Hasn't it been common knowledge for a while -- as in since well before the ai boom -- that those reviews are in practice mostly tools for obstructionism (I don't want anything built) and extortion (fund this project and we'll drop our complaint), and are a significant chunk of why we suck at megaprojects in recent decades?
Is that's even half true, I don't think the "unforced" there really applies.
If you're only saying we need fewer data centres then your argument is against AI, and not in favor of sensible approach to the climate.
Point being that we've been literally eating our environment to death, long before AI was a twinkle in Scam Altmans eye.
Weird how people never cared then. Weird how vegans were constantly shunned as too extreme then.
Shady backroom deals are bad though, and selectively choosing to apply the rules to some and wave them for others isn't cool, in either direction.
In a society of laws you can’t just ignore the ones you don’t like, otherwise it undermines the entire system and suddenly the ones we all generally like/support aren’t being followed either.
You can't just "change laws" when the people building these data centers control the laws.
If the laws aren’t working we should change them. That’s how this all works. Yes we can debate the efficacy but that’s the system we have and just ignoring laws isn’t viable.