What Happens When People Show Up for the Planet

0:00 Over the past couple of weeks, we've seen some pretty interesting developments around AI data centers in North America especially, sometimes around the world, but especially I've seen some news about AI data centers, and how people do not want them in their backyard. It's been pretty interesting how a lot of billionaires and data centers and committees have been kind of pushing this behind the scenes, and people haven't been around them, and it was a little dangerous to see at the beginning. People were really worried where these data centers were gonna get snuck in. A few of them have been snuck in, but it was snuck in, where there's a lot of issues around it. I'm actually doing an episode on it right now for The Ocean Decoded to talk about data centers and their environmental footprint, but there's also a lot of other things going along.

0:40 In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the power of communities and the power of people. When they don't want something, it doesn't get done, and we're seeing that happen here in Canada and in the US, where a lot of data centers are getting canceled because people are showing up and having their say. And that's what happens when you live in a democracy and you can have that say, but not always, and here are some of the things that we need to look out for. And here are some of the opportunities that we could use when we look at AI data centers. And while, again, more information is gonna come out on The Ocean Decoded soon, probably within the next couple weeks, and you'll be able to see that. I've got a little bit of a mini documentary coming out for Ocean Decoded. All right. This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. We're gonna start this episode up where you get your ocean news update. This is Oceans Week.

1:21 This is the place where you find out all the resources you need to do to help protect the ocean and get in tune and fall in love with the ocean all over again. Today, we're gonna be talking about a lot of issues are facing the ocean. A lot of people are doing some really bad things in the ocean. And a lot of the times, certain things get passed or legislation gets stripped down. We've seen that in the US and Canada right now. But people are standing up to the governments, and they're having their say, and they're not happy. And the governments in certain places, especially locally, are actually working. And this is an episode not just about how if we stand up together as communities, we get things accomplished, 'cause it doesn't always happen that way, but we can get things accomplished. This is a-about not giving up in especially a time where we're looking at a lot of environmental rollbacks, a lot of pressure against the environment in place of the economy.

2:05 We are seeing a lot of problems here. And this is a place where you can just be like, "You know what? I want you to really understand the power of the voice, the power of the voice that you have especially if you're living here in North America." So we're gonna talk all about that because a lot of the times we have this eco anxiety, we have this ocean anxiety. A lot of people see it. You see it on the news, data centers are going in right, left, and center, and billionaires are putting them in, and they think… You know, they're very out of touch. They just don't understand our plight. If you haven't seen any of the videos from Kevin O'Leary where he's been trying to defend his Utah data center, where he's going to have it powered. It's like the size of Manhattan is going in Utah. And apparently the people of Utah didn't really have a say on how it was going in, when it was going in, how big it was, or how it was being powered, the water usage.

2:49 And let's be honest, in Utah especially, there has been like a 20-year-long drought year after year after year. Salt Lake, which is like in Utah, has been at its lowest level ever. It continues to lose water because of evaporation, 'cause of climate change. And here is this data center that's threatening to use water from that area when they're in a drought. It doesn't make sense from an environmental perspective, a drinking water perspective, the usage perspective. And it sounded like a lot of people had their eyes covered when this data center was going through. Not to say that they weren't paying attention, but they're saying that it got snuck through when they didn't expect it. So in comes Kevin O'Leary, who's the mastermind around this. He wanted to put it in. And when it got passed three to zero on the committee, a lot of people were upset 'cause the committee didn't even listen to the people's concerns, what they were worried about.

3:36 They weren't necessarily against it altogether. They wanted to know more about the project and how it's going to affect. What's the impact assessment? What's the environmental impact assessment? How's it gonna affect their drinking water? How's it gonna affect their environment? What power is it gonna be use- is gonna be used on their grid? I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in a bit of an energy crisis where we don't have enough power, and the amount of electricity that we use around the world is bigger and bigger than it ever has. So making sure that power's is being able to be generated for this data center as well as the people is something that's really important. Without coming through and making sure that the people's concerns are shown and doing it properly, if you're gonna put it in, doing it properly, if that's even possible, they just kind of snuck it through.

4:16 And now, from my understanding, they've kinda taken it back after a while. They've taken some of those things back, and that data center may not go in as necessary. Now, with that said, there's been a lot of data center stories that have been popping up for AI, 'cause AI is everywhere. And just like cryptocurrency when it came out, data centers had to be brought together. Cryptocurrency mines, these I guess, crypto. I don't even know the whole part of it. But they use these large servers to mine, and they're always working and need to be cooled down 'cause it heats up, and they need to be powered. And a lot of the times, the power comes from fossil fuel power, depending on where you are, which is not good for our climate change. And so there's a lot of problems when we start to add it all up and cumulate it, especially when we look at there. And a lot of those cryptocurrency data centers kinda got snuck in.

4:58 It wasn't as a prominent a story when these data centers went in. But they went in in areas where land was cheap, areas that may have been impoverished before, whether it's in a developing country or a developed country. And people just didn't really know about it until we saw it. And I'll be honest, like there's some concern that I have like in our rural area, I live just outside the country in this town, in Burlington. There's a lot of big warehouses going up, and we don't know what they're for. Sometimes they'll have like companies, but like I've never heard of some of these companies. It could be warehouses. I know one's an Amazon Center, like a warehouse kind of thing. But a lot of the other times you're just like, "Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Like, what are these data centers? Is this what this is gonna be?" There's concerns of noise, there's concerns of water, there's concerns of how the power generated.

5:40 A lot of concerns. And when committees and local communities and provincial and state communities do not address the people, the people can stand up and really have a say. So case in point just locally here, there was a data center that was proposed in Hamilton, just the city right beside us. Pretty big city, over 300,000, I think larger when you consider the surrounding areas. People were pissed that this data center was going in, and it was going on for, like, a couple of weeks. I saw a lot of videos, people trying to get the community out to protest it. When they were outside, this happened this past day, yesterday, as of recording this. When they were outside, and they were yelling, and they were inside, and they were talking, and they were proposing ideas and having their say, the council for Hamilton, the City of Hamilton, said, "Hey, you know what?"

6:23 It wasn't necessarily like a data center was going in, it was about how this land could be severed to allow the data center to go in, I guess, to rezone it. And the councilor said, "Hey, you know what? Based on the feedback we're getting from the community, the feedback we've gotten all week," he's had over thousands of emails, 1,600 emails, talking about how they don't want this data center in. He's not gonna approve it because the people have spoken, and he is beholden to the people. When you have councilors and you have politicians who are beholden to the people, things go right. If you are not happy with this, you get what you want. As long as the people show up. You have to show up in numbers. If you show up one or two, they may not listen. They may see, like, the benefits, or they may see like, "Well, AI is the future, and we need to do this, and we need to step our game up, and we need to be leaders." And this is the problem with things like AI and like crypto before, is everybody wants to be a leader in the game, especially countries, so they develop and develop and develop, and they, recoil, or they exempt certain environmental regulations so it can go through faster, so they can get more data centers up and do more with AI.

7:21 And I'm not necessarily against AI. I use it in my process. But I also want this stuff to be done correctly. There's a reason why we have legislation and laws and regulations around putting things like data centers in areas where you may not have the chance. There is a proposed area that they're proposing in I believe Saskatchewan or Alberta. It's on indigenous land, like actual treaty-holding indigenous land. And there's, like, a consulting period with the indigenous people, but they don't have a say on whether it goes in or not. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense one bit. And unfortunately, I don't know the full details on that, so I don't wanna speak about that. This is what I'm talking about by having regulations happen for a reason, putting in the right regulations and no exemptions, and people have a say.

8:03 If you're putting it on someone's land, whether it's a city, whether it's a reservation, whether it's a treaty land, whatever that might be. Those people should have a say, should have a say on what goes in, what doesn't go in. And the people who are in charge of making those decisions that were elected to get there should listen to the people. If the majority of people and they're making big noise that they don't want it, it shouldn't go in. And if it does go in, it should go in properly. And the one thing that I've learned and what I love about indigenous groups is that when a proposal like this comes in, they make sure it's good for the people, it's good for the environment, and it's good for the community. But what's it gonna do to all those factors? And how is it gonna affect the community as a whole? How's it gonna affect the environment? 'Cause they live in unison with the environment. That's the thought process when they make decisions, and that's an important process.

8:47 We talked about it yesterday, when we were talking about how we should love the ocean, and we should consider the ocean in every decision that we make, and that's what happens, and we should consider the land. But the whole point of this episode is, is you're taking these data centers, and people are against putting these data centers in their backyard. They don't want the noise, they don't want to give up the water usage, they don't wanna give up the power. ' Some of these data centers are powered by renewable energy, but a lot of them are gonna be proposed to be powered by natural gas, maybe even nuclear. And some people don't like that. Obviously, the nuclear is kind of like considered renewable, but people have problems for obvious reasons. And then of course, there's the fossil fuels, like natural gas. You don't want to use natural gas. You wanna use renewables to be able to power this. And so this is where it could be done right, where the regulations stipulate that this has to happen.

9:28 If we really wanna get towards a net zero future, which we have to so that we don't affect climate change, or we can reduce climate change, we need to do this. This needs to happen, and I think it's important that it does. I love the fact that people are kind of like standing up, and it's working. Not in all cases, but standing up. And I think that's the thing is that you see these communities come together, all different backgrounds, all different people. They don't have to be scientists. They don't have to be regulators. They don't have to be policy people. They don't have to be lawyers. They can be everybody. Any background. We are in this together as a community. And so if you don't want a data center in your community for whatever reason, then you speak up for that reason. And you speak up to your councilors. You speak up to your state representatives and federal representatives as well because they have to show what side they're on.

10:14 And if they're not on the side that you want, you don't vote for them the next time. That's really what it comes down to. It's not always black and white like that. It's not always clear. The future can sometimes be a little dim or a little gray in areas, but this is how it should work, and we're seeing the fight happen. And I know from an environmental perspective, an ocean perspective, we're seeing a lot of things get recoiled from regulations, especially in the US, even in Canada with all these pipelines going in. But we need to stand up. There are people all over the world who are standing up, who are showing up in droves, who are making the public comments and everything. So when it comes down to it, those will be listened to, depending on who's there, right? And what's good about a lot of these decisions, the decisions are gonna affect the planet for a long time. These politicians aren't gonna be there for that long, for most of them.

10:56 And so you need to make these decisions for the long term. Think long term rather than short term like a politician thinks, and I think that's something that's really, really important. The bad ones, anyway. The good politicians think beyond their own power and their own time. So, that's it for today's episode. I'd love to hear what you think. Are you getting part of these AI data centers, like protests? Have you gone out to some? Are you contributing to campaigns for some, like in terms of effort or monetary? I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Hit me up in the socials in the show notes below. And of course, if you wanna be part of our community, you can join our Patreon. Go to speakupforblue.com/patreon, and you can join the Patreon. You can also get the podcast episodes on there as well if you just want the interviews and if you want all of them together or if you just want the solo episodes.

11:41 So there'll be two things, and of course, you can just use your podcast app that you're on now to get everything all at once. So there are different options. Those will be free. Community will be a cost just for my time. We'll get together once a month and have a good chat about the ocean. So that's it for today's episode. I wanna thank you so much for showing up to listen to this and showing up to make sure that your community is doing the right thing when it's time to protect the environment. Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.