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'Is It Worth Running a Race Where the Prize Is Some Dystopian Future?': Janine Jackson ([link removed])


Janine Jackson interviewed Food and Water Watch's Mitch Jones about artificial intelligence versus the environment for the December 19, 2025, episode ([link removed]) of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

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Common Dreams: 230+ Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers

Common Dreams (12/8/25 ([link removed]) )

Janine Jackson: Imagine that a nascent industry says they're going to take wide swaths of local communities to build production sites—even if that means commandeering tremendous amounts of natural resources, and even if it means working against the communities involved that have explicitly said they don't want it. Oh, but wait—what if the product is AI, or crypto? Would that make it somehow different, and future-y?

That sort of confusion seems to be what proponents of data centers across the country are counting on, with an assist from corporate news media susceptible to a “gee whiz” approach to any new (corporate-induced) technology that tends to push precautionary principles to the back pages—or, at best, below the fold.

A range of environmental and economic justice groups are speaking out right now. A letter signed by more than 200 groups ([link removed]) was delivered to Congress, calling for an end to what is described as "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."

The coalition is spearheaded by Food and Water Watch ([link removed]) , and we're joined now by Mitch Jones, deputy director at Food and Water Watch, as well as their managing director of policy and litigation. He joins us now by phone from Baltimore. Welcome back ([link removed]) to CounterSpin, Mitch Jones.

Mitch Jones: Thank you, Janine. It's always great to be with you.

JJ: I know that many people have long had critical eyes on this, but I still believe that, for a lot of people, “data center” is kind of a vague, science-y thing that happens in a lab, and however you might think about it existentially, it's not bread and butter. So it seems important to make clear we aren't talking about computer chips in a vacuum-sealed factory somewhere. This is land and water and air and your monthly electricity bill.
Map of US Data Centers

Data Center Map ([link removed])

MJ: Yeah. If you've worked in an office before and if you've worked in offices a few decades ago, you may have had a closet that had a couple of computer servers in it, and that was your “data center.” That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about massive industrial complexes that are essentially large black boxes, housing thousands of computer servers all at once. They take up hundreds of acres of land, the large hyperscale ones. They use thousands of gallons ([link removed]) of water, an enormous amount of electricity, and have a variety of impacts in your local community.

But, as you indicated earlier, they're really just the physical underlying aspect of the AI/ crypto craze, which is what's driving this desire for these data centers, which are popping up across the country ([link removed]) in communities that oftentimes have very little warning ([link removed]) that one is even being proposed for their community. And it's becoming a growing problem, which is why we were able to find over 230 organizations across the country—some national, some state, many local—pulling together these communities that are fighting data centers from coast to coast.
Washington Post representation of how much water AI-written emails consume

Washington Post (9/18/24 ([link removed]) )

JJ: Talk a little about it concretely, in terms of—and I still think people are not ignorant; they just don't understand that the thing that seems like an ephemeral thing out in space can still involve water consumption, can still involve electricity consumption. Those dots are not connected day by day for folks. So talk a little more about that.

MJ: Yeah. People aren't aware that when they're looking at a cat meme that their friend sends them, if it's made with generative AI, it was using the equivalent of one to three bottles of water ([link removed]) . So people don't realize that. That's just an AI-generated cat meme. Think about how many thousands of those are generated every day, plus all of the other AI generation that is taking place.

It's using enormous amounts of water to cool these facilities, because if you were to reach out to your computer after you've had it on for several hours and you touch it, it's warm. We all know that. We've all had that experience. You can feel the battery heating. Imagine thousands of these in an enclosed building, needing to be cooled. That's what a lot of the water that's being used for data centers is being used for. But people don't make that connection between the meme that they're looking at on their phone, or the deep fake video that's being produced by a political operation to tar their opponent, and these industrial sites that are popping up in suburban and rural communities, in red states, blue states, all states across the country.
Bloomberg: AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Bloomberg (9/29/25 ([link removed]) )

JJ: What folks do notice, though, is their electricity bill going up ([link removed]) . And so, maybe, is that the place where the connection is starting to be made, where people are like, "Wait, what's happening here? And what does that have to do with this data center that's being grown in my neighborhood?"

MJ: Yeah, I do believe that electricity bill prices are a really strong entry point for people to realize what's happening with data centers, because you don't actually even have to be living that near to data centers to see your electricity bills go up.

I live in Baltimore, as we mentioned at the top of the show. The data center growth in our area is taking place actually about 50 miles from here, in Northern Virginia, but electricity bills in Baltimore ([link removed]) are going up because of that data center growth in Virginia. So it's not just even the ones in your local community that are driving up your electricity bill, it's the growth in the general area.

JJ: Is it irrelevant to mention that many profit-minded, capitalistic-minded people, think that this is a bubble? Like, whatever you build now is not going to have value in ten or maybe five years? The harms will persist, but the profit might not, right?
WEF: What we mean when we talk about an artificial intelligence ‘bubble’

World Economic Forum (10/7/25 ([link removed]) )

MJ: Right. There is a lot of speculation right now that AI itself is experiencing a bubble ([link removed]) , that a lot of the stock market growth that we've seen over the year has been shown to be down, basically, to seven companies, big tech companies that are going all in on AI, either developing the algorithms themselves or providing the computer chips or building the data centers. So a lot of the apparent economic growth and activity that's happening is dependent on projections of investment in an industry where many people are beginning to say, "Wait a minute, this could really be a bubble. They're going to overbuild and end up not needing all of the capacity that is being built, even for the brightest of projections that the industry puts out for themselves.” And I think it's completely relevant to recognize that this bubble will, when it pops, cause economic pain across the country.

Of course, those who are profiting the most from the build-out of the data centers, the billionaires ([link removed]) in Silicon Valley and their financiers on Wall Street, aren't going to feel that pain. It's the communities where these data centers are being built that are going to feel the pain.
NPR: Trump says fewer regulations needed to win the AI race

NPR (9/23/25 ([link removed]) )

They're going to feel it in the meantime because of the increased electricity costs, because of the water usage, because of the land use and the noise pollution and the other issues that come with having these industrial facilities built in your community. But then they're going to feel it economically, too, when the promise doesn't pan out and the bubble pops. It's going to be those communities that are going to end up feeling the effects of the economic fallout.

So I don't think it's irrelevant. I think it's extremely relevant to point out that we're building this on a fantasy being sold to us by billionaires who control our media, and people are slopping it up. But I believe we are seeing, and I think that the attention that this letter that we led, is showing that in communities—and again, it's red and blue, it's across the political spectrum—people are seeing that they're being sold a promise that doesn't deliver anything for them.

We're told that we're in this AI race. This is the way the Trump administration ([link removed]) and the industry likes to put it. We're in this AI race against China, but is it even really worth running a race where the prize is some dystopian future, which is going to bring misery to most of us and enrich just a handful? Personally, I don't believe that's a race we're running, let alone trying to win.

JJ: Absolutely. Any final thoughts, Mitch Jones, in terms of the way that media could or shouldn't or might talk about this?
Mitch Jones of Food & Water Watch

Mitch Jones: "All of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable."

MJ: I think it's important for media to stop cheerleading—obviously, present company is excluded—and presenting their projections as though it's reality. It's not, it's what they're hoping will happen. It's what they're trying to force us to believe is inevitable. And if you think back, all of the changes that happen economically that are going to harm the most of us and enrich a few of the others are sold to us as inevitable, so that we believe that it's just an economic force that we can't do anything about.

And I think what is important for people to hear is that these are political decisions that are being made by our elected leaders, and we need them to listen to us, and stand in between us and the tech bros and the Silicon Valley billionaires and Wall Street, and say stop. Stop building these data centers until we can figure out if—and I emphasize “if" —they can be built in such a way that they are not going to be harming the communities that they're being put into, and any benefits, if there are any that come from AI, are actually shared out to all of us, and not just hoarded by a few.

JJ: All right, then. We've been speaking with Mitch Jones, deputy director at Food and Water Watch. They're online at FoodAndWaterWatch.org ([link removed]) . Mitch Jones, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

MJ: Thank you, Janine. It's always great to be with you.


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