Resistance to data centers grows across the U.S.

There is more to this story than big, noisy buildings

All across the United States people are pushing back against the construction of data centers, from Tampa Bay, Florida, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Allentown, Pennsylvania, Louisville, Kentucky, Butte, Montana, and dozens of cities and towns in between.

From California to Maine, the story is the same. People have bought homes in neighborhoods far away from factories and industry. Now, as industrialists and venture capital are buying up farmland close to the burbs to construct huge data centers, folks feel their homes and neighborhoods are being overrun by these cyber behemoths.

Barrington Hills, a suburb 30 miles northwest of Chicago, provides a perfect example of the experience of local townsfolk and data centers. Residents who live in this largely affluent area recently uncovered documents revealing plans for a 300 megawatt data center to be constructed on nearby farmland. In a story on the development for the local online newspaper, the Barrington Hills Observer, South Barrington resident Dr. Laura Holmes summed up how the locals feel, saying of the proposed data center, “It is incredibly close. The people here have some idea that they’re closing us in.”

One of the biggest complaints from townsfolk, one echoed across the country, is the lack of transparency as corporations plan and municipalities green light construction. Another Barrington Hills resident, Amanda Pollard had this to say: “We feel like we’ve been totally ignored. The public hearings we’ve had are like political theater. It’s just a formality. They’ve already made up their mind.”

Besides these common sentiments, other characteristics typify data center protests:

The protesters are overwhelmingly white and middle class or even wealthy

Protests over local environmental concerns are almost always limited to the poorer communities that they affect, whether it be impoverished white folks in southern West Virginia trying to stop the latest mountaintop removal mine or the residents of a largely Hispanic community like San Diego’s Barrio Logan protesting the high level of industrial pollution in their neighborhood.

Clicking around on the internet and examining the demographics of the communities that protest data centers, I’ve noticed that these communities lean toward the melanin-deficient end of the skin color spectrum. There are places like Louisville, Kentucky, where overall income levels are slightly lower, but average or above average in areas where data center protests are happening. I’m uncertain what this means for the success of their campaigns.

The protests cross the red and blue divide

Opposition to data centers goes beyond the political divide. The left-of-center MediaJustice opposes data centers in general and has published a game plan of resistance to them, concentrating their efforts in the South. Moveon.org, a traditionally center-left advocacy group, is organizing opposition to a data center planned to take over farmland south of Dubuque, Iowa.

Humans First, an organization that identifies as populist and aligned with Donald Trump and MAGA, is leading a nationwide, and identifiably conservative, protest of data centers on July 18th. Humans First is led by Amy Kremer, a conservative activist who first rose to some prominence with the conservative Tea Party during the Obama administration. She was later involved in planning the January 6th gathering preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempted coup.

Kremer has made some outlandish partisan statements, such as wondering if President Obama loves America. She was also part of the election-denying campaign called Stop the Steal. Another leader of Humans First was indicted for election interference in Georgia in 2020.

I don’t know if Humans First will be successful in getting more centrists and left-leaning folks to join their cause. Going forward, will we have separate conservative and liberal protests of data centers? Or will this common cause bridge the political divide? Do you have thoughts on this? Please share by clicking the “Leave a comment” button below.

Despite promotion of data centers by the right-wing propaganda machine, such as Fox News, conservatives and folks on the far right are still registering their opposition to the centers. Maybe the conservative policy machine hasn’t done enough to win the minds of its followers on this topic. Or maybe the messaging began too late.

The protests are about more than data centers

People don’t want these behemoths ripping up acres and acres of land, polluting their neighborhoods with light and noise, sucking up tens of thousands of gallons of water, and burning through thousands and thousands of gigawatts. But the protests are also about people’s unease with artificial intelligence.

Many fear AI as a job killer and career wrecker. Once again, think of the demographics of the protesters: wealthy or at least middle class. These folks are engineers and other professional workers who AI is most poised to replace.

And these are the people who send their sons and daughters to college to get degrees in architecture, engineering, and other high tech fields. They have invested heavily in their children’s education to enable them to enjoy high-paying careers, only to have that investment go through the equivalent of a 1929 stock market crash.

The reaction to AI this year, across college campuses, has been derisive and hostile. Commencement speakers have been routinely booed when they bring up the topic of artificial intelligence. As Jacob Pagel, a graduating political science major from Tennessee State University told Sanja Mansoor of The Guardian this past May “We’ve been pushed our entire lives to get our diplomas. Then you pulled the rug out from underneath us, and said: ‘Oh, you know those four years you spent learning how to do very specific things, you don’t need to do it any more. We can get a computer to do it for two-thirds the price.’”

How about you? Has artificial intelligence affected your job? Your career or that of your children? Are data centers going up in your state? In your neighborhood? Have you joined a protest? Would the political affiliation of protest organizers, whether left, center, or right, influence your decision to join a protest? Are you concerned about AI?

Previous Green Dispatches about artificial intelligence and data centers: