain on local power grids, and heavy water consumption used to cool hyperscale facilities.
• Energy Demand: With data centers projected to account for up to 11.8% of total U.S. electricity consumption by 2030, residents and energy analysts voiced fears over building massive utility infrastructure just to supply single server campuses.

3. Broad Support for Caps and Regulations

• Limiting Expansion: In a rare cross-party consensus, roughly 6 in 10 Americans support placing limits on the number of new data centers that can be built in the United States.
• Clean Energy Mandates: About two-thirds of U.S. adults favor requiring data centers to be powered by renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, including roughly 80% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans.

4. Partisan and Economic Divides

• Partisan Divide on Climate: Around two-thirds of Democrats reported being highly concerned about AI’s environmental toll, compared to about half of independents and 4 in 10 Republicans.
• Skepticism Over Benefits: While tech leaders and some policymakers emphasize data centers as essential for American technological leadership, only about a quarter of the public views them as strongly beneficial for tech progress, and only 2 in 10 see them as major drivers of local job creation.