One flight uses more energy than a lifetime of ChatGPT.

One flight uses more energy than a lifetime of ChatGPT.

Same climate.
Different guilt reflex.

OpenAI published the number. An average ChatGPT question uses about 0.34 watt-hours.

A typical free user asks about seven questions a day. Stretch that across a long life and you get about 70 kilowatt-hours. On a normal U.S. grid, that is roughly 25 kilograms of CO2.

A water heater uses that in a couple of days.
A fridge uses that in a month.
You will not notice it on a bill.

Now look at the gate. A two-hour domestic flight is already a few hundred kilograms of CO2 for your seat. That is several lifetimes of chatting, burned before the drink cart comes down the aisle.

A cross-country hop is more.
A transatlantic is more than that.

Nobody writes a thread about the weekend they flew to see their parents.

They write a thread about a sentence they typed.

I’m not saying don’t fly. I’m not saying data centers are free. A new campus on a tight grid is a real planning problem.

I am saying we got trained to feel guilty about the smallest box we opened last, and to treat a jet as weather.

The climate conversation is real.
The meme version of it starts at the prompt and ignores the boarding group.

If this made you defensive about flying or defensive about AI, good. That’s the point. We should argue about the actual tons.