Polling shows a fairly bipartisan opposition to data centers, so it could encourage more states to join in with pauses of their own.
Look at how the TikTok kids (who went nuts for the Palestinians) don't give a crud about the Cubans.
At the same time, full blown humanitarian disasters, like the one that hit the Rohingya in Myanmar, people that were being thrown in pit and burned alive in the thousands, are completely unknown to the average adult in the west.
> “Protect Our Farms. #StopTheInolaSmelter,” reads the text below the image, splashed across a billboard towering over one of the main highways to this prairie town (population: 1,890.) The smelter in question: a $4 billion aluminum processing plant touted by President Donald Trump as part of his push to revive the industry in the US.
> In a June 29 letter, Trump urged the town’s council to approve the project “without delay, so that together we may strengthen our national security, supercharge our economy, and lead our Nation boldly into a new Golden Age of American greatness.”
> Instead, the five-person board of trustees for Inola, located just east of Tulsa, voted unanimously that day to impose a moratorium on the project. The smelter, a joint venture between the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned Emirates Global Aluminium PJSC and Chicago-based Century Aluminum Co., would be the first new US plant in nearly 50 years to process aluminum that’s derived from raw material rather than recycled.
> Opponents of the plant say they’re afraid toxic emissions from the facility will damage agricultural land in Inola, which has dubbed itself the “Hay Capital the World” in a nod to the prized Bluestem prairie grass that grows there. There’s also concern that the plant’s intensive power needs will drive up electricity prices. The controversy has surfaced in the Oklahoma governor’s race, with one candidate in the upcoming Republican primary supporting the project and the other opposing it.
Our discussion was almost a week ago, is lying dormant, and is completely unrelated to what you just posted.
I'm having a hard time understanding how you could have made such an error.
I daresay - am I witnessing astroturfing?
Oh my!
Anyway, here's actual evidence of elected officials contradicting your anecdotal narrative:
https://apnews.com/article/cuba-embargo-congress-pocan-leger...
I'm not saying empathy is a Chinese psyop. The empathy is real. But empathy requires awareness - and awareness IS controlled by the algorithm.
As far as I’m aware, children aren’t being shot in the head and forcibly starved by an occupying force in Cuba. But to say that folks don’t care is clearly inaccurate.
But even more importantly, the care is result of years and years of leftist activism. Nothing to do with china, judt that awarness dont happen overnight.
Yours "if you are not active in absolutely everything, any action is invalid" is just a bad faith nonsense.
You have a nice day.
"Winning" in this context is simply slowing down permitting and construction until the capital bubble pops, at which point a great deal of these projects simply evaporate. And the bubble will pop eventually.
'Living in Hell': Data Center Neighbors Grapple With Noise, Air Pollution - https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2026-04-2... - April 28th, 2026
Measuring the Impact of Data Centers in the United States Economy: Monetary Damage from Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions - https://www.nber.org/papers/w35100 | https://doi.org/10.3386/w35100
> This paper quantifies the environmental externalities associated with electricity consumption by data centers in the United States, focusing on damages from local air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using facility-level data for approximately 2,800 operational data centers in 2025, combined with electricity grid characteristics and emissions data, the analysis estimates pollution impacts through the AP4 integrated assessment model and applies the social cost of carbon for GHG valuation. Results indicate that data centers consume roughly 250 TWh of electricity—about 5–6% of U.S. generation—and generate approximately $25 billion in gross external damages (GED), with a range of $10–$33 billion. These damages are highly geographically concentrated, with Texas and Virginia accounting for 30% of the national total. While GED comprises about 5% of industry GDP, this ratio varies widely across states, exceeding GDP in some regions. Planned data center expansion could increase electricity demand and associated damages by up to 85% in the near term. Despite these environmental costs, preliminary comparisons suggest that the damages attributable to AI-related energy use are small relative to potential productivity gains. [My note: potential gains]
Health implications of the rapid rise of data centers in Virginia: an exploratory assessment - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/climate/articles/10.338... | https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2026.1648912
Virginia mostly used by-right zoning, which treated data centers like just another office block. The result is linked below. Those cranes in the back of photo 2 are building yet another data center. Loudoun recently changed the zoning laws to end by-right development of data centers, but it's a bit too little, too late. Yes, some of those homes predate the data centers. Yes, not all of them - the county has allowed this mixed development for 20+ years now.
1 - https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/GettyIm...
2 - https://oxfordamerican.org/media/pages/oa-now/how-data-cente...
Is this supposed to be bad? Maybe the datacenter in the first picture has an ear piercing whine, but neither of the pictures looks obviously bad.
So, you buy a house, and think a small office park or strip mall might get built next door. Instead, it's a 6 story block that looks like the Borg, belches exhaust from on-site generators, and buzzes constantly making you think you have tinnitus or something.
Data Center Disputes Fuel 33 Recall Efforts, Ballotpedia Finds - https://ballotpedia.org/Press_release_Data_Center_Disputes_F... - July 7th, 2026
Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-se... | https://archive.today/MMot6 - June 24th, 2026
The datacenter controversy has nothing to do with caring about the environment and is a complete scam that preys on low-information voters. It is a product of outside Chinese money being funneled into US politics to hobble the US in Artificial Intelligence.
Or this could be Russian propaganda, to manipulate US opinion against China in this case. What are your sources?
Without evidence to the contrary, the prevailing narrative is more likely correct- people have been told by the tech titans that AI will change everything and they'll loose their jobs, so they don't like it.
In fact, whoever is saying the Chinese are tricking Americans may be trying to get more people to support US big-tech's AI build-out (or stock market bubble) by appealing to nationlism - that the Chinese will get us. A double cross.
Seems like something that ought to be addressed as well, and should not be used as a justification for other lousy things.
Please provide citations and evidence for this assertion. As it stands, this is an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.
NBER w35194 (Alvarez et al., May 2026) instruments for siting and finds the opposite: +6.2% establishments and +8.2% AGI at 25 years.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35194/w351...