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What Happens When People Show Up for the Planet · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Over the past couple of weeks, we've seen some pretty interesting developments
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  around AI data centers in North America especially, sometimes around the world,
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  but especially I've seen some news
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  about AI data centers, and how people do not want them in their backyard.
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  It's been pretty interesting how a lot of billionaires and data centers and
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  committees have been kind of pushing this behind the scenes, and people haven't
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  been around them, and it was a little dangerous to see at the beginning.
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  People were really worried where these data centers were gonna get snuck in.
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  A few of them have been snuck in, but it was snuck in, where
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  there's a lot of issues around it.
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  I'm actually doing an episode on it right now for The Ocean Decoded to
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  talk about data centers and their environmental footprint, but there's
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  also a lot of other things going along.
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  In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the power of
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  communities and the power of people.
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  When they don't want something, it doesn't get done, and we're seeing
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  that happen here in Canada and in the US, where a lot of data centers
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  are getting canceled because people are showing up and having their say.
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  And that's what happens when you live in a democracy and you can have that say,
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  but not always, and here are some of the things that we need to look out for.
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  And here are some of the opportunities that we could use
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  when we look at AI data centers.
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  And while, again, more information is gonna come out on The Ocean Decoded
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  soon, probably within the next couple weeks, and you'll be able to see that.
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  I've got a little bit of a mini documentary coming out for Ocean Decoded.
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  All right.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  We're gonna start this episode up where you get your ocean news update.
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  This is Oceans Week.
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  This is the place where you find out all the resources you need to do to help
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  protect the ocean and get in tune and fall in love with the ocean all over again.
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  Today, we're gonna be talking about a lot of issues are facing the ocean.
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  A lot of people are doing some really bad things in the ocean.
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  And a lot of the times, certain things get passed or legislation gets stripped down.
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  We've seen that in the US and Canada right now.
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  But people are standing up to the governments, and they're having
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  their say, and they're not happy.
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  And the governments in certain places, especially locally, are actually working.
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  And this is an episode not just about how if we stand up together as communities,
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  we get things accomplished, 'cause it doesn't always happen that way,
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  but we can get things accomplished.
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  This is a-about not giving up in especially a time where we're looking
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  at a lot of environmental rollbacks, a lot of pressure against the
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  environment in place of the economy.
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  We are seeing a lot of problems here.
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  And this is a place where you can just be like, "You know what? I want
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  you to really understand the power of the voice, the power of the voice
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  that you have especially if you're living here in North America." So
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  we're gonna talk all about that because a lot of the times we have this eco
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  anxiety, we have this ocean anxiety.
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  A lot of people see it.
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  You see it on the news, data centers are going in right, left,
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  and center, and billionaires are putting them in, and they think…
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  You know, they're very out of touch.
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  They just don't understand our plight.
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  If you haven't seen any of the videos from Kevin O'Leary where he's been
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  trying to defend his Utah data center, where he's going to have it powered.
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  It's like the size of Manhattan is going in Utah.
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  And apparently the people of Utah didn't really have a say on how it was going in,
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  when it was going in, how big it was, or how it was being powered, the water usage.
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  And let's be honest, in Utah especially, there has been like a 20-year-long
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  drought year after year after year.
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  Salt Lake, which is like in Utah, has been at its lowest level ever.
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  It continues to lose water because of evaporation, 'cause of climate change.
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  And here is this data center that's threatening to use water from that
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  area when they're in a drought.
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  It doesn't make sense from an environmental perspective, a drinking
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  water perspective, the usage perspective.
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  And it sounded like a lot of people had their eyes covered when this
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  data center was going through.
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  Not to say that they weren't paying attention, but they're saying that it got
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  snuck through when they didn't expect it.
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  So in comes Kevin O'Leary, who's the mastermind around this.
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  He wanted to put it in.
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  And when it got passed three to zero on the committee, a lot of people
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  were upset 'cause the committee didn't even listen to the people's
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  concerns, what they were worried about.
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  They weren't necessarily against it altogether.
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  They wanted to know more about the project and how it's going to affect.
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  What's the impact assessment?
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  What's the environmental impact assessment?
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  How's it gonna affect their drinking water?
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  How's it gonna affect their environment?
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  What power is it gonna be use- is gonna be used on their grid?
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  I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in a bit of an energy crisis where we
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  don't have enough power, and the amount of electricity that we use around the world
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  is bigger and bigger than it ever has.
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  So making sure that power's is being able to be generated for this data
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  center as well as the people is something that's really important.
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  Without coming through and making sure that the people's concerns
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  are shown and doing it properly, if you're gonna put it in, doing it
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  properly, if that's even possible, they just kind of snuck it through.
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  And now, from my understanding, they've kinda taken it back after a while.
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  They've taken some of those things back, and that data center
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  may not go in as necessary.
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  Now, with that said, there's been a lot of data center stories that have been popping
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  up for AI, 'cause AI is everywhere.
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  And just like cryptocurrency when it came out, data centers
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  had to be brought together.
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  Cryptocurrency mines, these I guess, crypto.
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  I don't even know the whole part of it.
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  But they use these large servers to mine, and they're always working
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  and need to be cooled down 'cause it heats up, and they need to be powered.
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  And a lot of the times, the power comes from fossil fuel power,
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  depending on where you are, which is not good for our climate change.
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  And so there's a lot of problems when we start to add it all up and cumulate
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  it, especially when we look at there.
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  And a lot of those cryptocurrency data centers kinda got snuck in.
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  It wasn't as a prominent a story when these data centers went in.
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  But they went in in areas where land was cheap, areas that may have been
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  impoverished before, whether it's in a developing country or a developed country.
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  And people just didn't really know about it until we saw it.
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  And I'll be honest, like there's some concern that I have like in our
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  rural area, I live just outside the country in this town, in Burlington.
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  There's a lot of big warehouses going up, and we don't know what they're for.
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  Sometimes they'll have like companies, but like I've never
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  heard of some of these companies.
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  It could be warehouses.
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  I know one's an Amazon Center, like a warehouse kind of thing.
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  But a lot of the other times you're just like, "Wait a minute.
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  Hold on a second.
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  Like, what are these data centers?
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  Is this what this is gonna be?" There's concerns of noise, there's
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  concerns of water, there's concerns of how the power generated.
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  A lot of concerns.
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  And when committees and local communities and provincial and state communities
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  do not address the people, the people can stand up and really have a say.
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  So case in point just locally here, there was a data center that was proposed in
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  Hamilton, just the city right beside us.
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  Pretty big city, over 300,000, I think larger when you
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  consider the surrounding areas.
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  People were pissed that this data center was going in, and it was going
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  on for, like, a couple of weeks.
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  I saw a lot of videos, people trying to get the community out to protest it.
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  When they were outside, this happened this past day, yesterday, as of recording this.
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  When they were outside, and they were yelling, and they were inside,
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  and they were talking, and they were proposing ideas and having their say,
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  the council for Hamilton, the City of Hamilton, said, "Hey, you know what?"
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  It wasn't necessarily like a data center was going in, it was about how this
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  land could be severed to allow the data center to go in, I guess, to rezone it.
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  And the councilor said, "Hey, you know what? Based on the feedback we're getting
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  from the community, the feedback we've gotten all week," he's had over thousands
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  of emails, 1,600 emails, talking about how they don't want this data center in.
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  He's not gonna approve it because the people have spoken, and
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  he is beholden to the people.
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  When you have councilors and you have politicians who are beholden
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  to the people, things go right.
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  If you are not happy with this, you get what you want.
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  As long as the people show up.
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  You have to show up in numbers.
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  If you show up one or two, they may not listen.
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  They may see, like, the benefits, or they may see like, "Well, AI is the future,
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  and we need to do this, and we need to step our game up, and we need to be
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  leaders." And this is the problem with things like AI and like crypto before,
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  is everybody wants to be a leader in the game, especially countries, so they
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  develop and develop and develop, and they, recoil, or they exempt certain
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  environmental regulations so it can go through faster, so they can get more
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  data centers up and do more with AI.
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  And I'm not necessarily against AI.
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  I use it in my process.
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  But I also want this stuff to be done correctly.
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  There's a reason why we have legislation and laws and regulations around putting
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  things like data centers in areas where you may not have the chance.
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  There is a proposed area that they're proposing in I believe
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  Saskatchewan or Alberta.
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  It's on indigenous land, like actual treaty-holding indigenous land.
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  And there's, like, a consulting period with the indigenous people, but they don't
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  have a say on whether it goes in or not.
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  That doesn't make sense.
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  That doesn't make sense one bit.
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  And unfortunately, I don't know the full details on that, so I
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  don't wanna speak about that.
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  This is what I'm talking about by having regulations happen for a reason,
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  putting in the right regulations and no exemptions, and people have a say.
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  If you're putting it on someone's land, whether it's a city, whether
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  it's a reservation, whether it's a treaty land, whatever that might be.
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  Those people should have a say, should have a say on what
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  goes in, what doesn't go in.
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  And the people who are in charge of making those decisions that were elected to
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  get there should listen to the people.
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  If the majority of people and they're making big noise that they
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  don't want it, it shouldn't go in.
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  And if it does go in, it should go in properly.
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  And the one thing that I've learned and what I love about indigenous groups is
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  that when a proposal like this comes in, they make sure it's good for the
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  people, it's good for the environment, and it's good for the community.
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  But what's it gonna do to all those factors?
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  And how is it gonna affect the community as a whole?
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  How's it gonna affect the environment?
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  'Cause they live in unison with the environment.
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  That's the thought process when they make decisions, and
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  that's an important process.
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  We talked about it yesterday, when we were talking about how we should
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  love the ocean, and we should consider the ocean in every decision that
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  we make, and that's what happens, and we should consider the land.
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  But the whole point of this episode is, is you're taking these data centers,
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  and people are against putting these data centers in their backyard.
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  They don't want the noise, they don't want to give up the water usage,
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  they don't wanna give up the power.
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  ' Some of these data centers are powered by renewable energy, but a lot of them
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  are gonna be proposed to be powered by natural gas, maybe even nuclear.
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  And some people don't like that.
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  Obviously, the nuclear is kind of like considered renewable, but people
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  have problems for obvious reasons.
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  And then of course, there's the fossil fuels, like natural gas.
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  You don't want to use natural gas.
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  You wanna use renewables to be able to power this.
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  And so this is where it could be done right, where the regulations
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  stipulate that this has to happen.
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  If we really wanna get towards a net zero future, which we have to so that we
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  don't affect climate change, or we can reduce climate change, we need to do this.
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  This needs to happen, and I think it's important that it does.
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  I love the fact that people are kind of like standing up, and it's working.
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  Not in all cases, but standing up.
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  And I think that's the thing is that you see these communities
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  come together, all different backgrounds, all different people.
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  They don't have to be scientists.
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  They don't have to be regulators.
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  They don't have to be policy people.
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  They don't have to be lawyers.
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  They can be everybody.
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  Any background.
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  We are in this together as a community.
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  And so if you don't want a data center in your community for whatever reason,
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  then you speak up for that reason.
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  And you speak up to your councilors.
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  You speak up to your state representatives and federal
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  representatives as well because they have to show what side they're on.
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  And if they're not on the side that you want, you don't
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  vote for them the next time.
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  That's really what it comes down to.
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  It's not always black and white like that.
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  It's not always clear.
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  The future can sometimes be a little dim or a little gray in areas,
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  but this is how it should work, and we're seeing the fight happen.
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  And I know from an environmental perspective, an ocean perspective, we're
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  seeing a lot of things get recoiled from regulations, especially in the US, even in
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  Canada with all these pipelines going in.
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  But we need to stand up.
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  There are people all over the world who are standing up, who are showing
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  up in droves, who are making the public comments and everything.
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  So when it comes down to it, those will be listened to,
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  depending on who's there, right?
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  And what's good about a lot of these decisions, the decisions are gonna
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  affect the planet for a long time.
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  These politicians aren't gonna be there for that long, for most of them.
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  And so you need to make these decisions for the long term.
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  Think long term rather than short term like a politician thinks,
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  and I think that's something that's really, really important.
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  The bad ones, anyway.
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  The good politicians think beyond their own power and their own time.
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  So, that's it for today's episode.
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  I'd love to hear what you think.
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  Are you getting part of these AI data centers, like protests?
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  Have you gone out to some?
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  Are you contributing to campaigns for some, like in terms of effort or monetary?
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  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
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  Hit me up in the socials in the show notes below.
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  And of course, if you wanna be part of our community, you can join our Patreon.
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  Go to speakupforblue.com/patreon, and you can join the Patreon.
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  You can also get the podcast episodes on there as well if you
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  just want the interviews and if you want all of them together or
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  if you just want the solo episodes.
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  So there'll be two things, and of course, you can just use your
• 11:44
  podcast app that you're on now to get everything all at once.
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  So there are different options.
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  Those will be free.
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  Community will be a cost just for my time.
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  We'll get together once a month and have a good chat about the ocean.
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  So that's it for today's episode.
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  I wanna thank you so much for showing up to listen to this and showing
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  up to make sure that your community is doing the right thing when it's
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  time to protect the environment.
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  Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.