The Numbers That Explain Why Your Grandchildren Will Be Fighting Wars Over Water (But With Robots)Over the next four years, they’re planning to build more than 12,000 data centers in the United States. Currently there are 5,500. They’re going to MORE THAN DOUBLE them in four years. Total investment: $5.2 trillion.
Protesters rally against STAMP data center plan during Hochul visit in Buffalo
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Environmental activists, local organizations, and members of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation gathered outside the Buffalo Irish Center to protest proposed data center development in New York State.
Specifically, they targeted plans for the STAMP site in Genesee County while Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a fundraiser inside on Thursday evening.
The demonstration, organized by several local groups and environmental advocates, called for a moratorium on new data center development across the state. Protesters focused their concerns on the proposed project at the Genesee County STAMP site.
Although Hochul did not directly address demonstrators outside the event, she discussed the Genesee County STAMP plant earlier in the day, saying New York has some long-term interest in data centers, but only with certain standards.
Stream Data Centers, the company behind the proposed project, says the development would create 125 permanent jobs at the STAMP site and approximately 1,200 construction jobs during the buildout.
RELATED: Litigation aims to stop latest STAMP project in Genesee County
According to Honor the Earth, there are currently at least 106 proposed data center projects near or on Native lands. In western New York, a proposed $19.46 billion data center project would sit adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory, threatening an old forest that tribal citizens use for hunting, fishing, and gathering traditional medicine.
STOP DATA SURVEILLANCE CENTERS
TRICKS:
Step one: Corporation identifies land it wants. (”That subdivision would make a great server farm!”)
Step two: Corporation identifies local politicians who appear purchasable. (This step is easier than you’d think. Most politicians advertise their availability through campaign finance disclosures.)
Step three: Campaign contributions flow. (Legally! It’s all very legal! Just structured donations that definitely don’t constitute bribery because we’ve defined bribery in a way that excludes all the ways rich people buy politicians.)
Step four: Local politicians create or gain control of a “development authority” or similar governmental body. (Every state has slightly different names but they all do the same thing: provide legal cover for theft.)
Step five: Corporate executives or their proxies sit on that authority. (Just like how Pfizer’s VP George Milne sat on New London’s development board. Totally normal. No conflict of interest here. Just government officials who happen to work for the corporation benefiting from the government decisions they’re making.)
Step six: The authority declares the project serves “economic development” and therefore provides “public benefit.” (Jobs! Tax revenue! Economic growth! Never mind that a Costco also provides all those things.)
Step seven: Eminent domain gets deployed. (This is the part where armed government agents show up to inform you that your family home of 30 years now belongs to people who own more money than your town’s entire assessed property value.)
Step eight: Properties get seized. (The government takes your house. You get “fair market value” which is determined by the government. You cannot negotiate. You cannot refuse. You leave or they arrest you.)
Step nine: Land transfers to the corporation. (Usually for $1 or some other nominal fee because why pay market rates when you’ve captured the government.)
Step ten: Corporation gets massive tax exemptions for 10 to 20 years. (Because obviously a multi-billion-dollar data center needs tax breaks. How else will the investors afford their fourth vacation homes?)
Step eleven: The public pays for all the infrastructure upgrades. (New roads to the facility? Public expense. Upgraded power lines? Public expense. Water infrastructure? Public expense. The corporation pays for none of this.)
Step twelve: Corporation keeps all the profits. (Shocking twist: the economic benefits that supposedly justified the taking don’t actually benefit the public whose property and tax dollars funded everything.)
More on data centers: Almost Half of US Data Centers That Were Supposed to Open This Year Slated to Be Canceled or Delayed
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