We've just published the third in our series of discussion papers exploring where the climate movement might focus its energy and resources next.
This one, co-authored with Philip Eubanks of the Climate Emergency Fund and Saul Levin of the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Research, looks at the rapid global expansion of data centers - driven largely by the AI boom - and argues that the resistance movement forming around them may be one of the most significant organising opportunities the climate movement has seen in years.
The paper documents a movement already well underway: between May 2024 and March 2025, an estimated $64 billion in US data center projects were blocked or delayed. Communities in at least 14 states have enacted moratoriums on new construction. The resistance is frequently bipartisan - heritage preservationists and property-rights conservatives finding common cause with environmentalists and digital rights campaigners - united around shared concerns about water, energy, land, and democratic process. Our own recent RCT research found that "the environmental costs of data centers - water, energy, land - were the issue most likely to move the public to take action on AI."
The paper also grapples with the harder questions honestly: whether data centers could drive clean energy investment, what role AI plays in accelerating fossil fuel extraction, and how to build a broad coalition without demanding that everyone agrees on AI itself.
We'd love to know what you think.
All the very best,
The Social Change Lab team