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Stop Data Centers Now What is the problem? The rapid expansion of large, ‘hyperscale’ data centers across the United States, driven by the AI and crypto boom, presents one of the biggest environmental and social challenges of our generation. Before the AI boom, fossil fuels were warming our climate to unsustainable levels, threatening our food, water, and public health. The AI-driven data center frenzy is like dousing a fire with gasoline. It is exponentially increasing demand for energy, increasing fossil fuel pollution, while at the same time straining our water resources and raising electricity prices across the country. What is the proposed solution? Food & Water Watch is calling for an immediate halt to all new AI data centers. We need to hit the brakes on the explosive growth of massive data center projects that are straining our water resources, spiking our energy bills, and worsening the climate crisis. We’re working to protect our communities from data centers at the local, state and national levels. *Note: The term “moratorium” should be avoided in organizing and general communications, but may be used in materials for press or legislators. Who is the target? Our targets are spread across the legislative spectrum, from city councils to Congress. Topline messages: Messages should 1) Define the problem, 2) outline your solution, 3) offer a specific action Frame 1 - Environmental Impact: Data centers are adding fuel to the fire of the climate crisis and drying up and polluting local water resources. We need an immediate halt to all new data centers until environmental impacts can be fully and completely addressed. Frame 2 - Rising Utility Bills: Families are already struggling to pay the bills, and data centers are putting even more strain on budgets by spiking electricity and water bills across the country. We need an immediate halt to all new data centers to protect our communities from skyrocketing energy and water costs. Frame 3 - People vs Profits: The data center and AI boom are making a small number of Big Tech billionaires extremely wealthy through circular investments and billion-dollar tax breaks, but everyone else is bearing the cost in the form of environmental pollution, higher utility bills, job cuts, and other negative social impacts of unregulated AI. We need an immediate halt to all new data centers to protect our communities from Big Tech’s latest scheme. Frame 4 - Social impact The rapid and unregulated deployment of AI and Crypto and the data centers that power them are having significant and disruptive impacts on all aspects of society. It’s time to put the brakes on new data centers until a clear regulatory framework that protects communities, workers, and the environment is established. Soundbites: Use the 3 C’s: Colorful words, concise (8 seconds or less), contemporary references You can’t drink data. Data centers are adding fuel to the fire of the climate crisis and drying up and polluting local water resources. Families should not be forced to pay higher electricity bills so Big Tech can profit off new data centers. It’s time to put the brakes on Big Tech’s latest scheme. We need an immediate halt to all new data centers. Eye-opening Facts: Simple text searches on ChatGPT use nearly 10 times as much electricity as a non-AI Google search. Creating images is thousands of times more energy intensive than text searches, sometimes using as much electricity per image created as it takes to charge your cell phone. By 2028 in the U.S. data center energy demand in the U.S. could amount to 12 percent of national demand, equivalent to the energy used by over 55 million U.S. households. Just one hyperscale data center built for AI can consume as much energy as 100,000 households — and the largest as many as 2 million households. Data centers can generate significant noise pollution, equivalent to the sound of a lawnmower buzzing 24 hours a day, even with the windows closed. OpenAI’s GPT-4 uses as much as three 16.9oz bottles of water just to generate a 100-word email. Data Center footprints are incomprehensibly huge. A proposed data center in South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania would include six buildings spread across 410 acres (the size of 100 Walmart supercenters). An expansion of a Meta data center in Louisiana would reportedly increase the facility’s footprint to nearly the size of Manhattan Talking Points: Water: Data centers consume massive amounts of water that can stress communities and drive up water rates. By 2028, AI data centers will require as much water as 18.5 million households just for cooling the servers, let alone the water required in powering them. Data centers have also contributed to water pollution and have exacerbated local water issues. Climate: The data center buildout is having severe climate impacts. Most of the electricity used to power data centers comes from fossil fuels and is dirtier than the electricity used to power the rest of the grid. Only 24% of energy used to power data centers comes from wind and solar. Data centers that don’t use fossil fuels suck up new renewable supplies of power, derailing plans to close coal and gas power plants. With data centers projected to triple over the next 5 years, the climate impact will be significant. In order to try and meet the ever-rising energy demand spurred on by Big Tech and their AI-focused data centers, the current administration plans to delay the closure of coal power plants nationwide. Big Tech has also outlined plans in collaborating with the nuclear industry and Big Oil has boasted about implementing CCS for data centers. Electricity Bills: Data centers are causing electricity rates to skyrocket. Residential rates soared 31 percent from 2020 to 2025 (compared to 4 percent from 2015 to 2020). A Bloomberg analysis of wholesale electricity prices (the price paid by utilities to power plants) found that 70 percent of locations with year to year price increases were within 50 miles of significant data center activity. The Department of Energy predicts that data centers will consume 12% of the nation’s electricity by 2028, driving up rates across the board. Food: Data centers placed in rural areas displace farmland, hurting small and mid sized farmers the most. By fueling climate change, data centers help accelerate disruption of food production. Community Disruption: The long and disruptive construction periods for data centers are wreaking havoc on many communities, leading to longer commute times, increased traffic accidents, and closed playgrounds. After the data center is built, they continue to harm the quality of life for surrounding neighbors. Local communities have compared the constant buzzing of data centers and their cooling systems to lawn mowers running 24 hours a day, which even closed windows don’t shut out. These facilities are sprawling eyesores that gobble up land. A proposed expansion of Meta’s data center in Louisiana would reportedly increase its footprint to nearly the size of Manhattan. Economic Bubble: The AI boom is propped up on the precarious stilts of monumental debt, speculation, and financial trickery. The way things are going, Big Tech may even plunge us into an economy-wide meltdown like the dot-com crash of the 2000s or the 2008 financial crisis. AI companies are already hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. Their massive buildout is funded by promises of profits that have yet to materialize. And they’re using all sorts of arcane financial tools (including ones tied to other financial crises) to borrow more and more and more, creating a bubble that may pop at any moment. Public Health: Many data centers use backup diesel generators to account for power outages, and to take pressure off the grid during times of peak demand. These generators are especially dirty, emitting massive amounts of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen oxides and other air pollutants