The Fourth Technological Revolution will destroy what remains of the wild.

Any transition of the world to a new stage of development can be done together—carefully—protecting our only planet. But, unfortunately, every step in evolutionary development, in technological growth, is accompanied by greed, aggression, and a crushing blow to Earth’s biosphere.

Now the Fourth Technological Revolution has begun. The first three are remembered прежде всего for the global “development” of wildlife—indeed, it was they that led to the destruction of life on the planet.

The First Industrial Revolution (approximately 1760–1850) was about steam- and coal-based technologies. The growth of mechanization, factories, and the construction of railways! The key damage to wildlife took the form of local blows to ecosystems—where coal was mined, for example, or where there were massive volumes of smoke and soot aerosols. It was also in those years that large-scale pollution of rivers by industrial effluents began, including due to the growth of cities. Cities and factories themselves were often built прямо on riverbanks—fast logistics, cooling, water intake, and so on.

The Second Industrial Revolution fell on the period 1850–1970. I do not divide it into stages; I believe that it was precisely in this long span that the main development occurred! This was mass electrification, oil extraction, internal combustion engines. Heavy industry, metallurgy, and the chemical industry! And also mass production and an incredibly rapid growth of urban populations. The удар to ecosystems came from the growth of resource extraction and processing, industrial pollution of water and air, as well as the expansion of infrastructure, plowing of lands, draining of wetlands, and so on.

It was from the 1970s that international organizations began active work on calculating the масштаб degradation of ecosystems and the сокращение of living species. The data of world scientists that from 1970 to the 2020s the abundance of all living species on the planet has declined by about 73% (only about 27% of animals remain now; we destroyed the rest) is precisely an indicator of the consequences of the first two technological revolutions and the third that followed.

The Third Revolution fell on 1970–2010. This was a time of rapid growth in electronics, computers, automation, and global supply chains! I would probably выделил two main “foundations” of the destruction of the biosphere—mass chemicalization of agriculture and сверхмасштабная logistics due to the sharp growth of the human population.

Experts call this period the “Great Acceleration.” Resource consumption became uncontrollable; systemic pollution reached an unprecedented level (plastics, “forever chemicals,” persistent pollutants, poisons). By this time, almost all ecosystems on the planet had been disrupted! Only closed, isolated fragments of wilderness remain, separated from one another, slowly dying.

That is exactly why we developed the Concept of the Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET) — because all isolated refuges of wilderness urgently need to be connected into a single whole. Before a sharp and uncontrollable collapse of self-sustaining ecosystems occurs—one that will then lead to the death of our modern civilization as well. It is impossible to “devour everything” and then sit and hope that “somehow we’ll survive.” We depend on the world around us! All consumption, the provisioning of cities, the lives of our children—this is dependence on nature. It is like setting fire to our own house while we are inside it. There is nowhere to run: the planet is one, and in fact it is very, very small.

And so, right now the Fourth Technological Revolution is underway. In essence it began around 2010, but after 2020 (after the pandemic) the harshest and very rapid acceleration of development processes began, which led to competition and will inevitably lead to further full-scale wars.

And also to the destruction of the very last refuges of wilderness that we have left at all. And to the extermination of the last 27% of living species.

Here the question should rather be posed like this: “And who will come out alive after the Fourth Technological Revolution? Are we truly ready for the consequences?”

The point is that the Fourth Technological Revolution is the transition of the world to “green energy” and global digitalization. But all these technologies require a colossal volume of rare-earth resources, which in industrial quantities remain precisely within key ecosystems—the remnants of the protected-area system. What was once set aside for protection now must urgently be “opened up” and destroyed, otherwise it will be impossible to win in competition!

For example.

In the Black Earth Region (Russia), for many years the authorities and business have been trying to seize the Khopyor Nature Reserve for the sake of nickel mining. These are the Elanskoye and Elkinskoye copper–nickel deposits. The confrontation was невероятное—fierce!

In Sweden there were attempts to seize the “Natura 2000” zone in the vicinity of the protected Lake Vättern, where the authorities also tried to begin development of rare-earth resources.

In Kenya there is the most valuable protected massif with an ancient forest—Mrima Hill—where the authorities want to добывать huge volumes of rare-earths, niobium, and others.

In Greenland, near the UNESCO site Kujataa and the town of Narsaq, there is also confrontation over rare-earth resources, including uranium.

In Alaska, the authorities are trying to seize the protected ancient forest Tongass National Forest—the reason is the same: rare-earth resources.

But this is only an example. Now states have begun making “backroom deals” for rare-earths. Those who follow the news—President Donald Trump tried to buy Greenland and is asking to annex Canada, and he also flew at the end of 2025 to CIS countries, where he reached agreements with Kazakhstan and other countries on the extraction of rare-earth resources on their territories. The authorities of Russia are offering the United States to jointly extract rare-earth resources on our territory; they even revived the project to build a tunnel between the Far East and Alaska.

The same thing—completely analogous—everywhere in the world. And this race for leadership in the Fourth Technological Revolution has only begun! Both people and the last refuges of wilderness on the planet will be sacrificed. They will simply be destroyed.

THE FOURTH TECHNOLOGICAL.

Now about the real threat to wildlife, so that you understand the scale.

Above all, the Fourth Technological Revolution leads (already) to increased consumption of resources, destruction of ecosystems, intrusion into protected areas for rare-earth elements and other components of high-tech production.

Electricity consumption is rising, and that means we see an increase in emissions. Over the past five years, consumption has grown by 12% worldwide due to the expansion of data centers! According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), by 2030 the load will double. At the same time, it turned out to be paradoxical, but the main consumption now has fallen on the development of artificial intelligence—an expert study showed that in 2025 the total carbon footprint of AI systems is comparable to the consumption of large industrial facilities—for example, aluminum smelters.

But let’s set aside the “carbon topic”; it is itself extremely controversial and in many ways is actively “pumped” by states as an opportunity to increase profit extraction.

We, however, focus on a far more serious problem that almost no one knows about. This is the growth of water consumption! The point is that computational power for AI requires the construction of data centers (DCs) — these are huge buildings or complexes where thousands of servers and network equipment are installed, and so on. This is where our entire “virtual world” is concentrated. These centers consume a great deal of electricity, as I wrote earlier, which means they need water for cooling.

And here are real numbers for you.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the country’s data centers (5,426 facilities) consume 449 million gallons of water per day (~1.7 billion liters/day), or ~163.7 billion gallons per year (≈620 billion liters/year). Thus, one large data center can “drink” up to 5 million gallons per day—about like a small city of up to 50,000 residents.

And the new “AI boom” increases water consumption catastrophically. In simple terms: generating and processing queries to ChatGPT- and Gemini-like models consumes enormous volumes. By calculations, each 100-word AI query requires on average 0.519 liters of water. And since millions of such queries are made every minute worldwide, the annual water consumption of AI systems alone reaches 765 billion liters—more than the entire volume of bottled drinking water in the world.

I will highlight the phrase again: the annual water consumption of AI systems is greater than the total volume of bottled drinking water in the world.

But the problem does not end here. Mining rare-earth metals in protected areas requires colossal amounts of water! And that water is taken away from local residents—from reservoirs and artesian wells. According to expert estimates, 16% of all mines and deposits of critical minerals are located in regions with extreme water scarcity. For example, extracting lithium from salt lakes in Chile and Argentina requires up to 500,000 gallons of brine per ton of commercial lithium. At the same time, in Chile’s Atacama region, copper and lithium mining already consumes up to 65% of local water resources, which has caused protests by local residents. People simply die of thirst; there is no water—this is a catastrophe.

Here is another example: the large Chinese mining-and-processing complex Bayan Obo (Inner Mongolia) consumes on the order of 13 million m³ of water per year to process ore. After mining is finished, the water remains heavily contaminated with heavy metals and radioactive elements.

These are the consequences of the Fourth Technological Revolution. Colossal volumes of electricity and water are needed, as well as the beginning of the development of the last refuges of wilderness. States are now urgently introducing bills that allow the destruction of nature reserves! Such laws are being adopted “in packages” in Russia, in the USA, and all over the world.

Already cobalt mining for lithium-ion batteries in the world is growing at a truly космической rate: in 2017–2022, global cobalt production increased by 70%. At the same time, three quarters of cobalt is mined in Congo, where ancient forests are destroyed for this and rivers are polluted with heavy metals.

Studying all this, linking scientific works and analytical data—you realize how difficult a time we are living through. Each technological revolution becomes feed for the capitalist system, which demands fierce competition and a gnawing struggle for influence, money, and power.

There is scientific data: only 27% of living species remain on the planet in just the last 50 years, as well as the last refuges of wilderness. All of this will be sacrificed for momentary profit! But will anyone stop? Come to their senses?

We are truly losing the last of it.

© PAVEL PASHKOV