Latest / The Real News Podcast / Data Centers Are Not a “Red State” or “Blue State” Problem; They’re a Working-Class Problem

Transcript

Data Centers Are Not a “Red State” or “Blue State” Problem; They’re a Working-Class Problem · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ah, I got work, oh right. Welcome every one to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: struggles of the working class today. Working People is a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and has
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: brought to you in partnership within These Times magazine and
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Real News Network. The show is produced by Jules
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners just
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: like you. My name is Maximilian Alvarez, and today we're
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: talking about an urgent crisis and a scourge that is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: affecting working class communities around the country. Today, we're talking
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: about data centers, and we're talking about what it means
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: for you and your community when one of these loud, polluting,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: energy and water guzzling behemoths comes to your town. And
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: we're going to be talking with people who are experiencing
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: this first had right now. But we're also going to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: be talking about how we talk about data centers and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the communities that they're affect because, you know, recently, I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: was scrolling on Instagram and Facebook and I saw this
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: viral clip from a news report that was going around
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: with a recognizable face at the center of it. Now,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the clip was from an ms NOW report and just
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: take a listen to it for yourself.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Quarter mile away, Cheryl Shadden says, the noise is as
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: loud as ever.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It's like living on the edge of Niagara Falls, or
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: you're on a runway next to a jet that's taking off.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: But this jet doesn't take off.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Morning, noon, night. She even hears it in her bedroom,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: and it's changed everything about how she lives her life,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: including her politics red or blue.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: If you vote against data centers, we vote for you.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: A lifelong conservative, she's so angry she refuses to vote
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: for Trump backed Attorney General Ken Paxton, who clinched the
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: GOP nomination for Senate Tuesday. Instead, she's all in for
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: James Talerico, a Democrat seeking to flip a seat controlled
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: by Republicans since nineteen ninety three. You're willing at.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: This point to to forego basically every conservative issue and
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: let the Senate fall into the hands of Democrats if
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: that's what it takes to kill data centers.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Yep, my entire community is going to break rank everybody,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: all of us. We've had enough.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Now. As you guys heard from that clip, the original
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: report named the woman being interviewed there, but In the
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: viral post with that clip in it, the woman was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: simply named as a quote Republican voter, and that just
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: pissed me off. And you know, the kind of comments
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that people were leaving on these posts, by the hundreds
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and thousands, were just so absurd and gross and so
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: stupidly and unhelpfully partisan. You know, so many folks seem
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to think that the explosion of data centers is only
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: happening in one type of community, and that those communities
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: somehow deserve it if they voted one way or another.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But listen, how people respond to this crisis in the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: next election cycle will be very important. But we also
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: need to get it through our skulls that this is
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: bigger than what happens in the next election, and data
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: centers are not just red state or blue state problems.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: This is a working class problem and we all need
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to take it seriously. And you know, when I was
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: seeing that clip going around, all of the discourse around
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: this has been especially gross and infuriating for me because
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: we actually know the so called Republican voter in that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: news segment. Her name is Cheryl Shadden. She's a human being,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: not a quote unquote Republican voter. She's a registered nurse,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: anesthetist and a resident of Granbury, Texas who lives right
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: next to the site of a massive bitcoin mine. And
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: we've had Cheryl on this show before, and we've spoken
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: with her and other members of her community about the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hell that they are living through after this giant, loud,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: environmentally destructive bitcoin mine moved into their neighborhood and more
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: data centers are now invading their area. And I'm really
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: grateful to be joined today again on the show by
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Cheryl and more of her neighbors from Hood County, Texas.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But we are also joined today by folks who are
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: living here and fighting against data centers here in our
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: home state of Maryland. So let's meet our incredible panel
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: of guests. And I want to shut up and ask
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: y'all if you can start by introducing yourself to the audience.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Here him Max, I'm Cheryl Shaddon. I live in Granberry, Texas.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I'm a certified registered nurse and esthetist. I live in
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: a rural area. I am also born in Maryland. I
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: was born in Bethesa, Maryland. I lived there until I
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: was in my twenties, and so I remember Maryland quite well,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: and I remember Texas quite well before this happened to
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: all of us as well.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: I am Karen Pearson. Thanks Max for having us again
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: on the show. I appreciate you and your passion. I
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: am a licensed professional counselor. I live in Granberry, Texas too. Actually,
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: Cheryl is my neighbor. I live about eight hundred feet
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: as the crow flies to Marathon Bitcoin and then just
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: a little bit other right next door to it is
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: wolf Hollow, Yes power plant. I live out here on
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: twelve acres with my parents. They have been here thirty
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: plus years and I've been here twenty one years. Most
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: definitely this has come in and really just unraveled our
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: peace out here, shaken us as far as what it
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: means for our rural area that we invested in retiring at.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: Also to just you know, water supplies, noise, pollution, vibrations,
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: things that it also has contribute to as far as
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: health wise. So it's definitely something that in this area,
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: I say it's more like environmental euthanasia that we are experiencing.
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: Definitely a concern, especially with more in our future that
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: is moving in right on top of us here.
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: Craig Jackson. I live in Grandberry, Texas as well, actually
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: seven miles from Karen and Cheryl, but I'm also three
• 6:12
  Speaker 6: hundred feet from a proposed data center that's going to
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: be on two thousand acres in the city of grand Berry.
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: I'm actually listed as a plaintiff on a lawsuit against
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: the city for breaking Open Texas Meetings Act, as well
• 6:25
  Speaker 6: as several other violations. But as far as this whole situation,
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: it's been a full time job fighting this, and along
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: with all my other neighbors that have been battling the
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: Bitcoin mind, we've actually started a home set and lost
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: several animals due to the infrasout and noise that's been
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: produced off of it. And you wouldn't think seven miles
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: would have that effect. But we can get more into
• 6:48
  Speaker 6: that conversation later, but all of this is basically disrupted
• 6:52
  Speaker 6: our way of life and why we moved out here
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: to be away from the city and the start at
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: home set in the process.
• 6:57
  Speaker 7: I'm doctor Shannon Wolff and I'm also the precinct chair
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: and the community that Karen and Cheryl live in, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: that's how I met them three years ago, and so
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: I live in Grandburry, Texas. Part of what I've looked
• 7:16
  Speaker 7: at over three years is and lack of awareness by
• 7:22
  Speaker 7: so many people at just the devastation that the bitcoin
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: mines can cause often cause. And then the data centers
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: that are coming in. There are eight or nine data
• 7:37
  Speaker 7: centers coming into a very small community or very small
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: county rather, and there seems to be no way of
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: stopping them. And I don't know that Hood County is
• 7:50
  Speaker 7: a lot different than any other county in America. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 7: hear reports of the same kinds of issues happening in
• 7:59
  Speaker 7: oklahom and in Mississippi and in places up north, and
• 8:04
  Speaker 7: so I think it's going to take all of us
• 8:08
  Speaker 7: working together to stop the onslaught.
• 8:12
  Speaker 8: Hi everyone, thank you Max for being here, Thank you
• 8:16
  Speaker 8: all for inviting me. My name is Macayah Lloyd. I'm
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: a resident of Chellis County, Maryland. A data center was
• 8:22
  Speaker 8: proposed in my neighborhood November seventeenth of last year, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 8: me and my county have been fighting tyreusly to make
• 8:30
  Speaker 8: sure that they don't even have the zoning rights to
• 8:33
  Speaker 8: be in our neighborhoods. So that's where we are in
• 8:35
  Speaker 8: the fight in southern Maryland. I'm just a girl. I'm
• 8:37
  Speaker 8: twenty four years old. I'm trying to build my own wealth.
• 8:42
  Speaker 8: I'm trying to build my own career. And I talk
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: about generations a lot because I feel like my generation
• 8:49
  Speaker 8: is in the fight for our lives right now. I
• 8:51
  Speaker 8: feel like we're in the fight for our future. I
• 8:54
  Speaker 8: used to coach little kids. I played soccer my whole life,
• 8:58
  Speaker 8: and I coached four, five and six is, and I'm
• 9:01
  Speaker 8: also fighting for them right now.
• 9:02
  Speaker 9: We're fighting for them, or fighting for them to be
• 9:05
  Speaker 9: able to grow up and breathe clean air and not
• 9:09
  Speaker 9: be surveilled, and to drink clean water.
• 9:14
  Speaker 8: I don't know what the future will look like in
• 9:16
  Speaker 8: about forty years if data centers take over this nation.
• 9:21
  Speaker 8: I've been active as my whole life. When Trayvon Martin
• 9:25
  Speaker 8: was killed, it really radicalized me, and I've been in
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: the streets protesting since I was about fifteen. I've always
• 9:34
  Speaker 8: been wondering, like, what was it going to take for
• 9:35
  Speaker 8: the working class to unite? What was it going to
• 9:38
  Speaker 8: take for us to come together? What's going to be
• 9:40
  Speaker 8: that one issue? And I know that data centers are
• 9:43
  Speaker 8: that issue. So I'm very happy to be here, very
• 9:46
  Speaker 8: happy to be networking, especially with people who could possibly
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: be read and who could possibly be very different from me.
• 9:56
  Speaker 8: But we're all human beings and I think this one
• 9:59
  Speaker 8: is will really connect this, so I'm very excited about that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 10: Hi everyone, my name is Hilary Gonzalez. I am an
• 10:07
  Speaker 10: eco poet and author. I've lived in Maryland for the
• 10:10
  Speaker 10: past ten years now, though I originally am from southern Virginia.
• 10:15
  Speaker 10: For the purposes of this interview, I'm going to let
• 10:17
  Speaker 10: my accent slip. I've been fighting Johns Hopkins DSAI Institute,
• 10:23
  Speaker 10: which is their Data science and Artificial Intelligence Institute, for
• 10:28
  Speaker 10: the past three years. Now I can step outside of
• 10:31
  Speaker 10: my front door and literally look at where they're constructing it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 10: And from the very beginning they told us, Oh, this
• 10:39
  Speaker 10: is going to be so good for your neighborhood, so
• 10:41
  Speaker 10: good for your community. I have yet to see that.
• 10:45
  Speaker 10: I've only seen environmental harm that their construction has caused.
• 10:49
  Speaker 10: And now we've learned from the Baltimore Business Journal that
• 10:52
  Speaker 10: they're also planning a data center for East Baltimore. So
• 10:56
  Speaker 10: my fight has switched from fighting just DSA to now
• 11:01
  Speaker 10: fighting for the entire city because I don't want this
• 11:05
  Speaker 10: in any part of the city.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Well, my god, thank you all so much for being
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: on this panel together. It is really incredible to have
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you all here together, even if it's just for an hour,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and I want to make the most that we can
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: out of that hour. So I wanted to go back
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: around the table and ask, starting with our neighbors in Granbury,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: if y'all could give our listeners and anyone out there
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: listening now, you know, a sort of quick and dirty
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: reminder of you know, what the hell has happened to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: your communities, you know, in these recent years with these
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: bitcoin minds and data centers, Like how is it affecting people?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: What does it look like over there? And how are
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you living your lives when these behemoths are coming into
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: your communities.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: I've lived here in my home for thirty five years.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: It was nice and quiet. I could walk outside of
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: my home at any time of the day or night.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: You could hear birds chirping, you could see your animals outside,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and it was a just a quiet, peaceful environment. Now,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: sitting here in my office, I can hear the cryptomnd
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: churning through my walls. I myself personally, have had permanent
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: conduction hearing loss. I will never get that hearing back.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: We have motion sickness, dizzyness, nausea. We don't sleep at night,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: even trying to go to sleep with a TV on
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: or a radio on and fans on high, you can't
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: go to sleep. You can't stay asleep. This noise sound
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: and infrasound, it travels through your walls, through your windows.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: It shakes your home. And this is just the noise
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: from the crypto mind that's turning into a data center
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: now adding two more hyperscale data centers. This doesn't include
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: the gas plant that they're powered into. This doesn't include
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: the explosions from their valves and when they can't carry
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: a load. This doesn't include a third gas power plant
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: coming here and building and traffic twenty four to seven
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: and literally five thousand trucks per month. That doesn't include
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the dust clouds. This doesn't include the air pollution here
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: in the state of Texas, because Texas is so special.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: We only test air pollution, and they don't really even
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: test it. They model it. It's modeled in isolation. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: even though the gas power plant that's directly across from
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: my home, even though their pollutants go right to threshold
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: like zero point four from being above a dangerous threshold.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: So that power plant is looked at individually versus the
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: power plant that's right next to it that rolls out
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: acid rain and all of that that's looked at individually
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: as well. And so even though both of these two
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: power plants operate right at threshold, they're not looked at
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: in combination. Our gas power plant is coming in here
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: that we fought hard against, and they're going to be
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: an eight turbine gas power plant. They're going to roll
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: out some acid rain as well. And this doesn't even
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: begin to account for the water use right now. Just
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the two power plants across the street from me use
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: one point five million gallons of water per day off
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: of our lake and our river and spit it back out.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: When they spit it back out, it's minimally treated, it's
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: still hot water. So it's causing problems in our lake
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: and in our rivers. And that flows on down from here.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: So the pollution here in Granberry, the water is actually
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: cleaner up above Granberry. It becomes seriously polluted right here
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: at Granberry where we have three gas power plants that
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: are pulling off of the water sources here and dumping
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: back in, we're going to have four. And so if
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: you calculate the water usage, even though you'll have the
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: c domine and the data center is telling you we're
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: not using water. We're not using water. You are using
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: water by proxy. If it's taking two and a half
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: three million, five million, ten million gallons of water to
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: provide you power. So they are using water, even if
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: not directly. And if you look closely at all of
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: these hyper scaled data centers and they'll tell you they're
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: closed loop water systems, well, that's like seeing your car
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: is a closed loop water system. You do have to
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: flush the radiator out in your car and you have
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: to refill it. That's not closed loop if you do that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: And if you look at all of these hyper scale
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: data centers coming in, they all have retention pods behind them.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: That's basically a big septic tank. A retention pond does
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: not mean closed loop. It means we're gonna let this
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: nasty water sit here and draw mosquitos and every other
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: problem known to man. And that doesn't mean we're going
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: to protect the rivers and the tributaries and your health.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: So air pollution, light pollution, water erosion. It doesn't just
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: affect Republicans, it doesn't just affect independence, and it doesn't
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: affect just Democrats. It affects us, all, all of us.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And I gotta, I gotta tell any of y'all listening.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: You know, those types of retention ponds filled with toxic stuff,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: they are all over this country, baby, whether it's coal
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: ash tailings ponds that have like toxic heavy metals in them,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: whether it's you know, like lagoons full of like hog waste,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: you know that has so many nitrates in it that
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it causes massive algae blooms like you don't want to
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: know how much of a toxic soup we are all
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: living in. But it's our job to try to educate
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: ourselves about this, and so please, folks from Granberry keep
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: educating us. Let's toss it to Karen, tell us more
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: about how this has affected you guys and your lives.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 16:57
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: I probably want to speak more towards my parents than anything.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: They're both eighty three. And for anyone who has been
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: out here, everyone knows that our front port, their front porch,
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: is a gathering place. I enjoy sitting out there watching
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: the birds, the deer, just a monazerie of wildlife. My
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: mom's a big bird watcher, and so many of those
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: animal populations that were thriving out here at one time
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: are not so much anymore. A couple of other things
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: in Cheryl mentioned this balance issues the noise pollution, so
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: again on our porch, sitting out there and having conversation
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: in the evenings with my parents, it's very hard to do.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: My dad's lost about seventy percent of his hearing and
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: we can't sit out there and just have a typical
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: conversation like what we used to without him either not
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: hearing any of it or you know, constantly having to repeat.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: I think some of the other issue is because of
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: the noise at night and if the wind is blowing
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: just right, especially if there's a south wind, it is
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: like at megaphones over to our place, So my parents
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: don't sleep, and they have an upstairs. Their bedroom is upstairs,
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: and it just it's kind of eye level with with
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: the plants, and they it it. It's a megaphone. I mean,
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: it just it's so loud in their bedroom at night
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: that they don't sleep. And so then obviously during the
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: day that causes a lot of fatigue, I think mentally
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: on them, it's extremely hard to think about what their
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: future looks like. This is not what they planned for retirement.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: It's hard on me to watch what they go through
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: because they've invested everything into this property. This is where
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: they thought that they would live out the last parts
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: of their life, and which has been my commitment to
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: them is to help them with giving them the best
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: quality at the end of their life. And so I
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: feel pretty helpless a lot of times. I can't I
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: can't help them. I can't make the noise go away.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: I can't help them sleep better. I you know, I
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: can't help them. And so being in the fight with
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: my neighbors, with Shannon and you know, government, trying to
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: just have people to understand what this is doing to
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: us on a personal level, what does this do? And man,
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: it's like you can't get anyone to understand that. You
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: can't get anyone to I don't want to say anyone,
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: but as far as government and stuff, it's like there's
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: no empathy there. You know, on a daily basis, no
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: one sees the mental decline of my parents. No one
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: sees that, you know, they can't sleep or why, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: that's just really hard. It's hard to watch them go
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: through that. So that's where I guess again, I go
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: back to that environmental youth in Asia, and you know,
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: I feel bad for my neighbors who really don't speak
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: out for themselves because they can't for one reason or another,
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: maybe lower socio economic purposes. But you know, this is
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: in their backyards, in their in their back bedroom, you know.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: And so I know I've talked to them how the
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: impact is on their lives. They don't sleep, there's other
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: health issues. You know, I'm not gonna don't want to
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: labor all the time for that, but you know, there's
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: just so much on a personal level that this it
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: ruins lives, It really does. And it's not what you
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: expect it. It's not really it's not what's being talked about.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: You know, there's no transparency about how this impacts personal lives.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: It's just not there.
• 21:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, so I think of anything, this whole battle's
• 21:19
  Speaker 6: not just pissed off a bunch of people, but brought
• 21:22
  Speaker 6: a whole bunch of people together. So speaking on the
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: bitcoin mine, we noticed it twenty twenty four, we moved
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: into our house at the end of twenty twenty two,
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: so we got immediately My wife's dream has been ducks
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: and chickens, so we got ducks and chickens, set everything up.
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: All of a sudden, more eggs than we can get
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: rid of than twenty twenty four marathon takes over the
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: bitcoin mine, and we noticed production decreasing and chickens dying
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: and ducks dying and slowly, and then one morning we
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: woke up and it was almost like a massacre because
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: we had micro chickens and micro ducks. They all within
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: twenty four hours, all of them have passed away. And
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: what we discovered was that the infrasound coming off the
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: bitcoin mind that Cheryl and Karen and everybody else in
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: the area is hearing is actually traveling with the wind.
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: But also when we have heavy cloud cover, it creates
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: a sound barrier wall that is basically just bouncing off,
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: and low frequency sound bounces differently than high frequency. Low
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: frequency actually travels, and I'm actually uphill, so it just
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: really as sound waves get tighter and tighter, you know,
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: as if you know, anybody can visualize it, it just
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: literally we hit it. And there's nights I hear it
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: and it's like a whale that is outside, just moaning,
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: and it's in spurts. And there's been several nights with
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: my kids, they're five and eight, and they we have
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: a elementary school just a mile down the street from me,
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: a high school two miles away, and so you know,
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: there's kids in this entire neighborhood. I've talked to other
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: parents that are like, man, my kid's just not sleeping
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: through the night, or my kids are having a hard
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: time sleeping. Turns out that whale sound is what they're hearing.
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: And so, you know, fast forward January of this year,
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: we discovered New Year's Eve night that there was a
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: data centervewing proposed for our city and lo and behold,
• 23:22
  Speaker 6: it's three hundred feet from my house. And so if
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: literally from the corner of my property to where it
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: meets the fence line, the Dallas Cowboys could play and
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: they might lose that game, but they could play there.
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: And so either way, what's been frustrating for us is
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: my entire life now revolves around research, and which I
• 23:45
  Speaker 6: do in my job daily anyway for other people, but
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: now I'm doing it for something that is literally threatening
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: our way of life and so not just we have
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: a community well and so one small tap in the
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: wrong direction are well, and we're gonna be meta in
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: Georgia all over again. Turns out this is a meta
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: funded data center project Patriot, which as more information has
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: been coming out, we have been seeing the audacity and
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: arrogance and maybe even some ignorance from our city council
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: or city manager, city attorney. It's been nothing but propaganda
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: coming from the city site as well. So all this
• 24:25
  Speaker 6: positive benefits about data centers and they couldn't even get
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: our own state representative to say something positive. They had
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: to get the state representative from Fort Worth to say
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: something positive, and he said, well, data centers are how
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: your alarm clocks work. That's the most stupid thing I've
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: ever heard. Alarm clock lives internally on my phone if
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: I use my phone, And it just shows the audacity
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: and how far they're trying to propaganda all of this
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: to the point where we as a community have been
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: coming together and now I'm listed on the lawsuit against
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: the city. One of those things I never thought I
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: would have to say that as a county resident, I
• 25:05
  Speaker 6: am suing a city that is affecting my everyday life. Now,
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: my county, my home and neighborhood is a county island.
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: I don't vote for these people. I don't even get
• 25:16
  Speaker 6: a say in what these people do, but they're affecting
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: my home, and so we're fighting back and we're even
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: doing a recall. Hopefully we get enough signatures by that deadline.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: But we've done as far as a signatures for no
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: confidence in the city manager and city attorney, and every
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: time we turn around, we're just met with arrogance or
• 25:35
  Speaker 6: just careless attitudes of you know, people can go back
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: look at the city at Grandbury excuse me, city council meetings,
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: and you'll see on the January sixth meeting, it was
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: literally everyone in that room was frustrated because we were
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: told specifically, only talk about the dirt when it came
• 25:58
  Speaker 6: to annexing this property. And that was the shot heard
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: around the Tire County of like, okay, this fight just
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: became personal for all of us.
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: I was at that meeting, and that's where we also
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: heard the city manager. I guess that's what he is saying,
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: that he did not care about us and something along
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: those lines. So yeah, I heard all of that at
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: that meeting, and it was mouth dropping.
• 26:24
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: I think what he actually said was I don't I'm
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: not scared of you. It's what he said, Karen. I
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: think you and I were sitting next to each other.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: We sat next to each other. We sure did. Yeah.
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: And to add to it, we have so many emails
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: from the city manager, from the former director of Development
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: from about meetings at a data center where all the
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: city council members were there, all of them in the
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: same building, same time, same place. How they all got
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: there is a different story. But you know, we have
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: all of this data and all of these trails and
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: all this communication the shows all this was premeditated. And
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: we're seeing now other cities are fighting this, and so
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: one of the things our hope and prayer is not
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: just to undo the annexation when undoes all of it,
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: but if we can establish that, hey, this is how
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: business should not be done, hopefully we can help other
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: talents in this fight as well.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: So, as I said before, I've been in this fight
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: for about three years, maybe a little more than three years.
• 27:30
  Speaker 7: And I met Farrell when I was running for Precinct
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: Chare and she asked what I was going to do
• 27:39
  Speaker 7: about the data centers. And I had no idea what
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: she was talking about, and so I went to look
• 27:48
  Speaker 7: at this data center that was causing so much grief,
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: and I have this aha moment because I thought there
• 27:55
  Speaker 7: was a train track near my house that I just
• 27:58
  Speaker 7: hadn't found yet, and I could hear it really well
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: in the wee hours of the morning or sometimes really
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: really late at night. My husband would would and I
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: would talk about where is this train because it was
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: this rumbling that we heard, And my husband and I
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: drove past this bitcoin mine, and we have this light
• 28:17
  Speaker 7: bulb moment. We don't have a train, we have a
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: bitcoin mine. And Craig was talking about waking up and
• 28:26
  Speaker 7: around three somewhere between three and four o'clock in the
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: morning on some mornings, and I will have a migraine
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: and just all of a sudden, I will have this
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: migraine headache from this bitcoin mine. And so we've been
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: fighting this thing for about three years. Cheryl and I
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: with some other people, have even gone down and spoken
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: at the state capital to a subcommittee. We have written letters,
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: we have had town hall. I can't even begin to
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: list all the things that we have done. To raise
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: awareness and for I would say for the past two
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: and a half years, Cheryl. I can't talk for you,
• 29:11
  Speaker 7: but it feels like I'm beating my head against the wall.
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: It seems like people say, yeah, that's tough, but that's
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: not me and I've got my life to live and
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: they go on and do their thing. Well, now that
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: it's all of Granberry, people are waking up. Now, I
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: don't blame them. People have lives to live. But now
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: we have eight to nine of these hyper scale data
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: centers coming into one of the very smallest counties in
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: the state of tesse We are very small and these
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: hyper scale data centers, one of them is about the
• 29:48
  Speaker 7: same size as a small city. We're talking massive data
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: centers taking over ranches. They're taking over areas where they're
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: is protected wildlife. There's one area that they're trying to
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: industrialize where we have bald eagles nesting there and we
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: can't even get EPA to pay attention to them, pairing
• 30:16
  Speaker 7: down the trees and displacing these bald eagles. I've never
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: seen anything like this in my life. So with these
• 30:25
  Speaker 7: hyper scaled data centers that are coming in, we've realized
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: that our county does not have the or we thought
• 30:33
  Speaker 7: our county didn't have the right to zone or to
• 30:41
  Speaker 7: protect ourselves from them. And I think that there have
• 30:45
  Speaker 7: been some people that have truly dropped the ball in
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: elected officials who have truly dropped the ball in this
• 30:52
  Speaker 7: and they have not protected citizens. I see things happening
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: in my area that I think it's going to change
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: this beautiful, beautiful area, and I think there's no coming
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: back from that. And we're talking about endangered species that
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: live here. There's a species of bird that lives here
• 31:20
  Speaker 7: that's endangered. And yeah, I have no idea why people
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: who are supposed to be protecting don't protect. And that
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: Cheryl brought up the gas power plant and when your
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: listeners are maybe facing some of these things coming in,
• 31:41
  Speaker 7: you cannot separate these data centers from their power source.
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: Those two things are two parts of the very same conversation.
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: So the data centers in our area are having to
• 31:58
  Speaker 7: bring in their own power and so they're building gas
• 32:02
  Speaker 7: power plants that they are using the very bare minimum
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: of standards and protecting the environment from any type of pollutants.
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: And so one of the other things that Cheryl was
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: mentioning was that these data these i'm sorry, gas power plants.
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: The permitting entity and Texas only looks at each individual
• 32:31
  Speaker 7: power plant and not take into account the cumulative impact
• 32:39
  Speaker 7: of multiple data plants. I'm sorry, multiple power plants. So,
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: for example, in Parent County, which is Fort Worth, Texas,
• 32:50
  Speaker 7: it's pretty large, they have one gas power plant inside
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: Parent County, and right now in my very small precinct,
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: which is five six miles square, we have three gas
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: power plants with another one coming in. So that's for
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: gas power plants. Now, we have two battery energy storage systems,
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: which are the best plants or facilities. We've got a
• 33:20
  Speaker 7: solar farm that is coming in. And all of this
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: has been happening within just a very short period of time,
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: and the residents are trying to stop it and we
• 33:29
  Speaker 7: have no way of stopping it. So that's what we're facing.
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: But I'm hearing people from across the nation say the
• 33:36
  Speaker 7: same thing.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Well, in speaking of which, Macaiah, Hillary, that's how I
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: met both of you is because you two are both
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: folks in communities here in Maryland fighting these things coming in.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: So could you tell us more about how you got
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: involved in those fights and what's actually happening in your
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: communities with these data centers.
• 33:56
  Speaker 10: You know, for DSi, it's been a roundabout fight to
• 34:01
  Speaker 10: get me into the data center fight. I've always been
• 34:04
  Speaker 10: against them, but for the longest time Johns Hopkins was
• 34:08
  Speaker 10: claiming DSAI isn't a data center, and so we have
• 34:12
  Speaker 10: been fighting them by saying, well, you can't study AI
• 34:16
  Speaker 10: without a data center being involved. So it's the data center.
• 34:20
  Speaker 10: Where are you going to build it, where is it
• 34:22
  Speaker 10: being planned for? And as far as the construction self,
• 34:26
  Speaker 10: you've seen massive stormwater events just constantly, every single time
• 34:33
  Speaker 10: it rains. And I think when people hear stormwater runoff,
• 34:37
  Speaker 10: they think like, oh, who cares, It's not that big
• 34:40
  Speaker 10: of a deal, except that we are located directly next
• 34:44
  Speaker 10: to Stony Run Park, which is a tributary of the
• 34:47
  Speaker 10: Chesapeake Bay. So everything that goes into Stony Run eventually
• 34:52
  Speaker 10: goes out to the chest Peak Bay. And stormwater is
• 34:55
  Speaker 10: very harmful because it has pollutants in it like diesel oil, microastics,
• 35:02
  Speaker 10: a lot of sediment, which can eventually kill a reparian
• 35:07
  Speaker 10: area like Stony Run, one of the few green spaces
• 35:09
  Speaker 10: that we have in Baltimore. Actually, just this evening because
• 35:13
  Speaker 10: of the storm. We have what we call on our
• 35:15
  Speaker 10: block the storm Watch, where if starts raining, if it
• 35:19
  Speaker 10: starts storming, everybody waits and they go outside and they
• 35:23
  Speaker 10: take photos and they take videos of the runoff that's
• 35:27
  Speaker 10: coming from the construction site. And then we send in
• 35:30
  Speaker 10: our three to one one reports to Baltimore City, We
• 35:33
  Speaker 10: send them into the Maryland Department of the Environment, we
• 35:35
  Speaker 10: send them to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. And it's just
• 35:40
  Speaker 10: exhausting to have to do this every single time it rains.
• 35:43
  Speaker 10: And we've met with city leaders, We've met with city officials.
• 35:48
  Speaker 10: We've had them come out to the site to see
• 35:51
  Speaker 10: the still there after it rains, to see the pollutants,
• 35:55
  Speaker 10: like we ideos of it going directly into Stony Run.
• 36:01
  Speaker 10: One such meeting, we actually had our city council President,
• 36:04
  Speaker 10: Zeke Cohen come out to the site and we told him, Hey,
• 36:08
  Speaker 10: this is what we're experiencing every single day, and these
• 36:12
  Speaker 10: are our very environmental concerns. You know, the city spent
• 36:15
  Speaker 10: ten million dollars of taxpayer money repairing Stony Run so
• 36:19
  Speaker 10: that we could have a healthy water system in Baltimore City,
• 36:22
  Speaker 10: so that we could have a healthy harbor eventually as well.
• 36:25
  Speaker 10: And he basically he'd heard all concerns and he basically said,
• 36:31
  Speaker 10: I don't care. We're going to approve this project anyway
• 36:34
  Speaker 10: because I think that this is going to be good
• 36:35
  Speaker 10: for Baltimore. So this whole project has really just opened
• 36:40
  Speaker 10: my eyes to what the city is allowing Johns Hopkins
• 36:44
  Speaker 10: to get away with and what they have in the
• 36:47
  Speaker 10: past as well. Ultimately, I had to help found a
• 36:51
  Speaker 10: nonprofit in Baltimore City so that we could sue Johns
• 36:54
  Speaker 10: Hopkins to try to stop this project. But ultimately, this
• 36:58
  Speaker 10: isn't just about one data center project. This is about
• 37:02
  Speaker 10: our governor wants to ramp up data centers in Maryland,
• 37:07
  Speaker 10: which is really scary because you know, we unfortunately have
• 37:10
  Speaker 10: all these rural communities who are facing terrible consequences of
• 37:15
  Speaker 10: these data centers, and we have them as examples for
• 37:18
  Speaker 10: what we don't want in Baltimore, and we have so
• 37:21
  Speaker 10: many communities that are at risk that we know that
• 37:24
  Speaker 10: they're going to try to build these data centers in
• 37:27
  Speaker 10: And I don't care that this is being built in
• 37:30
  Speaker 10: my neighborhood, Like that's not I do care.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: But what I'm.
• 37:33
  Speaker 10: Saying is it's not just that this is affecting my neighborhood.
• 37:38
  Speaker 10: I don't want a project like this in any neighborhood
• 37:43
  Speaker 10: in Baltimore. It doesn't belong in any community. While you
• 37:48
  Speaker 10: fall under, regardless of what your economic station is in life,
• 37:53
  Speaker 10: it doesn't matter. This is truly something that can unite
• 37:57
  Speaker 10: all of us, and it's something that we should all
• 37:59
  Speaker 10: be fighting.
• 38:01
  Speaker 8: I'm absolutely distraught caring about what you guys are going through,
• 38:07
  Speaker 8: and now I'm a cry baby. I'm also a crash
• 38:10
  Speaker 8: out and my messaging and my militancy in my area,
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: I get a lot of critiques on it, but it's
• 38:21
  Speaker 8: because of stories that I hear like this, where these
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: people just do not care and I just don't know
• 38:30
  Speaker 8: what it will take and how many cuss words I
• 38:34
  Speaker 8: have to spew out of my mouth to get these
• 38:39
  Speaker 8: bozos to care. And I'm so spiritually connected to the earth,
• 38:44
  Speaker 8: like it's part of my mental health practices. Like how
• 38:46
  Speaker 8: you guys talk about just wanting to sit outside with
• 38:48
  Speaker 8: your family and sit outside with your parents. I'm with
• 38:51
  Speaker 8: my baby boy right now and all we do is
• 38:54
  Speaker 8: just sit outside while I crochet and I sit outside,
• 38:58
  Speaker 8: I sit under my tree. I know I saw your
• 39:01
  Speaker 8: baby too. I was trying to say hi, and I
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: just about the dead chickens and the dead ducks, like
• 39:09
  Speaker 8: I just it sounds so dystopian. And if this is
• 39:13
  Speaker 8: my future, I don't know what to do. And all
• 39:16
  Speaker 8: I know is to fight like hell and what we
• 39:20
  Speaker 8: have been told. There's this district commissioner. He's the district
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: commissioner of District four in Charles County, and we were
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: at a district I think it was. I think it
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: was a town hall meeting, and members of my coalition,
• 39:37
  Speaker 8: I don't know if they directly addressed him, I don't know,
• 39:40
  Speaker 8: but basically he said that we have funding issues. He's
• 39:47
  Speaker 8: made a metaphor, a stupid metaphor about a barn. This
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: is the barn we're trying to build. And if you
• 39:52
  Speaker 8: don't want to build at the barn but this, then
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: we're gonna leave you behind and stuff like that. Just nonsense, ridiculous,
• 39:58
  Speaker 8: nonsensical bull crap. And then eventually he said, what has
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: stuck with me is you're going to have to stand fight.
• 40:07
  Speaker 8: That's what he says as it relates to data centers.
• 40:09
  Speaker 8: He said, you're gonna have to stand fight. This man
• 40:11
  Speaker 8: is running unopposed in my County and our governor, Wesmore,
• 40:15
  Speaker 8: endorsed him. Wes Moore didn't say it himself. He was
• 40:17
  Speaker 8: supposed to be here in Charles County. I made a
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: call to action about it, excuse my language. He pussied out,
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: he canceled it for unforeseen circumstances. And then I just
• 40:28
  Speaker 8: minutes before we start this call, I see that he
• 40:32
  Speaker 8: had a private event in our county and spoke to
• 40:38
  Speaker 8: some of our district commissioners and Ralph Patterson, the man
• 40:41
  Speaker 8: he endorsed in Ralph Patterson's mother, Edith Patterson, who is
• 40:45
  Speaker 8: a dinosaur elected official in this area. And yeah, it's
• 40:51
  Speaker 8: just it's been a fight. It's a lot of political manipulation.
• 40:55
  Speaker 8: People have data center money and their campaign contributions, but
• 40:58
  Speaker 8: they want to tell us their not going to put
• 41:00
  Speaker 8: a data center in our community, and people believe them,
• 41:05
  Speaker 8: and people still vote for them, and I I just
• 41:11
  Speaker 8: it's just very frustrating. I'm just I'm very frustrated. I'm
• 41:14
  Speaker 8: very emotional listening to you guys talk about what's happening.
• 41:18
  Speaker 8: And I would hope if people who didn't look like
• 41:23
  Speaker 8: me listen to you guys speak, they would take your
• 41:27
  Speaker 8: concerns seriously, and I really hope that they do, because
• 41:31
  Speaker 8: it's so dystoping what I'm hearing, And I have neighbors
• 41:34
  Speaker 8: who have chickens. I'm a mile away from Farmland, and
• 41:38
  Speaker 8: that's what I love about this area. That's what I
• 41:40
  Speaker 8: love about Charles County. I feel like a country girl
• 41:42
  Speaker 8: next to a city like forty five away from DC.
• 41:44
  Speaker 8: Like it's really weird, and I love it, and I
• 41:47
  Speaker 8: love that I can play both sides. So yeah, it's
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: just it's a fight and it's a lot of political manipulation,
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: and I just hope that people don't listen to it
• 41:57
  Speaker 8: right now. My biggest issue is being allowed audacious black
• 42:01
  Speaker 8: woman speaking on behalf of the issue and people not
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: wanting to take me seriously and my concerns seriously, and
• 42:09
  Speaker 8: that will be the detriment of our community.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: The chicken thing I had totally forgottenuntil Craig mentioned it.
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: My parents also had chickens, and oh my gosh, we
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: had so many eggs, more than we could give away,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: and then all of a sudden they just stopped laying.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: One day, we quit getting eggs, and they had several
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: to die too, And you know, it's like, can you
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: really believe this stuff, like, is that really what happens
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: to the community or you know, to the animals and
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: stuff like that, And then you start hearing others say
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: the same thing, and we don't know each other. I
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: didn't know Craig. I didn't even know he had this
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: issue till this call, and I had forgot that we
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: had the same thing, you know. So my parents had
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: to get rid of their chickens. So a lot of
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: things like that out here have also happened. Domestic animals dying.
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: I'm sure it can talk about this too, you know. Again,
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: it's some of those things that you don't really realize.
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: And I think Craig spoke to some of this. The
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: the levels of the noise that are just not noticeable,
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: like as we talk and communicate, it's that decibel level
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: that you don't hear, you know. And there's another doctor,
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: I believe she's in Lesbon or some and she's done
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: research on the vibrations and what those types of vibrations
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: do to your inner body and the calci the way
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: it calcifies cells and stuff like that. And I haven't
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: even gotten into my mom's health issues that have evolved
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: over the last three years, but you know, all of
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: this didn't They were fine. All of this just happened
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: in the last three years, and so you just cannot
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: tell me that it's a coincidence. There's too many of
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: us that have the same going on, you know.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: So when infrasound hits your body, and it doesn't matter
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: if it's an animal, it doesn't matter what living being
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: it hits, it starts causing tissue damage, to soft tissues,
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: and so it can be noise that's not even audible
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: to the human ear. When one of my dogs started
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: ripping her fur out until she was a bloody mess,
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: I tried everything under the sun, worked with my vet,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: and I finally had to let go of her life.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: And you know, when you see this happening with your
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: friends and your neighbors and even you know, people in
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: California or Maryland or Texas, it's heart wrenching. And it
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if if you're a young woman,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: you know, raising hell in Maryland, or you're an old
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: lady in Texas raising it's still not okay. It's still
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: not okay to be harmed like this. It's just not well.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And like I hate to pile the misery and horror on, right.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: But I mean I have to also mention that, like
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: I hear these kinds of stories in so many other
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: parts of the country, right that you know, like we
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: keep calling sacrifice zones, because like it's just areas where
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: people are being left to live in conditions that threaten
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: life itself. So you know who I heard, you know,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: working class people like yourselves talk about this kind of thing.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: People in East Palaceine, Ohio, and in the surrounding area
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and Pennsylvania. When they blew up the five
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: cars of vinyl chloride in those trains and then they
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: told everyone after that big toxic death plume blasted them
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: all with toxins, they said, Okay, you're fine, go back home.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And it was because everyone's chickens and cats and it
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: started dying that they were like, we're not fine. The
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: fish the fish belly up floating down the rivers. They said,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: you're telling us that's fine.
• 46:09
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: They do this everywhere. And this is why I always
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: tell people I feel like I'm investigating a serial murderer
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: because I hear the same stories coming out of the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: mouths of working people in so many different communities who
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: are being polluted by this crap, who are being killed
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: by this stuff, and we're all being set up for sacrifice,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: whether we voted for one party or another. So it's
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: kind of like, what do we do about this as
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: working people? Can this be what y'all have been, you know,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: mentioning on this call. Can this be one of those
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: things that really gets us to get over our differences
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and forces us to work together to fight this scourge
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: that is coming for all of us. Let's talk about
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that in this final round, right, because we have an
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: incredible panel of folks who are fighting data centers and
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: bitcoin mins in Texas that are already there and new
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: ones that are being proposed. You folks here in Maryland
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: who are seeing these data centers go up in Virginia
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and around the country, and you're trying to fight them
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: in your area. So what can we learn from each other?
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And I guess going back to that central message in
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the introduction is like, what do we need to learn
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: so that we don't fight this the wrong way, so
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that we don't get caught up in the You're on
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the red team, you're on the blue team. You're in
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: this state, so you deserve it. You're in that state,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: so you don't deserve it. Like, how do we get
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: past that crap and actually fight this and win this?
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: So let's go back around in any sort of advice
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that y'all want to offer each other or anyone out
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: there listening who may be dealing with this now or
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: soon in the future.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: When I started on this battle plane, I never went
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: one up to somebody and said, are you a Democrat
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: or a Republican? And I need you to listen to me.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: This is a humanity issue. It's a humanity issue all
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: the way across as nation and into Europe. And so you're,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: like we had talked about before. If my next door
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: neighbor and I don't care who you are, if you
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: come to me and ask me for help, if somebody's
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: invading your home and you need me to come and
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: help you, I'm coming to help you. Don't I don't
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: care what your politics are. I don't care. If I
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: have a big dog and you have a little dog.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I don't care. If you drive a red car and
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I drive a green one, I don't care. I'm coming
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: to help you because that's the humanity thing you should
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: be doing, is caring about other people. And what the
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: governor of Maryland is doing is the same thing that
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: our politicians are doing all around the country with very
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: few exceptions, is you're not listening to your constituents remotely
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: at all. And you know, excuse me.
• 48:49
  Speaker 10: You're so right, And you know, I come from a
• 48:52
  Speaker 10: small rural town in Virginia and really the only reason
• 48:57
  Speaker 10: that I'm here today is because of mutual Aid. Because
• 49:01
  Speaker 10: I was we had to talk to our neighbors. We
• 49:04
  Speaker 10: had to ask our neighbors for help, whether we needed,
• 49:07
  Speaker 10: you know, clean water because our well at one point
• 49:10
  Speaker 10: was infected by a lie, whether the food stamps run out,
• 49:15
  Speaker 10: so we had to have one of our neighbors bring
• 49:18
  Speaker 10: over some place for us. And I think, you know,
• 49:23
  Speaker 10: we've lived. We're living in a time where people are
• 49:26
  Speaker 10: afraid to talk to their neighbors. But I know every
• 49:29
  Speaker 10: single name of my neighbors in my neighborhood, every single person.
• 49:35
  Speaker 10: I knock on their doors all the time. I ask
• 49:37
  Speaker 10: them how they're doing. They come to I'm like the
• 49:39
  Speaker 10: unofficial mayor of Remington at this point. They come to
• 49:43
  Speaker 10: me with like every single issue, and I listened to them,
• 49:47
  Speaker 10: and it doesn't matter what side of the board they're on,
• 49:52
  Speaker 10: you know, like I'm disabled, I'm queer, definitely leftist. But
• 49:58
  Speaker 10: if you come to me and you need help and
• 50:00
  Speaker 10: this is a humanitarian issue, I will help you. And
• 50:05
  Speaker 10: I think that this truly is something that can unite
• 50:07
  Speaker 10: all of us because this isn't just a human issue.
• 50:12
  Speaker 10: This is a land issue, this is a water issue,
• 50:14
  Speaker 10: this is animals, this is our environment, this is trees,
• 50:18
  Speaker 10: it's everything, and that's something at the end of the
• 50:22
  Speaker 10: day that we can all be united on.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And it's also our energy bills, right, It's.
• 50:28
  Speaker 8: Also our energy bills, that's right.
• 50:30
  Speaker 10: Yeah. But also on the flip side of that, you know,
• 50:33
  Speaker 10: I'm sure that our governor in Maryland is going to
• 50:35
  Speaker 10: say the same thing, and Macaiah can probably attest to
• 50:38
  Speaker 10: this as well. They want to start building many nuclear
• 50:42
  Speaker 10: reactors with these data centers, which is just absolutely insane.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Little baby nuclear reactor.
• 50:50
  Speaker 10: Yeah, that's insane. It's completely untested tech. So I think
• 50:55
  Speaker 10: another thing that we all need to start working on
• 50:57
  Speaker 10: is when I see these data centers and the politicians
• 51:00
  Speaker 10: who are approving them, what keeps connecting itself for me
• 51:04
  Speaker 10: is that all of them are receiving a PAC money,
• 51:08
  Speaker 10: and I think we desperately need two officials who are
• 51:13
  Speaker 10: accepting any funds from APAC.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And you know what else we got to like throw
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: on here is like we need to ask ourselves as
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: working people, like what is the payoff here? What are
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: these data centers and bitcoin minds giving to our communities?
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: How are they helping us? Are they providing you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: these all these jobs beyond a few construction jobs for
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the people who are building them, and then what happens
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: to them afterwards? Like, I mean, we get all these
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: data centers, and the payoff is that you know, like
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: all of our news feeds are filled with fake AI
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: slop that you know, AI is in all of our electronics,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: surveilling us, taking people's jobs, that they're using AI to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: bomb people in Iran and other parts of the world.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Like what the hell do we want that for? And
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: is that worth sacrificing our lives and communities and an
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: environment too?
• 52:09
  Speaker 10: I think overwhelmingly the first question that people have started
• 52:14
  Speaker 10: asking themselves when someone proposes a data center for their town,
• 52:18
  Speaker 10: The first thing that you'll hear these politicians and these
• 52:21
  Speaker 10: developers say, is this is going to be so good
• 52:24
  Speaker 10: for you, this is so good for the future, a
• 52:27
  Speaker 10: future for who Who is that future for? And the
• 52:32
  Speaker 10: second people start asking that question, the whole thing falls
• 52:37
  Speaker 10: apart because it is not a future for us. There
• 52:41
  Speaker 10: is no part of this that we have a future in.
• 52:45
  Speaker 10: This is a future for them.
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: I would invite anybody to look into the Project Stargate
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: in Ablene, Texas. It's a half size of two of
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: the proposed data centers for MIKE for our county Grandberry area.
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: It's eleven hundred acres. The one going next to me
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: is twenty ninety. The one further down the street across
• 53:07
  Speaker 6: from Dinosaur Valley State Park, which has dinosaur tracks in
• 53:11
  Speaker 6: limestone that will erode away due to acid rain over time,
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: is going to be about two one hundred acres or so. Anyway,
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: that one is interesting in itself. And then next door
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: to that is going to be one for Black Mountain Energy.
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: And so as far as Project Stargate's concerned, there have
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: been so many interviews with the sheriff, with locals that
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: have proven that infrastructure, whether it's Texas, Maryland, wherever, we
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: can't handle the construction infrastructure. Not only the construction infrastructure,
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: the infrastructure for hotels, for rental, for housing, it's just
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: not there. And we've been seeing over the past generation
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: that home affordability is out through the roof, rental ford
• 53:57
  Speaker 6: availability is out through the roof, and that is coming
• 54:00
  Speaker 6: for our town if we don't fight and stop it.
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: And so something that somebody has proposed to me is
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: just run run for office. That is one way we
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: can fight this is if you have an open election
• 54:12
  Speaker 6: coming up. Run because there are so many people that
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: have recently been elected on this issue, whether you're red
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: or blue, that are winning. We have an ad Commissioner
• 54:22
  Speaker 6: nominee that's a Democrat that is killing it because of
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: this whole issue. And I am proud to say that, yes,
• 54:29
  Speaker 6: I am excited to see somebody young, regardless of what
• 54:33
  Speaker 6: party they stand for, that is standing for the beliefs
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: that I believe in. And so that's one huge way.
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: But the other thing too, if anybody is questioning this,
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: look at Abeli because it is a perfect example of
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: prime going through the roof. These are not just temporary
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: construction jobs. These are jobs that are going to last
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: three to five years. And then with those jobs, you're
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: going to bring in all sorts of people that are
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: looking for work, all sorts of backgrounds is going to
• 55:00
  Speaker 6: be a huge issue. They spend about, what is it,
• 55:02
  Speaker 6: one hundred million gallons a day just spraying water to
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: keep the dust down, and so traffic is a nightmare.
• 55:10
  Speaker 6: It's abysmal. And so we're inviting this into every single
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: neighborhood that has a proposed data center right now. Then
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: you know, there's so many other issues we can tap into.
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: I know we're restricted on time, but ideally, if there's
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: something that we've been learning, is learning your state's laws,
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: you're open if you have an Open Meetings Act, anything
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: you can use, because I mean, the Bible says your
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: sins will find you out numbers twenty three. Anyway, we
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: have found so much dirt behind the scenes that we
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: are using the courts for our advantage for and whether
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: our elected officials want to listen to us or not,
• 55:48
  Speaker 6: at some point it's going to court. And we already
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: have two of the data center campuses that we're posed
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: that are now suing our county that they're going to
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: lose because of how they're trying to use the warp
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: and distort the law. And then the other thing followed
• 56:03
  Speaker 6: money Greg Abbott, our governor has received over five hundred
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: thousand dollars in donations from one single tech entity and
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: a tech pack, and so it's discussing how much money
• 56:15
  Speaker 6: tech is putting into whatever party will follow them and
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: allow them to do this to us.
• 56:21
  Speaker 10: It's so interesting that you bring that up because after
• 56:25
  Speaker 10: one of the last hearings that we had with the
• 56:27
  Speaker 10: Board of Estimates in Baltimore City, they approved a big
• 56:31
  Speaker 10: part of the project for DSAI, and then I think
• 56:35
  Speaker 10: it was like a few bead after that decision, we
• 56:40
  Speaker 10: saw campaign money from Johns Hopkins officials flowing into the
• 56:45
  Speaker 10: pockets of the Board of Estimates people.
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: You know, one thing that I would like to add
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: to this.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Is I have worked a little.
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: Bit with a petition to recall the entire city Council
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: and the mayor except for one council member. And I
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: have seen Republicans and Democrats working shoulder to shoulder on
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: this issue, and I think that's what it needs to
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: look like. We've talked a bit about politics here, and
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: there are some pretty bad people that are in office,
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: and they're pretty good people that are in office, and
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: I want to say that just like the people that
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: might be listening to this. They don't always know the
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: details about how bad these data centers really are, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: I want to give them time to learn that. They
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: better hurry up, because we don't have time to wait
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: for them to eventually figure this thing out. I don't
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: want this to be a Republican Democrat thing. I think
• 57:53
  Speaker 7: that too much of our country talks in terms of politics.
• 57:57
  Speaker 7: I really wish it would be more of where neighbors,
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: we live in the same community, let's work together to
• 58:05
  Speaker 7: make this thing happen. I heard Cheryl say that before.
• 58:10
  Speaker 7: Not today, but I've heard her say before. As a nurse,
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: she doesn't ask somebody their political affiliation before she does.
• 58:18
  Speaker 7: She she helps them in an operating room. It doesn't
• 58:21
  Speaker 7: matter to her. And when I look at another human being,
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: it doesn't matter to me. If you need help, I'm
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: going to try to help you. I don't care which
• 58:30
  Speaker 7: side of the aisle that you're on. Now, I wish
• 58:34
  Speaker 7: that this would be one of those things for everybody
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: that it just doesn't matter what side of the aisle
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: you're on, is coming for all of us, and if
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: we don't all wake up and work together, we're lost.
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: I am erotically black life, black life. I'm talk about
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: my going and it's I My parents never talk to
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: me about race for real. When I was a little girl,
• 58:59
  Speaker 8: they just let me because I was just so whimsical,
• 59:01
  Speaker 8: like I have stars tied it on my face, the
• 59:04
  Speaker 8: Neverland stars, because like I just love Peter Pan, I
• 59:08
  Speaker 8: don't ever want to grow up, and the world just
• 59:12
  Speaker 8: beat me up. The world just beat me up. I
• 59:16
  Speaker 8: played travel soccer, like I said before, so I was
• 59:18
  Speaker 8: like mostly an all white environment. So I didn't get
• 59:21
  Speaker 8: confidence until maybe like my freshman year of high school.
• 59:25
  Speaker 8: My racial self esteem was well, just a whole bunch
• 59:27
  Speaker 8: of things. So when I when I look at the world,
• 59:30
  Speaker 8: it's not that I'm trying to see racism, It's just
• 59:34
  Speaker 8: what I see because I'm looking, I'm looking for myself
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: and I never see myself. So me entering this organizing space,
• 59:44
  Speaker 8: I blew it up.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: I blew it up.
• 59:47
  Speaker 8: And it was after I was at a planning commission
• 59:51
  Speaker 8: meeting and they said, let's put all the data centers
• 59:56
  Speaker 8: in the heavy industrial zones. I'm like, oh, that's where
• 59:59
  Speaker 8: all the black people are, isn't it. And it was, And
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 8: so I went in my coalition chat and I'm just like, y'all,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 8: I'm about to blow these people up. I told them
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 8: everything I was about to say. I said, I'm doing
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 8: this on my own platform. I'm just letting you guys know.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 8: And it just it hasn't been good since there's been
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 8: a huge divide in our county, unfortunately, between people of
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 8: the more southern part and people in the northern part
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 8: of the county. So I would say, if you're entering
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 8: an organizing space, sometimes it is best to for your
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 8: mental health. I've just so many tears have been shed
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 8: and it's been a waste of time trying to get
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 8: people to understand me and my point of view. So
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 8: I sometimes you have to protect yourself and you have
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 8: to organize with people who align with you more. But
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 8: in terms of regular day to day conversation, no one
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: who would talk to me would know about all of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 8: this crazy stuff I got going on in my head.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 8: I am a very personable person. All of my jobs
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 8: have been more so like blue collar, so I'm in
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 8: the service industry a lot. I love elderly people. I
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 8: don't care what color you are. I love all people.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 8: And when I talk to people, I talk to them
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 8: as if they're the only person in the world. So
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 8: you need to go out and you need to talk
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 8: to your neighbors. One of my neighbors, I'm looking at
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 8: their house right now. He voted for Donald Trump. I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 8: don't care.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Didn't.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 8: I didn't even know he voted for Donald Trump until
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 8: like a year ago. But I've looked at this man
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 8: face to face for twenty three years of my life,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 8: and I wouldn't even have known.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: He's always very nice to.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 8: Me when I walk my dog. He lets my dog
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 8: poop in his grass as long as I pick it up.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 8: Like It's just like, you need to go out and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 8: you need to talk to people, and we have to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 8: find common ground, and we have to be able to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: listen to people. And there's a class solidarity is so
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 8: important right now, and there are poor white people in
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 8: this area who have been silenced and who have been
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 8: bamboozled into voting for people consistently who do not care
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 8: about them. And I really hope that this issue wakes
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 8: people up that all of these politicians lie, and we
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 8: need to follow the money and if they have weird
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 8: people in their campaign contributions, you should probably pay attention
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 8: to that, and you should stop making excuses for people,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 8: and like mister Jackson said, like we need to start
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 8: running for office. We have to regular everyday people have
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 8: to be in office. We have to clean sweep our government,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 8: our local governments. After God willing, I really I'm praying
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 8: that we will ban data centers by November. I'm praying
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 8: we can bully us more collectively into banning data SEMs
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 8: and if that happens, we're clean. Sleep in the government.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: All of our local governments just need to be investigated
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 8: because how did you allow this to happen? How have
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 8: Like why are you so susceptible to corruption? Why do
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 8: you have an affinity for selling out your constituents, Why
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 8: do you have an affinity for looking at us in
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 8: our face with attitude and lying to us and not
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 8: taking our concerns seriously. Everyone has to leave, Everyone has
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 8: to go. Everyone needs to be fired. As Donald Trump
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 8: will say, all of them, you're fired, Like everyone has
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 8: to go. So I would say we in terms of advice,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 8: get your boots on the ground, get out, talk to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: the people you know, get out and talk to the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 8: people you don't know.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: Start showing up.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 8: To planning in district Commissioner meetings. Go to your local
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 8: government meetings. Look these people in their face, all these politicians.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 8: I can tell they're scared when I walk in the
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 8: room because they know I'm about to insult them. Start
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 8: bullying these people. They really need to know that they
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 8: work for us. And a lot of people don't like
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 8: my language, but I don't like at some point like
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 8: you have to start. You have to stop caring, and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 8: you have to really start embracing your own radical black
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 8: politic and start crashing out. And that's my advice. I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 8: feel like if we would all crash out, they would
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 8: not act like this. We need to start putting. And
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 8: you know, I don't want violence to happen to anybody,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 8: but what they're doing is violent to us. The stories
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 8: that I'm hearing, it's violence. It's terrorism. To me, it's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 8: domestic terrorism. That's what I hear.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: That's what it's like living here. It's like living in
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: a war zone. It absolutely is.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 8: I that's what I've heard. I listened to you guys'
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 8: podcast about two times, and it's just so I could
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 8: really understand everything, and I'm just this it sounds like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 8: just a horrendous I'm sorry, I know you're it's a
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 8: beautiful place, but it sounds like a horrendous place to live.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 8: It sounds horrendous. It is Oh be damned that happens
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 8: to my beautiful I'll be damned. Oh my god.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: And you know, people tell us all the time, just move, well,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: my home and my property you're paid for. I couldn't
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: sell my home or property if I wanted to. And
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: so what do we do?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: Mm hmm.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: You stand and fight.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 8: That's all you can do.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: And the follow up with Cheryl, like, if I have
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 6: to disclose, there's a data center coming next door to me.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: If I decide to sell my home and we have
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 6: a neighbor, their house has been sitting because it has
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 6: to be disclosed, So you don't have a choice. I mean,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: the worst case scenario for me is airbnb my house
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 6: to data center employees. But where am I going to go?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: You know, because I grew up in Houston and so
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: I lived next to the highway. I know the like,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: I know the highway noise, like just it's embedded in
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: my DNA at this point, And that's exactly what it
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: sounds like. It's like you're living next to a highway
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 6: that just will not stop. And there's nights there's not
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: a car on the road, like I've literally walked over
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: to the highway, like I say Highway Texas Highway, there's
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: not a car on the road, but you're hearing that
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 6: droning constantly. And you know, the only way we are
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 6: going to stop this is to not just educate politicians,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: but we need educated people to run for this. We
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: need to stop just believing. So one of the things
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: we've come across in our area is developers making false
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: personas and going on Facebook groups to hype up all
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: the positive benefits of data centers, or people who are
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: invested in data centers going on and playing the positivity side.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 6: And as neighbors one, you know your neighbors. You know
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 6: who's true and who's not. But the reality is, you know,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 6: we can only do so much on social media, but
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: we need to be the louder voices in all honesty.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: We need to be the voices of reason. And one
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 6: of the things we see all the time is, well,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 6: you know, like you're on Facebook, you're using a data center.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: You're on TikTok, you're using data center. And part of
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: that education is there's a difference between an enterprise data
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: center and a hyper scale data center. And what's coming
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: in our areas is hyper scale, which is the what
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: we don't want. We've been using enterprise data centers for years.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 6: I used to work in a building that had its
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: own data center within and the room was like constantly
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: kept at seventy degrees, but you couldn't hear the fans
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 6: because they sound walled everything. It didn't disrupt anything, it
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: didn't use any water, it was all air cool by
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: air conditioning. This is an entirely different beast that we're fighting,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: and that's where the education outlet comes in. So if
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: we just have smart people running, if we do more education,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: do what we can be the voice of reason, not
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 6: just the voice of opposition.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: At the end of the day, I think the level
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: of secrecy and deception. I guess I'm not a naive person,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: you know. I deal with all sorts of people, and
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: and I love people too. I like to get to
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: know different people. And I mean I feel like we
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: all bleed the same color red, you know, and so
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: we are all in in our skeletal makeup, like we
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: we have many things in common as far as color, race,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: None of that matters language. For me, one of the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 5: things that has been the most shocking is how people
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: have just so easily lied and deceived and and a
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: lot for the sake of money. There for a long time.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: You know, we set out here that we were kind
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: of the redheaded kids of Hood County, you know, because
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: and again we men, sure we some of us have
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: talked about this. There's quite a few of us that
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: are in this fight that are very highly ed educate it,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: you know. And but what they've done to this community
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: is because of lower socioeconomic I think Makai mentioned this about,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: you know, the industrial part in the city. That's a
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: lot of black people there. Well, out here, there's a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: lot of Hispanic people in our community, and they're not
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: going to speak up for themselves for various reasons. I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: don't care if you're here illegally or undocumented or whatever.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: I have some wonderful neighbors across the street that that
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: I would go help in a heartbeat.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 8: You know.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: They the deception to pile this onto the communities like that,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: and to think that you can get away with it.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: It is like you said, that sacrificial zone. It's it's
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: showing me that there are some of us who are
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: worth sacrificing for a dollar. There are some of us
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: who regardless of you know, oh, let's look at that community.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 5: It doesn't look like it's very well deserving. Let's put
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: it all there, you know. And I don't know. I
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: guess just the way that other human beings treat human
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 5: beings is beyond me. I don't think that way. My
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: heart is not like that. And so it's just really
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: hard to comprehend the deception and the lack of transparency
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 5: and how so easily we can lie, and how we
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: can sacrifice another human being for the sake of money.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: I cannot wrap my head around that. And that's part
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: of what I why I want to keep fighting.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 8: These are called the paths of least resistance, these specific neighborhoods,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 8: and it's microzoning and it's redlining. So for the audience,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: if there's a data center being proposed in your community,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 8: it is probably in a community that would have the
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 8: pathway at least resistance. If we're in a state like
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 8: Texas and we're worried about ice, probably Hispanic people aren't
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 8: going to speak up for themselves because they're scared. So yes,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 8: let's put it here. So we do need to pay
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 8: attention to not only black and brown people, but poor
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 8: people as well, because they don't have the resources to
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 8: fight for themselves.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: You're all right about that. What I have found recently
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 7: is that I think even middle class people are no
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: match for these data centers because they have really deep
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 7: pockets and they can litigate for forever, and I think
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 7: a normal everyday person is not going to be able
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 7: to fight that because they're going to take it to
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: court and they will tie you up in court and
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: they will take everything that you have. And then some
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: cheryl I know that with yours, they were asking questions
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: that they had no business asking you, so they were
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 7: wanting everything and the paperwork was just NonStop. So that
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 7: that was That's been my experience with these data centers.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: We can also say it's expensive. We had to retain
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: a lawyer, which costs ten thousand upfront, and it's not
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: even the probably the lawyer we're going to go with
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 6: at the end of the day. There's several of the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: communities that have gotten lawyers that it is expensive. So
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 6: if there's any lawyers listening that want to help, you know,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 6: we would appreciate the help, but at the end of
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: the day, what it really is coming down to is money.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 6: And just you know, anybody that wants to take five
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: seconds to google Marathon digital Bitcoin. They sold off a
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: lot of bitcoin and made a lot a lot of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 6: money at the profit of this neighborhood. And it's frustrating
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 6: because we don't receive any of that. But our property
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: taxes go up, our electricity goes up, our watermeil good
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 6: like everything else goes up. Like we're fighting just for
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 6: daily life, but yet they're profiting off the backs of
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: our health.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: All right, gang, that's going to wrap things up for
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: us today. I want to thank our guests from Granbury, Texas,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: Cheryl Shadden, Karen Pearson, Craig Jackson, and doctor Shannon Wolf.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: And I want to thank our guests from Maryland, Hillary
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Gonzalez and Mikaia Lloyd. This was such an important discussion
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: and this is such an important issue, and I'm so
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: grateful to all of our guests for being part of
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: this panel and for everything that they are doing to
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: fight back for their communities. And of course I want
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: to thank you all for listening, and I want to
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: thank you for caring about this We'll see y' all
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: back here next time for another episode of Working People,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: and in the meantime, go explore all the great work
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: that we're doing at the Real News Network, where we
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: from the front lines of struggle. Check us out across
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, our podcast feeds, our website, and our
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: different social media pages. And help us do more work
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: like this by going to the realnews dot com forward slash,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: it really makes a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take care
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: of yourselves and take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 11: When my face you.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: No longer see.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 11: I live on Yes, I live on wherever we go.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 11: We are going to roll the union on a song.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 11: I live on Yes. I live on whyever on Hongry
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 11: are we just as homeless? Homework can be your song?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 11: I live on Yes. I live on well mean than
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 11: what's happening in this land? This reader songs. I live
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 11: on Yes, I live on wherever the book mean things
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 11: are Happening in the Land is written. I live on Yes.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 11: I'll live on wherever the video tap a mea shown.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 11: I'll live on, Yes. I'll live on if I have
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 11: help to make this a better.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: World to live in.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 6: I'll live on.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 10: Yes.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 11: I'll live on when my body is solid and in
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 11: some longs and bread.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 10: I'll live on.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 9: Yes.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 7: I live on.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 11: When my songs informed are.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 8: Read, I live on.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 7: I live on.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: Mr mhm
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 9: M