Join us for a conversation with Dr. Mary Finley-Brook on AI and Climate Deception, exploring how big tech is obscuring environmental harms, manipulating public understanding, and reinforcing extractive power structures.
Speaker:
“Mary Finley-Brook is a Professor of Geography and Global Studies at the University of Richmond, where she has taught since 2006. Finley-Brook has decades of experience conducting participatory action research and collaborates regularly with community-based organizations and frontline populations to advance climate justice in energy sector transformation. Her interests include environmental policy, climate justice, public health, energy transition, affordable access to renewable energy technologies, and equity in environmental, climate and energy governance. She has served on review panels for the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. Finley-Brook is co-author of the textbook Climate Crisis, Energy Violence with Academic Press (2024)” (Mary Finley-Brook, University of Richmond, https://geography.richmond.edu/faculty/mbrook/)
Actions
- Do not support or use generative AI
- Check out Mary Finley-Brook’s Slides from the presentation, which includes actions like:
- Can you name the components of your energy and technology infrastructure?
- Who are the people and where are the places that have made your virtual computing possible?
- Opt out of companies and policies with harmful practices; find or create alternatives to platforms like X, Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft, Google, Workday, etc.
- Communicate with policymakers and leaders (expressing concern or thanking for actions)
- Vote wisely; hold politicians accountable
- Spend less time online
- Create digital materials only when necessary and important; be selective about what you store
- Delete unnecessary data and files as regular digital ‘housekeeping’
- Use appropriate search engines for the question at hand
- Make digital privacy and security top priorities; learn about ethical data and internet use
- Using different softwares:
- Linux for my operating system,
- liber office as a word alternative
- cryptpad for online document editing & sharing
- duckduckgo with ai features turned off for search engine (or searxng)
- zen browser for browser
- thunderbird for email management
- signal for messaging
- pipeline for youtube watching
Resource List
Books:
- Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry
- Digital Degrowth: Technology in the Age of Survival by Michael Kwet
- Digital Degrowth: Radically Rethinking Our Digital Futures by Neil Selwyn
- Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence by Dan McQuillan
- Climate Crisis, Energy Violence: Mapping Fossil Energy’s Enduring Grasp on Our Precarious Future by Mary Finley-Brook (Author) and Stephen Metts
- AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor
- Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao
Websites:
Articles:
- Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions (AAUP 2025)
- An open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt GenAI in education
- AI Wants More Data. More Chips. More Real Estate. More Power. More Water. More Everything.
- Internet data centers are fueling drive to old power source: Coal
- Microsoft’s hypocrisy on AI
- Big Tech Helps Big Oil Pump More, Belying Climate Pledges
- AI turbocharges US hunt for minerals, fossil fuels
- Greenwashing and bothsidesism in AI chatbot answers about fossil fuels’ role in climate change
- Microsoft Secretly Selling AI to Fossil Fuel Companies While Bragging About Environmental Progress
- Whistleblower exposes how AI fuels Big Oil growth
- He helped Microsoft build AI to help the climate. Then Microsoft sold it to Big Oil.
- AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring
- How families could get stuck with higher electric bills if the AI data center boom goes bust
- The AI bubble is 17 times the size of the dot-com frenzy – and four times subprime, this analyst argues
- Oregon city sues to keep Google’s water use secret
- Massive data center plan scrapped after residents voice frustrations in Charles City County
- Developer withdraws plans for Catlett Station data center project
- Prince George’s County moves to put data center development on pause
- The AI data centre boom is here. What will it mean for land, water and power in Canada?
Science journals:
- Good, K. D., & Ciccone, M. (2025). Media quiteracy: Why digital disconnection belongs in the media literacy curriculum. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 17(1), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2025-17-1-10
Youtube: