Opposition to AI Data Centers Is On Target
In The News: Climate Connections
Local grassroots opposition to AI data centers continues to grow, and The Climate Movement must engage.
The Promise and Peril of AI are One Thing
Let me back up a second. ARTC or the accelerating rate of tech change is our Third Catalytic Sources of Transformation for overcoming climate change, and AI is a product of ARTC. While there are serious concerns about the future trajectory of AI, there’s no question it can be used today to help speed up needed innovations beneficial for overcoming climate change.
Massive AI Data Centers Are Another: Pollution, Water Scarcity, Bills Going Up
Both the concerns about AI in the future and its climate potential are totally separate questions from the current explosion of AI data centers across the US and other nations.
Local communities are fighting back, including a new tactic: citizen referendums.
As Politico reports:
A small Wisconsin city home to a data center project backed by President Donald Trump voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to restrict future data centers, in a first-of-its-kind referendum that backers said could offer a blueprint for AI infrastructure opponents around the country.
Voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Port Washington approved the measure by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, according to unofficial results.
Why the local opposition?
The sudden massive power demands are creating climate pollution and air pollution as utilities are turning to fossil fuel power plants to deal with it. They are also creating water scarcity due to the cooling needs of these AI systems, consuming up to “5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.”
A recent peer-reviewed study found that:
by 2030, the current rate of AI growth would annually put 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the emissions equivalent of adding 5 to 10 million cars to U.S. roadways. It would also drain 731 to 1,125 million cubic meters of water per year – equal to the annual household water usage of 6 to 10 million Americans.
These new AI data centers also are driving up electricity prices and creating grid instability and unreliability.
It’s the locals vs. Big Tech and their political allies. David and Goliath.
The Climate Movement must join with local opposition to stop these current approaches. But there needs to be action at the state and national levels as well. Politicians need to get on the right side of this grassroots uprising.
These AI data centers should be off-grid and power their own needs with clean energy. We have the clean tech to easily handle this right now, creating lots of good-paying climate-friendly jobs in the process. This will require changed laws that monopolistic utilities could easily fight.
If they are smart, Big Tech will join the locals and The Climate Movement to get this done.
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