A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.
I totally agree with all 200 of them. Apart from environment/climate issues, this will once again allow the US to dominate a market through reckless lack of regulation. In other words, on the backs of not only our planet but also people who do not benefit from it at all.
Just one example: one of Musk’s datacenters runs on gas-powered generators! The air is so bad that people who live nearby are getting sick already.
I wish I could say we’ll be laughing when all of this fails and all those investments dry up like rain in the desert. But that will come with a cripplingly heavy toll for all regular people everywhere. When these DC’s are abandoned, so will they be. We’re already seeing the start of this from people living near these DC’s who no longer have safe access to water, a good night’s sleep or clean air…
Yes please, I’m so sick of technofuedalism. This has gone too far.
I don’t mind datacenters.
Can they just be built away from people’s resources?Also instead of stopping new ones - shut down aws or google cloud. Fuck em
I honestly don’t think we need a moratorium on new datacenters. However, local governments should stop cutting datacenter operators deals. They should not get any tax breaks that other businesses do not get, and local utilities should be able to charge them more for their power and water.
Use the datacenters to subsidize the rest of us These companies have the money, after all.
And while a datacenter might employ lots of people while it’s being constructed, once it is running it doesn’t take a big staff to operate at all. If a local government wants to create jobs, there are much better ways to do it.
