Everyday you will see a new article, locally, nationally, about the proliferation of data centers, solar energy, and lack of electricity to go around. Everyday the same headlines are wrong. The questions that are being composed in our media narrative is to set the tone of emergency. We must let that solar farm be built on farmland, the local economy will grow if we push through that data center, and if we don’t, there won’t be enough power for our homes in the future. It is fake.
Data centers are being pushed in every exurban, rural, and remote place in this country. Promising a permanent tax base for the municipality to operate off of, high value real estate to tax every year.
Solar farms are being pushed on every hillside, every large tract of land. Residents are told it’ll save the planet, because the urban centers and corporations that consume everything need a clean source of energy, and rural America has to eat the shit that is put in front of us, again.
These objects, issues are only going to force further polarization into the urban/rural divide. One that is greater than it ever has been. Members of my family, my community were promised stable lives if they went and mined coal. The unlimited source of energy that keeps America’s lights on, now those jobs are gone and the communities aren’t treading water, they were drowned a long time ago, without anyone giving a shit. Now it’s time for the same sort of places to just deal with the forces of a broken society that can not temper their consumption. Greed. That’s it. Aligning yourselves with these corporations and initiatives will not make things better. The power in your city will still have rolling blackouts, your AC will be too expensive to run when it’s 100 degrees, because the energy isn’t for you. It’s for the Greed class. I know you’ve seen it already, in your monthly bills. The prices on everything we buy have exploded to “keep up with rising costs”. The rising costs are to pay for the data center, the infrastructure. It is to create a monopoly of the nation's HVAC systems and technicians, which are being sourced out to private equity. Good luck getting air conditioning in the middle of global warming, they’ll need every part to keep the computers running.
The answer to these problems is systematic change, put those solar panels on asphalt and roofs. Power your home so you’re not contributing to Greed’s power grab. Push for that to be the Clean Act that we need. Not a blank check to foreign conglomerates to buy up rural America.
Your neighborhood HVAC technicians are being sold to companies like Blackrock. They’re keeping their family name, so when your region is fully monopolized you won’t notice. Units and freon are going to become rarer, because artificial intelligence needs a cool space to hang out in, those 65 degree data centers are going to be everywhere.
We’re seeing the proliferation of all of this already. In the next 3-5 years every locality will have their zoning codes completely changed to make way for more centers, generation that won’t benefit you or yours. It’ll start to take different shapes, like building a nuclear reactor or two in West Virginia. Ones that connect directly into old striped mines that are full of servers. And, of course the architects will ensure that people won’t be poisoned, harmed, and of course they will be conscious of keeping the environment healthy. Just like they did in the last industrial revolution. It’s planned, and it’s happening.
Now think like we’re in 2035 and growth has slowed and those private equity groups need to keep going, so they turn back to the consumer market, and ask yourself some questions. I’ll let you provide the answer.
What happens when saying “no” to consumption becomes a violation of a law?
Does that seem like something corporate America would ever do?
What will Freedom look like in this world? Does it still exist? Can you move, leave your country, can you travel without digital surveillance?
When your body is tracked, your shelter is conditional, and even water is rationed through smart systems, what state do you think humanity will be in?
This isn’t just about energy. It’s about the right to exist unmonitored, unmeasured, unmarketed. It is time for a new Bill of Rights, it is time for a new kind of fight. And if you’re stuck in the cycle of self-sabotage and the measures of your own personal hell, with no hope in any future, answer one more question.
Are you going to let these people inflict their world on the future of our children? Of your nieces, nephews, or the 10 year old down the street?
No.