The growing enthusiasm from local officials to expand and build data centers across Pennsylvania is one of the greatest environmental and social threats to our community. Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley recently wrote that data centers are the “new reality.” Just as the Lehigh Valley has borne the consequences of next-day Amazon Prime delivery through deteriorating roads and horrible air quality, this suggests that our families should accept the consequences of data center proliferation due to artificial intelligence chatbots and virtual assistants.
Let me be clear: we cannot treat this issue as the inevitable march of progress, these are activedecisions made by officials prioritizing corporate development and short-term gain over the long-termwell-being of everyday people. As residents we need to respond to, resist and reverse these decisionsnow.
The explosion of data centers is not about ChatGPT writing emails. It is a campaign by greedy technology executives and billionaire shareholders to acquire, sell and exploit vast troves of personal data for their own benefit. In the midst of an affordability crisis, these companies are spreading across the state demanding our land, our energy and our personal information. They are coming to the Lehigh Valley because our land is cheap (for them), our natural resources are abundant, and are not even pretending to offer benefits to residents. When it comes to data centers, our region has very little to gain, and so, so much to lose.
If we accept data centers, we will lose a chance to lower our cost of living. Data centers drive up the price of utilities. In Virginia, Georgia and Oregon, hundreds of millions of dollars in tax and utility subsidies were given to data centers that have led to everyday citizens seeing their electricity rates climb. Without a doubt, readers will see their electricity rates increase too, even if you do not live near a data center. With nearly many Lehigh County residents struggling to pay their bills, how can we compete against data centers to keep our lights on?
If we accept data centers, we will lose a chance to protect our environment. Data centers consume an enormous amount of water to cool their computers and release wastewater back into the environment. They generate excessive noise and pollute the air with the generators that run them. In Shelby County, Tennessee, the Colossus data center that powers Elon Musk’s Grok has become one of the area’s largest emitters of nitrogen oxides a contributor to air pollution. The Lehigh Valley already has some most threatened waterways and air quality in the country. Are we willing to give up our access to clean air so that corporations can sell a better AI product?
If we accept data centers, we lose a chance to develop land for uses that benefit our local economy. Data centers do not drive job creation or provide products that benefit our community. The need for massive data storage is driven by surveillance technologies and automated decision-making in industries such as health care. The AI reality is one where facial recognition drives up wrongful arrests that taxpayers pay for through settlements. It’s one where health insurance claims are inexplicably denied by machines leaving families on the hook. It’s one where corporations manipulate housing data to raise rents. Lehigh County has one of the highest eviction rates in the state, how will these centers help us make housing affordable?
Bradley is right that AI is here and hungry for our land and energy, but we don’t have to feed it. I appreciate the development of industrial land use guides, but regulation is the bare minimum of what is needed. We cannot accept government leaders stepping aside at this moment to allow corporations to drive this process and dominate the conversation. Pennsylvania is a right-to-develop state indeed, but in a democracy the people decide what is in their collective self-interest and can change laws. Anthropologist Jason Hickel tells us that, “If we want real democracy, we need to extend it to the economy. That means overcoming thecapitalist law of value and redirecting production toward social and ecological needs.”
Let us agree that rising energy costs are not in our collective self-interest. Let us learn from the horror stories of data centers across the country, organize shared understandings of the risks and develop tactics of resistance. Let us empower residents across the region to set the terms for development and let us be clear that data centers are not welcome in the Lehigh Valley.
This place is exceptional in so many ways, let’s make it an exceptional leader in data center regulation and position ourselves for a sustainable world driven by human intelligence.
This is a contributed opinion column. Jon Irons is a Lehigh County commissioner and vice chair of the Development and Planning Committee. He lives in Bethlehem and works as a nonprofit data director. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.