Through human ignorance, greed or purposeful destruction, over the last 60 years, we have seen many living creatures and much of the world’s wild habitat disappear from the face of the earth. A feature of this shameful, preventable and ongoing development is that due to the scale and scope of the ruin, much of the devastation of life on planet earth, including many thousands of known as well as never scientifically documented species (per Google), has gone unnoticed. 

Further, with each new human generation, the problem of sustaining life on our planet seems to become more the province of a well-meaning but eclectic army of committed environmentalists and scientific specialists, rather than that of the common people or their representative governments. 

Our “house” may be on fire and quietly burning, but the issue of a broad life extinction process on our planet remains a problem largely unaddressed. 

Development through data centers

The soulless notion of economic “development” is often a watchword for global habitat destruction. Autocratic billionaires and trillionaires want to bring data center “development” to your community to make it no longer recognizable or livable, for you or for any living creature.  These billionaire extractors desire massive topographic and structural changes—not where they live, but where you live. No more forest canopy, an end to potable water, increasingly noxious air, incessant high and throbbing low-frequency noise, blinding light, the endless joys of 24-hours-a-day operation, and should you insist that they provide their own power source, they will install gargantuan diesel generators or, better yet, mini-nuclear reactors on your veritable doorstep.

As a matter of course, usually these capital imperialists destroy the habitat (forest and streams), including the fish, wild game, birds, insect life, native plants, etc. But in this case of data centers, they are directly coming for the lives of the people as well.  

Politicians

Though predictably slow to figure out the problems of ordinary people, the political class now knows that if you allow these big shots to destroy life as we know it by installing massive data centers, likely there will be hell to pay at the polls from their constituents. So politicians who previously ran away from this local issue because “it was not in their jurisdiction” now race to vote for data center building moratoriums. These pauses are a good idea, but don’t ultimately resolve the matter. It seems that nearly overnight, politicians have grown both a spine and heartfelt concern. It’s a truly shining example.

What is to be done?

Data centers are goalless and soulless. They provide massive data storage and consume unimaginable, uninterrupted power—for what, exactly? What is the product? What is the finance model? What will happen to our economic system when investors start to demand investment returns from artificial intelligence that are not based on pipe dreams or empty futuristic speculation? 

Economic chaos may ultimately put an end to the data center building spree, but this could get ugly. Fasten your seat belts. Hopefully, these efforts are not “too big to fail,” but data center construction is a stain on all life that will not be easy to remove.

For greater depth, see the New York Times July 31 story on Oracle, a case study in the twisted tale of AI finance, “Larry Ellison Bet It All on the AI Boom.”

John Pace lives in Honesdale, PA.