More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/us-data-centers

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters

Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis

Oliver Milman
Mon 8 Dec 2025 07.00 EST

A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.

The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.

A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.

The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress to halt the proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year.

“The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacenters to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security,” the letter states, adding that approval of new data centers should be paused until new regulations are put in place.

The push comes amid a growing revolt against moves by companies such as Meta, Google and Open AI to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into new datacenters, primarily to meet the huge computing demands of AI. At least 16 datacenter projects, worth a combined $64bn, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition to rising electricity costs. The facilities’ need for huge amounts of water to cool down equipment has also proved controversial, particularly in drier areas where supplies are scarce.

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[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[Happy Hoosier]

2. That is SO not gonna happen.

Ai is the only thing keeping the economy growing. A helt to data center growth would kill that. No way that either the AI companies OR this admin will do a single thing to inhibit their growth.

[jfz9580m]

4. It is the worst kind of growth

It’s ecologically destructive puffery.

The junk we are seeing coming out of the tech sector broadly really in no way justifies the valuation or utility to society (if such heretic notions as questioning any damn thing that makes money is even possible in a society that considers critical thinking anathema outside of narrow positions). I am not even talking about capitalism versus socialism or moralizing.
But so much of the most successful tech around in the last 20 years is dissent sowing, brain rot/cognitive offload normalizing swill..

And ai will probably make it worse. Why is any damn growth a good thing?

[Happy Hoosier]

5. Worse than that... it's cannabalistic.

The "growth" involves a WHOLE LOT of circular investment. It's a mess.

[kimbutgar]

3. When I think of those data centers I think of those apocalyptic movies after the nuclear bombs go off and the

Destruction of the cities.