{"id":317918,"date":"2026-07-06T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=317918"},"modified":"2026-07-02T12:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:32:11","slug":"climate-activists-take-on-a-new-foe-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/07\/climate-activists-take-on-a-new-foe-data-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Activists Take on a New Foe: Data Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

People opposed to a data center proposal at the former Pennhurst State hospital grounds talk during a break in an East Vincent Township supervisors meeting, 17 Dec 2025, in Spring City, Pa.\u00a0 | Marc Levy\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

29 Jun 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Amid the many political casualties of 2025 \u2014 mass federal layoffs, shuttered agencies, and clean energy spending cuts \u2014 the passing of one of the last decade\u2019s defining political projects went almost entirely unnoticed. On December 31, 2025, the Green New Deal Network, a coalition of climate, labor, and social justice organizations, officially died.<\/p>\n

The coalition wasn\u2019t intended to last forever, but its demise was sped up by the political mood that got President Donald Trump reelected in 2024, when the momentum that the movement had enjoyed under Joe Biden\u2019s administration seemingly evaporated overnight. As Trump launched an all-out assault on environmental regulations and climate policies, the\u00a0climate movement was left at a loss<\/a>, unsure how to push for change with the public increasingly focused on other issues, like the cost of living, and a federal government hostile to its cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conditions under which the Green New Deal Network was founded have fundamentally changed,\u201d the\u00a0coalition\u2019s site said<\/a>, explaining its decision to fold. \u201cThe mission of climate, jobs, and justice is far from over \u2014 but the structure built to win a specific moment is no longer the right vehicle for what comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saul Levin, who was the network\u2019s director of campaigns and politics, knew what was next for him personally: fighting AI data centers. The artificial intelligence boom has created a surge in construction of giant facilities that process digital information, and communities across the country are working to stop them from being built, concerned about water usage, soaring energy bills, and Big Tech taking over. Over a year ago, Levin had started a Signal chat to help people opposing data centers get organized. Now his chat has about 350 members across 40 states, and he\u2019s busy with his new podcast, \u201cThe Hum<\/a>,\u201d capturing their stories and highlighting successes.<\/p>\n

Many climate activists are following a similar path. Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and social justice fit organically into the growing anti-data center movement, which has attracted a\u00a0much broader, bipartisan coalition<\/a>\u00a0than the Green New Deal ever did. \u201cThe climate movement is increasingly realizing that this is a fight that\u2019s both an important fight and a strategic fight,\u201d said Evan Sutton, an anti-AI advocate who\u2019s helping connect people who oppose data centers.<\/p>\n

Take the Sunrise Movement, whose members stormed Representative Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office in 2018 to demand a Green New Deal, catapulting the idea into the national conversation. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely seen a surge of interest in data center fights around the country,\u201d said Aru Shiney-Ajay, the group\u2019s executive director. Local Sunrise hubs have been mobilizing to stop data centers in Dallas, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Lansing, Michigan, Shiney-Ajay said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a logical reason for the climate movement to get involved: These hyperscale data centers are poised to cause carbon emissions to spike. A\u00a0new report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0found that data centers could account for about one-third of the growth in U.S. electricity demand between 2024 and 2030. This thirst for energy is\u00a0driving the expansion of infrastructure for natural gas<\/a>, a fossil fuel. A typical AI data center demands as much electricity as 100,000 households, but some of the largest ones being built may use up to 20 times that, according to the\u00a0International Energy Agency<\/a>. The rapid expansion of data centers threatens to \u201cundo a huge amount of the progress that we made in terms of moving toward clean energy,\u201d Shiney-Ajay said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t really seriously start to pass policy that mitigates that, then they could be a disaster for our climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some established environmental organizations have gotten on board with suspending hyperscale data center construction. A\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0sent to Congress this month calling for a nationwide moratorium was signed by more than 500 groups, most of them related to the environment, climate change, or environmental justice \u2014 such as Greenpeace USA, Third Act, GreenLatinos, and Food and Water Watch. But some of the biggest names of the U.S. environmental movement were absent from the list, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say they\u2019re pro-data center, though. \u201cThe speculative rush to build data centers is harming ratepayers, our climate, and community health, which is why we urgently need protections from states and the federal government,\u201d Jeremy Fisher, the Sierra Club\u2019s principal advisor, said in an emailed statement. The organization advocates for holding Big Tech to a higher standard in terms of environmental and health impacts and argues that companies should invest in clean energy to run their facilities instead of fossil fuels. \u201cData centers can and should be powered with renewable energy that does not threaten our environment and our health, our wallets, or our environment,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n

Thomas Meyer, the organizing projects director at Food and Water Watch, which led the letter to Congress, said that powering data centers with clean energy doesn\u2019t solve the problem. In Washington state, for instance,\u00a0Amazon outbid the utility Puget Sound Energy<\/a>\u00a0in an auction for an enormous Oregon solar farm, leaving the utility concerned about competition for renewable resources as Amazon races to build energy-hungry data centers. \u201cWhat about the things that that solar power would have gone to power instead?\u201d Meyer said. \u201cYou haven\u2019t grown the pie. You\u2019ve just shifted it from one place to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big green groups may also be taking cues from Democratic politicians, many of whom, like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer,\u00a0have been friendly to data center development<\/a>. \u201cThe unfortunate reality is that some organizations tend to follow rather than lead, especially when it comes to mainstream positions of Democratic Party leaders or elected officials,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

Meyer witnessed a similar dynamic a decade ago when working as a field organizer on campaigns to ban fracking: a disconnect between grassroots energy and mainstream institutions. Established environmental groups tend to move more slowly than bottom-up movements, said Valerie Costa, co-executive director of the Oil and Gas Action Network, a nonprofit that supports grassroots groups working to move the U.S. beyond fossil fuels. \u201cOne of the things that grassroots movements do really well is shifting when there are more immediate threats, and being able to respond quickly,\u201d Costa said.<\/p>\n

That was recently in play in Seattle, where the climate activist group 350 Seattle joined the push to pass a moratorium on new large data centers after the news broke this spring that\u00a0five major facilities<\/a>\u00a0could be coming to town. If all the projects were actually built, they would require about one-third the amount of power that Seattle uses on a typical day. The Seattle City Council passed the moratorium unanimously earlier this month, making it\u00a0the largest city in the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0so far to suspend approvals. For local activists working on an issue as amorphous and overwhelming as climate change, it was invigorating to get involved in a mission with a concrete, local outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it was a very good on-ramp for people who just want to do something and want to turn that powerlessness into something meaningful,\u201d said Nivi Achanta, the founder and CEO of Soapbox Project, a local climate action group that advocated for the moratorium. The group\u2019s Signal chat buzzed as the city council weighed the policy: \u201cPeople were, like, pulling out drinks and grabbing their popcorn and actually watching these city council politics unfold in a way that\u2019s so much more fun than anything I\u2019ve experienced outside of this, in the general climate movement,\u201d Achanta said.<\/p>\n

In Washington state, known for its progressive climate policies, new natural gas infrastructure driven by power-hungry AI data centers threatens to produce an additional 13.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, about\u00a014 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the state\u2019s current annual emissions. That\u00a0could derail its attempt to cut<\/a>\u00a0greenhouse gas emissions by 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, as required by the state\u2019s\u00a0Climate Commitment Act<\/a>. Even in a blue state, there\u2019s an understanding that opposition to data centers has to be bipartisan if it\u2019s going to be successful, especially since\u00a0most data centers are being proposed in rural areas<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t just rely on the West Coast, or on the blue corridor from Bellingham down to Vancouver, Washington, to get something done,\u201d said Lauren Redfield, a voluntary organizer with the Washington AI Resistance.<\/p>\n

As climate activists join local fights, they may find themselves teaming up with people they don\u2019t agree with on everything, or on much at all. Data centers are a rare issue that unites Americans across\u00a0the political spectrum<\/a>, with 75 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of Republicans opposed to building data centers in their area, according to polling from Gallup. All kinds of people \u2014 punk musicians in Utah, farmers in Oregon, beauty salon workers in Maryland \u2014 are coming out for all kinds of reasons, according to Levin, the host of \u201cThe Hum.\u201d But their differences aren\u2019t stopping them from working together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain and again, we hear from organizers who are like, \u2018I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re here for climate change, and I\u2019m here because I think it\u2019s going to be ugly, and that person\u2019s here because they hate AI\u2019 \u2014 all of us think this is a bad project,\u201d Levin said.<\/p>\n

In the first three months of this year, data center opponents blocked or delayed\u00a0at least 75 facilities worth nearly $130 billion<\/a>. One reason this resistance has been effective is because of its people power \u2014 the hundreds of thousands of people who are turning out to town halls, meeting up on porches, and otherwise showing up to fight. In an age of loneliness and political disillusionment, it\u2019s a sign that something is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really hopeful that this is the thing that gets communities re-engaged in local politics,\u201d Redfield said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of apathy over the last several years, and I\u2019m really hoping that this civic engagement can help us build that community that can help us stitch our society back together.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Kate Yoder –\u00a0<\/a>Word nerd at <\/em>Grist. Writing from Seattle about climate, culture, language, history, and our weird brains.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – peoplesworld.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Jun 2026 – The artificial intelligence boom has created a surge in construction of giant facilities that process digital information, and communities are working to stop them from being built, concerned about water usage, soaring energy bills, and Big Tech taking over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":317919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[1733,4069,519,401,487,391,1685,1192],"class_list":["post-317918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-datacenter","tag-ecology","tag-environment","tag-human-rights","tag-nature","tag-water","tag-water-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317921,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317918\/revisions\/317921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}