New York state has just taken an
important stand to protect the health and well-being of its people and its environment. Governor Kathy Hochul just signed an executive order to pause the construction of new mega data centers, while its regulators examine the effects of data centers on climate change, water supply, air quality, energy usage, and more.
We must applaud New York state officials for being brave enough to do what other states were too cowardly to. Sign the petition to demand that the other 49 U.S. states pass similar moratoriums!Data centers are popping up all over the U.S. and all over the world, powering AI systems. As demand for AI grows, corporations want us to forget that AI isn't something that just springs out of thin air. Instead,
AI runs on massive amounts of energy and warehouses filled with computers. These are the data centers.
Two key components required for data centers are
a huge supply of water - which runs through pipes and keeps the warehouses of computers cool, to prevent them from overheating - and
a huge supply of electricity. Most of the water that is used is
not reclaimable - meaning it's sucked out of lakes and wetlands, and doesn't come back. And most of the energy? That comes from a combination of neighborhood power grids, straining the system and hogging the output, as well as
dirty energy sources like diesel generators and gas turbines.
Sucking up water and energy creates huge and horrible consequences for surrounding neighborhoods, which face rising energy costs, air pollution, and drought. Unsurprisingly, data centers are typically built in poorer communities, where
already-marginalized families bear the environmental and health costs.
We can already see the devastating effects of AI and data centers around the world. In California, energy suppliers informed around 50,000 people living in the Lake Tahoe area that
they will need to find a new power supplier beginning in May 2027, because utility company NV Energy will be prioritizing data centers instead. The power that once went to homes will be redirected away.
In Chile,
wetlands are being sucked dry as data centers suck up the country's water supplies; in the Great Lakes between the U.S. and Canada, water levels began to plummet when data centers arrived in the area. Residents
in Utah are now worried the same fate will befall Great Salt Lake. And in Virginia, diesel generators for the data centers are causing a huge increase in air pollution and smog - which research has linked to heart and lung diseases.
The evidence is here, and growing. It's clear that the data centers required for AI are creating immense environmental and health damage, with the danger growing every day.There is only one responsible thing for state governments to do: protect their people and their ecosystems by pausing the construction of any new AI data centers! Sign the petition!