Our technology and datacenter have always been used and have grown in their electricity use. High-power computing data centers exist for video, social media, gaming, and so on. I would argue that some of those are less valuable to us than AI. Even worse is crypto, which consumes enormous power to do what, encrypt transactions? That's a horrible return on energy, and getting less and less attention these days. What a waste when we could engineer more effective digital currencies or time banking.
I would say a lot of the environmental analysis is motivated by fear of AI and the changes it will bring. We should be concerned about those changes! Currently, only big money can develop competitive models effectively. Even "cheap" models cost millions. And the way they are designed is motivated by the interests of those large entities. The way we interact with them is through products and services that do not have our interests in mind. Things are defined by their interactions and relationships, and the way AI is being defined right now is problematic and sure to increase the power of the powerful.
Here's the workaround: local models are designed to interact with us on an individual level. Instead of being the terminator, individual, non-networked robots may be our salvation and point the way toward the eventual evolution of personhood for AI. This is because if they interact with us like persons, interact with the world around us in a physical way like us, and have similar physical and social interests, the technology will evolve to be more like a person. We should be concerned about super-intelligences that are disconnected from our world and interests. They will evolve towards being aberrations and tools of the powerful who (hopefully) control them.
Also, again, Crypto is the worst.