Closed loop systems don’t use that much water. Data centers don’t really pollute the air or the water. Noise is just air conditioning.
Current data centers are causing all sorts of well documented problems. Please try to watch just a portion of the video the discussion is based on, and then decide if this is misinformation or something valid.
[10:09] - Local Impact & Community Backlash
Key Points:
Data center construction leaves extensive localized footprints: continuous low-frequency infrasound hums disrupt civilian sleep, and construction has compromised local water tables, introducing sediment to municipal taps [13:03].
Local power utility monopolies are passing infrastructure upgrade costs onto regular consumers via severe electricity rate hikes [13:37].
AI data centers are absorbing roughly 70% of global DRAM memory manufacturing capacity in 2026, causing a standard 64GB DDR5 consumer memory kit to skyrocket from $190 to over $700 in three months [14:38].
Notable Data/Claims: The UN projects that global data centers will consume as much water as 1.3 billion people by 2030 [10:43]. Meta’s upcoming Louisiana campus is 400 times the footprint of its first Facebook data center, spanning 1/5 the size of Manhattan and drawing 5 GW of power (the average power demand of London) [10:56].
Even if we were to accept the premise of your argument... they use a heck of a lot of power, and power generation creates over 40% of the manmade CO2 emissions which is a proxy for other forms of air, water and noise pollution. This is normally considered one of the prices that we pay for modern conveniences. But adding the massive additional power demand projected to result from the massive AI data center build-out is already starting to create issues.
It’s a Youtube video.
The rate hikes are tied to the demand that companies close existing coal plants and replace them with clean energy plants. That’s why even Democrats in Va support rate hikes. Our unwillingness to embrace nuclear energy is the government’s fault.
The RAM thing is true but Bitcoin mining did the same thing to GPU’s. So far, I am just seeing “chemtrails and global warming” type arguments against data centers.