<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/29/were-up-against-forces-that-have-all-the-money-in-the-world-erin-brockovich-on-her-battle-against-ai-datacentres>
"When Erin Brockovich woke to find 30 emails from people from the same town,
she realised something was going on. People email Brockovich all the time
because of what happened in 1993, when she was instrumental in suing Pacific
Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of the town of Hinkley,
California, whose groundwater had been contaminated. The case resulted in a
settlement of $333m – then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit.
When she was immortalised by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film
Erin Brockovich,
she became the hero we didn’t know we needed, a modern day Joan of Arc. She had
won against PG&E with no formal legal training.
The emails she received a few weeks ago were about datacentres. In April, she
put a callout on her website asking for anyone with concerns about one near
them to get in touch. Within a month, 3,862 people had replied. Tech companies
have needed datacentres to power their technology “for ever”, she says, but the
new ones being built to power AI? “This feels like Hinkley on steroids.”
This isn’t a story about AI, she says. “That genie is out of the bottle: it’s
here, it’s an effective tool, you can use it or not,” Brockovich says
matter-of-factly. This is about the massive structures being built to house the
vast computing facilities AI requires. These datacentres, she says, stretch
over “hundreds and hundreds of acres”. In May, Utah gave approval to a centre
twice the size of Manhattan.
Some of the emails Brockovich gets from people near datacentres express genuine
bafflement: “Why did I not know about this? How did this construction just
start? Why am I now getting a notice from the city council that this has
already passed when I didn’t even have a voice in it?” Others reflect concerns
about the impact of the centres: “What about our resources? What’s happening to
the water? Who’s paying for all this energy and am I going to foot that bill?
What will the future impact on health be from these monstrosities? What’s going
to happen to the wildlife?”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
