Fuel For Thought 23 Recap
by Amal Pouzoulet
From our internet search bars to military targeting software, AI is already everywhere. It comes with vast data-processing centres, ravenous for energy, water, and land, colonising our country at an alarming rate, that are keeping bills high.
In this panel and discussion, we delved into the extensive plans to turn our life-giving resources into infinite data points. What it means for our environment, climate change, and how to ensure that the interests of communities across the UK come first.
We first heard from Anisah Khan, Global Action Plan’s Parliamentary Campaigns Manager. Anisah spoke about data centres, the harm they are causing, recent political developments, the campaigning Global Action Plan is doing and how we can get involved.
A typical data centre consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households
Anisah Khan, Global Action Plan
Next-up, we heard Merry Dickinson, the Lead campaigner for the Stop Burning Trees Coalition. Merry spoke about the proposed Drax data centre and it’s implications for the survival of the UK’s single largest emitter. She also debunked politicians’ and industry narratives that data centres are good for growth and jobs.
Analysis has shown that data centres create just one permanent job for every $13m invested
Merry Dickinson, Stop Burning Trees Coalition
And last but not least, we heard from former Green Party councillor and energy expert, Andrew Boswell. Andrew campaigns against the Government’s Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plans and spoke to the wider energy implications of data centres for our energy system, decarbonisation, carbon budget, and household bills.
Latest NESO report ‘Future Energy Scenarios’ shows that data centres on track to make up a quarter of the UK’s total industrial electricity use by 2035, forcing the construction of new gas power stations.
Andrew Boswell
Catch-up on the session
Resources
Take Action:
- Join Pull The Plug
- Say NO to Drax’s AI Data Centre
- Urgent action: Please ask your MP to say no to Drax’s AI data centre bid
- Get involved with Stop Burning Trees Coalition data centre working group
Further Reading:
- Why Global Action Plan is opposing a west London data Centre | Global Action Plan
- New UK AI datacentre could cause five times emissions of Birmingham airport
- Drinking water and data centres: 10 billion litres of H2O, floods of sewage and our legal challenge to the biggest centre in planning permission in the UK – Foxglove
- AI and data centres: a new climate threat | Campaign Against Climate Change
- MPs in call to halt Drax’s £2m-a-day subsidy over sustainability doubts
- #ThinkAgainRachel about burning billions on Carbon Capture | Andrew Boswell and Simon Oldridge
- Europeans agree: Time to Put Limits on Big Tech Data Centres – Beyond Fossil Fuels
- The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts
People and organisations:
- Global Action Plan
- Stop Burning Trees Coalition
- Campaign against Climate Change
- Foxglove
- Biofuelwatch
More:
- Revealed: UK’s multibillion AI drive is built on ‘phantom investments’ | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
- Godfather of AI: They Keep Silencing Me But I’m Trying to Warn Them!
- Steering Humanity through AI & Climate Risk
- The data center rebellion is reshaping the political landscape – The Washington Post
- Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn’t Offer Much Proof | WIRED
- Is Generative AI Rewiring Our Brains? Here’s How It Happens | Psychology Today
