Across the country, resistance to data centers is rising even as plans are steadily being made to build new ones.

According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of new data centers—67%—are being built in rural areas. And three-quarters of those are in Midwestern and Southern towns.

The negative effects have not gone unnoticed. A new data center in Southaven, Mississippi, for example, is reportedly terrorizing the community with high levels of noise and air pollution, and residents are now regretting its existence.

But it’s not just the pollution, the depletion of water systems, and the increased energy costs to consumers that should lead communities to resist data centers. When you dig a little deeper, you begin to see how data centers are built on exploitation that goes far beyond small-town USA.

In defense of the planet, our communities, and communities around the world, I hope urban and rural communities alike can unite to stop data center projects.

Data centers are both products and producers of wars that kill people and destroy the planet on a global scale. The rapid expansion of these data centers requires raw materials, especially fossil fuels—resources often obtained through violence—and they fuel a technology that is increasingly used to commit war crimes.

Fossil fuels provide almost 60% of the power for data centers, especially for “emergency generators.” AI data centers run almost 24/7, so these “emergency” generators are consistently operating.

Control over fossil fuels, of course, is a driving factor behind the US regime change efforts in Iran, Venezuela, and other resource-rich regions. And the extraction of other needed minerals—like silicon, gallium, lithium, and cobalt—requires both the destabilization of the sovereign regions in which they are found and inhumane mining practices, including the use of child labor.

Then there is the question of the moral and ethical use of generative AI. The expansion of data centers comes at a time when AI and LLMs (large language models) are increasingly being used by the Pentagon for militarism domestically and internationally.

The........

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