August 13, 2025 • 34 mins
James is joined by Karl Kasarda of InRangeTV to discuss the Project Blue data center and the coalition of people who campaigned against its construction in Tucson.
Sources:
https://apnews.com/article/electricity-prices-data-centers-artificial-intelligence-fbf213a915fb574a4f3e5baaa7041c3a
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Hello and welcome to the show. It's meet
James today, and I'm very fortunate to be joined by
a friend of the show, Kyle Cassada.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How you doing, Carl, Oh, I'm doing great. And when
I hear a friend of the show with any of
you all or you James, it's a real honor to me.
So I'm honored to be your friend and a friend
of the show. So I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
No, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We always appreciate you being here and everything you do
within range.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Kyle.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're not here to talk about gunstaff today Italy, which
is nice in a way because we're here to talk
about something which is also very important right in terms
of keeping people safe, and that is activism against corporate
destruction of our environment. We're here to talk about something
called Project Blue. Specifically, can you explain to listeners who
are not familiar, folks who maybe you haven't heard about it,
(00:49):
what Project Blue was proposed to be.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, and it's not dead either. We'll talk about that more.
But the Project Blue, we'll see a two hundred ninety
acre data center. Project put that in scope, two hundred
and ninety acres whoa data center South of Tucson through
a company called Beel Infrastructure that through people's hard work,
(01:12):
came to find out it was for Amazon. But a
two hundred and ninety are AI data center south of Tucson.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, that is vast.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm trying to think of a like, I can't think
of a comparison for two hundred ninety eightis, but that
that is a huge amount of like computing power, right, I.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Guess it's hard to fathom that kind of space when
you think about it. Yeah, there are maps of what
this proposed data center's footprint is. And if you take
the rough rectangle of it and place it over Tucson proper,
the city of Tucson, that's they propose it to be
just south of it pretty much envelops and it consumes
the entire downtown of Tucson in multiple neighborhoods. That's how
(01:54):
big this is. And it's one data center.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, what was the data centers to do? Like what
if people aren't familiar, right, what is the data center
to do? What do they do with the big computer?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well? Okay, so for people that aren't really into the
tech sector of things, a data center is essentially think
of something the size of a bigger than a mall
that has nothing but giant computer data banks in it.
So it's a giant place where you would think of
your old mainframes in the old days. It's not mainframes anymore,
but like it's racks and racks and racks of computing
power and connectivity to the Internet for the purposes of
(02:28):
whatever Amazon would want to do with this. So if
you go to use Amazon's infrastructure or use their AI,
that buzzphrase it now is everywhere the computers that do
those things or those requests or decide what products they
want to market to through their algorithm. That's what these
data centers do. So it's essentially an entire city of
(02:49):
just machines. Yeah, a tech cropolis is an interesting way
to put it. Like, not a netcropo, it's a tech cropolis. Yeah.
So imagine a few people maintaining an entire city of.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Machines, right and actively participating in like undermining the value
of labor for everyone else with this AI shit.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, that's part of this project're going to get into
a minute. Is one of the things they like to
propose is that it's going to bring jobs, but only
at the beginning and we'll talk about that more. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, Well, let's talk about like people in Tucson did not.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Want this data center, right, Like there was a broad
based and well organized opposition to it. So perhaps we
should explain like why why? I mean, I guess people
listen to podcast are inclined to think data center bad.
But can you explain the impact that this would have
had on the city and the turning area?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh? Yeah, absolutely, So it's very interesting to me to
think about. So these data centers of this accord are
if you're interested in this topic and start googling, you're
going to find that this is, of course not the
first large or mega data center that's been implemented across
this country, because a number that are in Texas and
they are belching large amounts of pollution into the environment.
Cities nearby get absolutely destroyed by it. Typically they're brought
(03:58):
in through some sort of tax incentives by the local
city council or local county, and so that's exactly what
was happening here with Tucson. So the local city council
was pretty friendly to the idea. They were talking to
this beal infrastructure to bring in Project Blue. They were
giving tax cuts. They were giving all these incentives to
(04:19):
bring this gigantic megalithic thing into just south of town.
And part of the insidiousness of this is that this
was going to go forward until someone noticed it. Yeah,
it was just going to happen all of a sudden
one day this thing is there, right, But it was noticed.
And I don't honestly know exactly how it got noticed,
but it got noticed. And one of the things I
really find interesting, historically speaking, is how certain places and
(04:41):
cultures resonate over time with historical events from the past.
Tucson historically is an interesting place in terms of its
environmental activism. There's a number of things that happened in
Tucson in the nineteen sixties. There were groups that were
actively fighting the spread of highways highway infrastructure. They were
anti freeway, and their reasoning and rationale was it that
(05:04):
freeways were the arterial infrastructure that allowed for the destructive
spread of track pum developments. So the way to help,
one way is to prevent the destruction of the local
environment and the spread of a city was to diminish
its freeway footprint. And I think you can see this
is true if you look at any big city now
(05:25):
like Phoenix is essentially a hive city, and all of
the growth comes because of freeways, right.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Because people can get to work or whatever quickly, and
so you get commuter suburbs.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
One thing that's always was interesting when I was doing
more work in infosec when people talk and this does
make sense. By the way, this is going to sound
off topic. I was talking to the information security architect
for McDonald's and we were working with them on putting
together a This is why this is interesting me as
a data center thing I used to do a lot
of work. They were talking about putting in a very
secure and encrypted data center for the purposes of protecting
(05:56):
their intellectual property. And I was talking to this guy.
I was like, what is this like your recipes or
what is it you it's a McDonald's protect Yeah, And
this was wild. No, they don't care about their recipes.
They were protecting their software that determines where they should
buy the next piece of real estate to put a McDonald's.
McDonald is actually a real estate company. And I have
(06:17):
seen this in real time with my life because I've
lived in a very remote part of the Arizona Desert.
The frontier for lack of a better term, of Arizona
for a long time, and the first thing that popped
up in this one little area in the middle of
nowhere was a McDonald's. And now everywhere you see a
McDonald show up someplace that seems a little weird, give
it a few years and it's suddenly the epicenter of
a new tract one development.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh, they have some unique algorithm to determine.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They figure that out, and the McDonald's are the first
thing they're own, usually a gas station in a McDonald's,
and it essentially just looks like, oh, this is the
place to stop, take a leak and buy a burden.
But no, they buy all the land around it, and
then they start selling or leasing that to other businesses
as the growth happens. That's a big part of how
the McDonald's Corporation makes its main money. Fascinating, Yeah, and
(07:03):
so aligned with you put a freeway. When you see
a freeway suddenly show up in the middle of nowhere,
someone has a goal to put a giant tract home
development out there and sprawl that city a little more so. Anyways,
going back to the original topic, these people in Tucson
in the sixties were anti freeway and they actively changed
the way Tucson grew. And I think it's one of
(07:24):
the major reasons Tucson, if you've ever been to Tucson
versus Phoenix, is a very different, culturally different vibe of Phoenix. One.
It doesn't sprawl the same, yeah, and it still has
stuff that isn't strip malls. It actually has locally owned businesses,
It actually has some community resources, not all of its
tract home and strip malls. And I think a lot
(07:44):
of that is because of that freeway activism.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Also, you look back into Tucson's past, love him or
hate him, or somewhere in between. The somewhat infamous author
Edward Abbey lived in Tucson and wrote The Monkey Wrench
Gang and wrote a lot of environmental acts divism. He
had a lot of views that were kind of deplorable,
but when it came to climate and when it came
to the environment, he was pretty on point. And his
(08:09):
work spawned an organization called Earth First, which was one
of the not the first, but one of the most
famous direct we're talking direct action, climate activity or Clyde.
You know, they were the ones that were destroying bulldozers,
driving them off cliffs, some burning down Ski Shelle's like
pretty wild stuff because they believed there was no retreat
(08:30):
in defensive Mother Earth. He's a quote, but anyways, he
was Tucson. Earth First birthed in Tucson, and then Earth
First was a victim of the green scare. And many
of them are still in prison for their work. But
they did have an effect. Whether you agree with that
sort of direct activism or not, they had an effect.
But here we are. It's been many years after those
(08:50):
big main activities and all that stuff sort of became quiet.
You don't really think of like direct action activism when
it comes to the environment like you did back in
the eighties and nineties. But when this data center popped
up group started showing up in Tucson, that really felt
very earth First e. I'm not talking direct action like firebombs,
but their speech, the way they were organizing, coming to
(09:13):
city council meetings and not just showing up to speak,
but disrupting the meetings like causing a scene. And their
work so far, and I will mention some of them
later in this topic, how actually sort of forced the
hand of the city Council to deny the project, and
so looking back, you're like, it's interesting to see the
(09:36):
residents of things like those old freeway activists and Edward
Abbey and Earth First it's still there. Tucson still has that,
and you see that coming up now in regards to
this data center project and other things that are starting
to happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I love Tucson and spent a lot of time in
Tucson for years and years and years, and there is
a feeling of like it has got this like diy
community feeling that you do not experience. People think Tucson
and Phoenix are they just small divasion of the same,
But they're incredibly different.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Oh no, yeah, it's hard to describe the difference. You
have to go to both.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, yeah, Oh, you could not go to Phoenix. You
can go almost anywhere else in the US and experience
the same thing as Phoenix. Rite incredibly generic as the city.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, you know, the Phoenix is an old place too,
not as old as Tucson, but the very core the
downtown of Phoenix still has something. However, Phoenix was never
good about preserving any of its historicity or historical content,
and so they never saw a building old enough or
cool enough that they didn't care about bulldozing it and
putting up a Walgreens. Yeah, and so Phoenix is as
I forgot what documentary it was, but it was like
(10:37):
what you just described so many American cities. You drive
to it and it's just like this, like constantly looping
revolving piece of film of Walgreen, McDonald's nail salon, super cuts,
Chili's rinse and repeat. Yeah, and it just every ten miles.
It's the same thing Dutch Brother's coffee. It just never ends.
(10:59):
And Tucson is not yet like that. It still has
still has a soul.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, there are special places in Phoenix who say, like
Guadalupe is cool when my yagie friends live this and
I Sarah, I like getting there. Let's take a little
break and talk about how Tuson and Post is data center.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So there are a number of groups that came togethers
if you can't track everything all at once, because it's
not possible to human being. But the one I've been
keeping eye on and communicating with is called No Desert
Data Center. They have a presence on the web. They're
all over social media, Facebook, Instagram, and for me at least.
And this is not to exclude anyone. If if you're
one of the primary people or groups that we're working
(11:45):
against this and you heard this, please do not feel
like I'm excluding you. This is just the group that
I landed up connecting with and following. So but they
are also doing a good job of aggregating others too.
So almost all of their posts have like a bunch
of other groups tagged in it. So if you were
to look up the No Desert Data Center folks, you're
going to find a lot of them. But they had
some amazing artwork. You know. One of the things that
(12:06):
I think is really important in activism is getting the
attention of the local community. Artwork will do that. So
if they'd this incredible poster that's like says no drop
for data and it's a water drop with a rattlesnake
and havlina and a solaro and they had a rattlesnake
wrapped around a rain drop. Really good stuff that catches
your eye. So they were doing that, but they were
(12:29):
also getting people together. They were having meetings, planning sessions
before city council meetings, getting people together, doing the artwork
there rallying the troops for lack of a better term,
building morale. You don't have activism without morale. And then
they were showing up and showing up in numbers. There's
videos on Instagram on their feet alone, where one of
these city council meetings had over one thousand Twusonians in
(12:52):
it with signs and posters. And they weren't just sitting
there quietly waiting for their thirty seconds to speak. They
were disruptive, They were loud, and they were not going
to not be heard. So that type of activism in
this instance very clearly is the reason that this happened.
Because if you read the writings of a number of
the city council members, they were very sympathetic to the
(13:15):
data center. One of them was talking about, like, this
is the wrong thing to do. If we block the
data center, they're just going to build it anyway, and
it's better for us to be involved because then we
can help tune it to be better for the community. No, no, no, no, no,
you're just whitewashing a horrible thing. And so this group
and other groups called them out on that immediately. Nice
(13:36):
so like, no, that's not it. So I think I'm
answering your question. But it's groups like this, yeah, throwing
up in large numbers, being loud not only online but
in person that forced their hand. That's crazio.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, it's people actually being willing to get out of
the tweets and into the streets so to speak, to
like actually show up in this case of these meetings.
But it doesn't have to just be meetings, could be anywhere.
I guess we should just talk about like Tusunday. It's
from audham Wood. It means dot corner, but it is
not a cool place. It is cooler the Phoenix. Actually,
let's hot that, like this data center would have consumed
(14:13):
a massive amount of energy I presumed, like just keeping
the computers cooled right, and a massive amount of water.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Absolutely, So when you start talking about heat, for example,
I think it's worth I know we don't have infinite
time here on this podcast, but it's worth noting for
people that are not familiar with the concept of heat islands. Yeah,
heat islands are where you build so much metropolitan infrastructure,
including asphalt and concrete, with no thought boards heat or cooling.
(14:40):
You really don't, like Phoenix was built without thinking about that.
They're thinking about it now, but it wasn't built thinking
about it when it sprawled, and it was continually to sprawl. Ye,
Phoenix was always a little hotter than Tuson, just because
of like you know, geographical reasons. But now Phoenix is
measurably and demonstrably hotter yet because it never cool off.
(15:00):
And that's a heat island. So what happens is during
the day, all of that I'll create, all that asphalt,
all those things heat up, and it'll get to at
moments like just this last week, one hundred and eighteen,
one hundred and twenty degree in the middle of the day.
But because the heat island hasn't been architected well and
has no green space to deal with this, at night,
it's still one hundred and five. Jesus see, it never
(15:23):
gets below one hundred and So the problem with heat,
like obviously one hundred and twenty degrees can kill you.
But the problem with the heat is that as you
never get a chance to cool off, heat over time
is more dangerous to human to all living organisms. If
you get a break, that's what keeps you alive. So
it could be one hundred and twenty during the day,
(15:43):
but if it's seventy five at night, that gives you
a moment to heal and recuperate for the next day's heat.
Phoenix is not the worst, believe it or not, but
one of the worst versions of a heat island, and
they are actively working to make that better. But it's
kind of hard to undo what's been done. Yeah, Tucson,
once again, because the sprawl is diminished by activism of
(16:06):
the past, did not become the heat island. Phoenix does.
So while it might be one hundred and thirteen during
the day, it might get down to eighty at night. Yeah,
and that really is a big difference for not only sustainability,
but for the health and safety of everyone that lives there.
One of the things that I find is interesting is
the justification for these data centers is because Arizona is
(16:27):
seen as a place that doesn't have significant natural disaster risk.
But one of the things that's being left out of
the conversation I don't know why this is the case,
is that heat and heat islands are a natural disaster.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah. Yeah, they kill people.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
If the power were to go out in Phoenix at
the wrong time of year, the death toll is hard
to fathom.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, people, Yeah, without air conditioning, it's unsurvivable in
those temperatures, especially for older people, people medically conditioned.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So what have you Anyone at risk? The unhoused is
one example course, which they don't even do proper metrics
and measuring of because our society doesn't care like it should. However,
outside of that, you said people that are at risk,
anyone that has any sort of illness, the young, the elderly,
and anyone like that, they have to live in their
air conditioned spaceship to survive. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, and it would have taken it, like you say,
a huge amount of cooling just to keep this data center.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well that's where this gets so fascinating when they start
proposing these because like, oh, let's be realistic, right, Arizona
is probably low risk for a dramatic earthquake or a hurricane,
that's fair. Yeah, However, it is not a low risk
for a heat casualty event, which is going on every
year and getting worse with climate change. And so these
data centers, the one in twoson that was proposed, what
(17:43):
have consumed and the numbers fluctuate and the course the
numbers you get from the Amazon crew versus others will
be a little different. But as best as I can tell,
the our consumption of this one data center was essentially
the equivalent of that of Metropolitan on pieces. Yeah, so
you double the power load of the entire city for
(18:06):
this data center. And the cooling system. There's two different
ways to cool there's qut unquote air cooled and water cooled.
They can tell you whatever they want. The reality is
they're probably not going to be affected with air cooled
in this environment, so it's going to be water cooled.
And the data on that also seems to be the
water consumption of this was not only equal, may be
(18:27):
worse than that of Tucson itself. Looking at this site
right now. Water positivity claim for the initial two years,
but the initial estimate was six hundred and twenty two
million gallons. Whoa yeah, yeah, with a seven hundred miliwad
expected demand, it's crazy. And so what happens is not
only does the city council just see dollar signs in
(18:49):
their eyes, local electrical infrastructure like TEP, the two soon
Electrical or other data center places where data centers are
located suddenly do things like stop worrying about any form
of carbon positivity, or they get rid of all their
carbon goals so that they can build and work with
people like this, Because if you double the power consumption
(19:11):
of a region overnight for a data center, yeah, think
of the waste that you're going to produce to do that, right, Yeah,
And suddenly how do you produce that power. You're not
going to have a nuclear plant pop up tomorrow, so
you're going to do other things like burn more coal. Yeah,
and so your carbon and carbon positivity or an attempt
(19:32):
to move away from carbon waste, they just throw that
out the door so they can have these lucrative, juicy
contracts with these data centers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, yeah, that is I mean, it's just on the
face of it. When I heard of it, I was
just like, why are they doing this in one of
the hottest places you know in the region. But I
guess yeah, they just don't see heat as a threat.
Having spent a lot of time in the desert there,
I can tell you it is a threat to human life.
So as of last week, right, the Council has refused
(20:02):
it permission to be built in.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Tucson due to intense external pressure. They were they did
vote against it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yes, Yeah, so that's like it's a victory. I guess
it's a victory in a battle, but it's not the
end of the war.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Oh No. That's the problem with all this is that
these companies and these folks will never stop. So I
just saw an article in fact that two days ago, yes,
this project was voted down. However, they're coming back with
just another proposal to do it a slightly different way,
and so each time they just reiterate and change it.
(20:35):
It's just a new battle, right, so they will change
the words however they want to make it sound until
these people will vote yes for it. So like Nikki Lee,
which is the ward for a councilwoman, was the one
that was arguing against essentially saying that we should approve
this project so we can have better control of it,
and the activists set against that. But it's just they're
(20:59):
just going to keep changing the tune until the activists
get essentially worn out. On top of that, this is
not the only data center being proposed in Arizona. There
are currently three of them under proposal. So there's this
one in Tucson and two of them in Panall County.
The one in Panall County. Starts off at the small
(21:19):
size of three hundred acres, but it's proposed to go
to three thousand acres. Jesus, they want to build a
ultimately a three thousand acre data center that sprawls essentially
from southern Phoenix across the entire north south breath of
Penall County on the west side of the I ten
(21:40):
from southwest of Elois, extending through significant what are indigenous
or what were indigenous lands, destroying whatever cultural remains are there.
But imagine if this two hundred and ninety acre data
center was going to equal the power consumption and water
consumption of Tucson. What is a three thousand and acre
(22:01):
data center going to do.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That'ssts us And that one is currently still in its
early phases. That one is called the Laosa Project. The
CEO of this company is named Cold Deep Verma Okay,
Verma v r M. I'm not affectioner, that's the right pronunciation.
But in another example of tech bro narcissism, he's calling
this verma Land and his company is called vermal Land.
(22:25):
It's like the most awful version of Disneyland. We're not
even bringing you rides. We're just gonna drink your water
belt heat into the sky, destroy your desert so you
can have a disturbing psychological parasocial relationship with an ai avatar.
And we're gonna do it at your expense. Vermal Land,
Isn't that lovely?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah? Man, I've seen that's weird. They already owned a
lot of land of the iten, I think.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Mm hmm. Yeah, No, they've been they've been purchasing land
throughout Arizona and sitting on it. But this is where
the three thousand acres come from, is Vermaaland.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Jesus, Yeah, that is uh, that's a mind bogglingly vast
data center.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So I guess like this is one you know.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
As you say, this will either move someone else. So
there will be other struggles, right like the For instance,
the United States is waiving many of the waivers, including
ones that protect indigenous human remains, to build its border
infrastructure right now. Actually a lot of the border infrastructure
is coming out of the U of A tech park
in Tucson, right, That's where a lot of these companies
(23:35):
have their headquarters.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
The people who make the border surveillance infrastructure, what can
we learn from this struggle in Tuson?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
If we're not in Tucson, we might not even be
in the US.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Because there are some unique things about Tucson, right, it
has this history of activism, and it's always been I
don't want to use weird in a derogatory way, but
it just hasn't conformed to like the neoliberal capital model
of a city. But I don't think it's unique. There
were things I think that anyone can take from this victory,
and they continued opposition, right, So what can we learn
(24:07):
from it?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, yeah, No, I think that that's a fair way
to put it in. And I think that speaking of
the reverberance of the history of the area and the
types of movements that came out of there, as we
mentioned already earlier, make Tucson unique in regards to it
being at least culturally more ready than someplace to have
this struggle. However, if they do succeed and completely stop
(24:28):
Project Blue and the two hundred and ninety are data
center near Tucson is stopped, it's not going to stop there.
We see three more data centers being proposed in Arizona proper,
the three thousand acre dream site that I've mentioned already
is they're just going to keep changing and moving and
trying to do it somewhere else. The reality of this
(24:50):
is that when we look back at the workers' rights
movement right there was the IWW the Industrial Workers of
the world. The thing is tucson winning fight against this
data center only is a microcosm of the greater macrocosm
of the consumption of these tech bros and tech industry
people who do not care about the climate, do not
(25:13):
care about you, do not care about the community, do
not care about the water they consume, and they will
destroy everything in their patht for profit. We know that
that is what this form of data capitalism is. And
so Tucson's lesson is everyone has to be this And
I agree with you that Tucson isn't unique in that
there are other places that will have the fight. But
(25:33):
this is truthfully everyone's fight, because the amount of pollution
that would be belched out of this data center or
the ones being proposed in Arizona affects everyone. The reality
of climate change is, in my opinion, indisputable. We're seeing
it every year. It's worse, and it is human induced.
At least to a large degree, unlike some people want
(25:55):
to deny, and having your AI avatar on the Internet
is not in the interests of humanity as a whole.
So we have to work on this a much larger
It's a global issue. Yeah, yeah, it is not. It
is not a local issue, That's what I'm trying to say.
And these data companies like Amazon, like Google, like Apple,
although this isn't Apple in this instance, but all of them. Yeah,
(26:17):
they have the power, if not more of power than
that of a nation state.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Oh yeah, Like I think if my friend's in the
Marshall Islands, right, this small nation state, but one nonetheless, right,
they will have maybe thirty or forty years before the
island's around inhabitable due to the rise of the sea level.
And like their response has been a to double down
on community and supporting each other.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They also did things like if you go in between
the islands on an Atoll and the Marshal Islands, generally
used like a Higgins boat, okay, a landing craft from
World War Two. Right, But they also have these solar
power canoes now to reduce their footprint. They're a tiny,
tiny fraction of a single percent of the world CO
two footprint, and so what happens in Tucson will affect them, right,
(26:59):
and what they do cannot alone help them survive, right.
And they've appealed to the world's solidarity, made a whole
podcast about this, and the world has not shown up
for them.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So, like I think, people, you're right, like this is
a global struggle. It's one that you know. It doesn't
stop in two sign, doesn't stop in Eloy, doesn't stop
in Phoenix, like it stops when these data centers, which
are antithetical to our survival of a species, stop being
built for shit that we don't need.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This is touching on a point that always that frustrates
me frequently when we talk to people who are at
least on the right side minded in terms of being
concerned about our future, and they do the thing right,
They'll do their recycling, or they'll put up a solar panel,
all those things. Sure, but and this isn't to say
that the individuals shouldn't do the ethical and moral thing
that they can do when they can do it. Absolutely.
(27:50):
Can you recycle, sure do it. Can you put up
a solar panel, Absolutely do that. But the real truth
and reality of climate change and the destruction of our
environment and this planet that we all inhabit. It's not
the individual, it's the corporations is at a nation state
level and a corporate level that is going to destroy
our small biosphere one. Ironically, biosphere is we'll talk about
(28:13):
the experiment is near Tucson. Actually Biosphere two was a
little experiment that was a self contained nineteen eighties thing
where these scientists essentially encapsulated themselves in air tight bubbles
to see if they could live with the CO two
production that they were creating within it. The truth was
they couldn't. The ocean turned to algae and they would
have died. So they learned Biosphere two wasn't going to work.
(28:34):
But we have bios for one, and the individual doing
the solar panels or recycling. That's a good thing, and
that's moral, but that's great, it's something we should do
if we can. But it's us we have to act
against the truly destructive forces. And it's the corporations and
the nation states that are belching destruction into our planet,
not the individual recycling or not recycling a soda can.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, exactly, And I think it's one of the greatest
like fraud so edited cannods. These corporations amants to put
off it is to have people attribute blame for climate
change to the person, not recycling.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
That can not the corporation.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, you know, the political spectrum is always challenging, and
I'm not trying to like point at any one thing,
but this is where I think we all have our failings, right,
and I think this is where like progressive space fails often,
which is you'll see tone policing, and you'll see recycling,
and you'll see solar panels. But the reality is that
isn't really doing shit. It just isn't in the grand
(29:34):
scheme of the numbers. It isn't it that data center.
Stopping that data center is an actual victory. That's something
that needs to happen, and those things need to stop
that kind of stuff across the board, not just in Tucson,
not just in Arizona, but everywhere. It needs to be
a thing where everyone comes together and realizes that these
people are consuming the very planet that we need to
(29:56):
live on. You see Elon must talking about going to Mars.
The human race has to go to Mars because a
meteor might hit the Earth. No your company is what
hit the earth, my friend, you're the one destroying the earth,
not that meteor.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah yeah, it's not external and they like the you know,
it's it's coming from within, right, And it is if
you say, like it did the species level threat to us.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The calls literally coming from inside the house.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. But we should
also celebrate these victories and lemp in them. Right, So
if people are interested in learning more about the struggling
in Tucson, perhaps they're they're living in Phoenix and they're
just now learning about vermaaland right or these other AI.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Projects, Like why can they find out more about this?
How can they involve themselves?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, so I want to first of all, I don't
I hope that I didn't come across as saying like
this is hopeless. I don't think it is. Like when
we see the actions of like what made two soon
unique now, and we saw the actions of what Earththirst
was able to achieve through their decades of work, which
they did achieve a lot. It resonates still to this day.
The plan it is a better place because those people
paid a price to do what they did, and that's
(31:04):
just something that never stops, is what it boils down to. Yeah,
these these companies, these people will never stop trying to
destroy our home for their profit. So that's the point
I was trying to make. And so this was a
success and we should celebrate that. Like you said, ye,
But what I want to reference is No Desert Datacenter
dot Com. Again, I want to very much point out
(31:25):
they are not the only ones. Many people came together.
They're the one I have really been paying attention to.
If you go to No Desert Datacenter dot com, they
have links to all their socials Instagram, Blue Sky, Facebook,
and if you go to any of those, their Instagram
is particularly active and has some great motivational art on it.
I will tell you that they will also link you
to a number of other organizations at the same time. Yeah,
(31:48):
so if you're interested in this particular issue of these
data centers in Arizona, I would reference you to that.
You can go to their link tree, which is also
linked from their Instagram, and that'll connect you to a
number of other organizations that are working on this right
now and to their merit the Project Blue. They succeeded
at least delaying Project Blue, hopefully stopping it. Yeah, and
(32:09):
the next post they put up was about the data
center in Eloy, so they understand that this is broader
in scope than just one desert.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, data center.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
That's great. Yeah, it's like it was in this movie
There will be Blood if you ever saw that. There's
an amazing line. Of course, I drink your milkshake if
you drink the water south of Tucson or don't. Yeah,
but then put a data center just north of Tucson.
It doesn't matter. It's the same watershed. Yeah, yeah, right,
it's the same same problem. So no desert datacenter dot
(32:38):
com and that'll get you to a bunch of different
links and a bunch of updates about what's going on
with this perfect and color.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
If people want to follow your weg, I mean you
have a presence on the internet.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, my project is not necessarily about the desert
data center, but I'm definitely obviously very sympathetic and part
of that too, just not on my project. I'm in
Range TV, So if you want to find all my work,
you can find it by just easily going to Enrange
dot tv. And there's a link on there called watch
and that'll get you to all my socials. I distribute
my video content. Decentralized YouTube is the is the line
(33:11):
in the room must be realistic. But I have my
content in multiple different places. The easiest way to find
all of them is range dot tv, and you'll find
my socials there too, which is Facebook and Blue Sky
and all that. And of course my topic is more
about firearms history and civil rights and how they intersect.
But if our ability to breathe and drink water isn't
human rights, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's how we should see these things.
Thank you so much for your time, Kyle. That was great, James,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
For having me. I appreciate It's always a real treat
to be on any of the shows here, and I
love all the work you all are doing, and together
hopefully we can I don't know how to put it
stop these corporate maggots from eating our not yet corpse
of an earth.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, man, I think it's like, I guess I'll finish
you up by saying like, it doesn't matter if Way
confronting fascism, It doesn't matter if Way confronting this destruction
of our planet right. The only way through this is
to go and the only way that we defeat this
is through building stronger communities to show up for one another.
And that's something that you have documented extensively in the
historical parts of your channel. So I think there is
(34:10):
a connection that I hope people can see there.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, community defense is also protecting our planets so we
can live on it. Yeah, I agree with that, and
we have to do that together. Thousands of people showing
up to city council meeting at Tucson is a glimmer
of light in this moment, and hopefully we can see
more of them.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, all right, Thanks KYP.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here
listened directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Thanks for listening.
Also media, Hello and welcome to the show. It's meet
James today, and I'm very fortunate to be joined by
a friend of the show, Kyle Cassada.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
How you doing, Carl, Oh, I'm doing great. And when
I hear a friend of the show with any of
you all or you James, it's a real honor to me.
So I'm honored to be your friend and a friend
of the show. So I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
No, thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We always appreciate you being here and everything you do
within range.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Kyle.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
We're not here to talk about gunstaff today Italy, which
is nice in a way because we're here to talk
about something which is also very important right in terms
of keeping people safe, and that is activism against corporate
destruction of our environment. We're here to talk about something
called Project Blue. Specifically, can you explain to listeners who
are not familiar, folks who maybe you haven't heard about it,
(00:49):
what Project Blue was proposed to be.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, and it's not dead either. We'll talk about that more.
But the Project Blue, we'll see a two hundred ninety
acre data center. Project put that in scope, two hundred
and ninety acres whoa data center South of Tucson through
a company called Beel Infrastructure that through people's hard work,
(01:12):
came to find out it was for Amazon. But a
two hundred and ninety are AI data center south of Tucson.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, that is vast.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I'm trying to think of a like, I can't think
of a comparison for two hundred ninety eightis, but that
that is a huge amount of like computing power, right, I.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Guess it's hard to fathom that kind of space when
you think about it. Yeah, there are maps of what
this proposed data center's footprint is. And if you take
the rough rectangle of it and place it over Tucson proper,
the city of Tucson, that's they propose it to be
just south of it pretty much envelops and it consumes
the entire downtown of Tucson in multiple neighborhoods. That's how
(01:54):
big this is. And it's one data center.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, what was the data centers to do? Like what
if people aren't familiar, right, what is the data center
to do? What do they do with the big computer?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well? Okay, so for people that aren't really into the
tech sector of things, a data center is essentially think
of something the size of a bigger than a mall
that has nothing but giant computer data banks in it.
So it's a giant place where you would think of
your old mainframes in the old days. It's not mainframes anymore,
but like it's racks and racks and racks of computing
power and connectivity to the Internet for the purposes of
(02:28):
whatever Amazon would want to do with this. So if
you go to use Amazon's infrastructure or use their AI,
that buzzphrase it now is everywhere the computers that do
those things or those requests or decide what products they
want to market to through their algorithm. That's what these
data centers do. So it's essentially an entire city of
(02:49):
just machines. Yeah, a tech cropolis is an interesting way
to put it. Like, not a netcropo, it's a tech cropolis. Yeah.
So imagine a few people maintaining an entire city of.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Machines, right and actively participating in like undermining the value
of labor for everyone else with this AI shit.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well, that's part of this project're going to get into
a minute. Is one of the things they like to
propose is that it's going to bring jobs, but only
at the beginning and we'll talk about that more. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, Well, let's talk about like people in Tucson did not.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Want this data center, right, Like there was a broad
based and well organized opposition to it. So perhaps we
should explain like why why? I mean, I guess people
listen to podcast are inclined to think data center bad.
But can you explain the impact that this would have
had on the city and the turning area?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh? Yeah, absolutely, So it's very interesting to me to
think about. So these data centers of this accord are
if you're interested in this topic and start googling, you're
going to find that this is, of course not the
first large or mega data center that's been implemented across
this country, because a number that are in Texas and
they are belching large amounts of pollution into the environment.
Cities nearby get absolutely destroyed by it. Typically they're brought
(03:58):
in through some sort of tax incentives by the local
city council or local county, and so that's exactly what
was happening here with Tucson. So the local city council
was pretty friendly to the idea. They were talking to
this beal infrastructure to bring in Project Blue. They were
giving tax cuts. They were giving all these incentives to
(04:19):
bring this gigantic megalithic thing into just south of town.
And part of the insidiousness of this is that this
was going to go forward until someone noticed it. Yeah,
it was just going to happen all of a sudden
one day this thing is there, right, But it was noticed.
And I don't honestly know exactly how it got noticed,
but it got noticed. And one of the things I
really find interesting, historically speaking, is how certain places and
(04:41):
cultures resonate over time with historical events from the past.
Tucson historically is an interesting place in terms of its
environmental activism. There's a number of things that happened in
Tucson in the nineteen sixties. There were groups that were
actively fighting the spread of highways highway infrastructure. They were
anti freeway, and their reasoning and rationale was it that
(05:04):
freeways were the arterial infrastructure that allowed for the destructive
spread of track pum developments. So the way to help,
one way is to prevent the destruction of the local
environment and the spread of a city was to diminish
its freeway footprint. And I think you can see this
is true if you look at any big city now
(05:25):
like Phoenix is essentially a hive city, and all of
the growth comes because of freeways, right.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Because people can get to work or whatever quickly, and
so you get commuter suburbs.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
One thing that's always was interesting when I was doing
more work in infosec when people talk and this does
make sense. By the way, this is going to sound
off topic. I was talking to the information security architect
for McDonald's and we were working with them on putting
together a This is why this is interesting me as
a data center thing I used to do a lot
of work. They were talking about putting in a very
secure and encrypted data center for the purposes of protecting
(05:56):
their intellectual property. And I was talking to this guy.
I was like, what is this like your recipes or
what is it you it's a McDonald's protect Yeah, And
this was wild. No, they don't care about their recipes.
They were protecting their software that determines where they should
buy the next piece of real estate to put a McDonald's.
McDonald is actually a real estate company. And I have
(06:17):
seen this in real time with my life because I've
lived in a very remote part of the Arizona Desert.
The frontier for lack of a better term, of Arizona
for a long time, and the first thing that popped
up in this one little area in the middle of
nowhere was a McDonald's. And now everywhere you see a
McDonald show up someplace that seems a little weird, give
it a few years and it's suddenly the epicenter of
a new tract one development.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Oh, they have some unique algorithm to determine.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They figure that out, and the McDonald's are the first
thing they're own, usually a gas station in a McDonald's,
and it essentially just looks like, oh, this is the
place to stop, take a leak and buy a burden.
But no, they buy all the land around it, and
then they start selling or leasing that to other businesses
as the growth happens. That's a big part of how
the McDonald's Corporation makes its main money. Fascinating, Yeah, and
(07:03):
so aligned with you put a freeway. When you see
a freeway suddenly show up in the middle of nowhere,
someone has a goal to put a giant tract home
development out there and sprawl that city a little more so. Anyways,
going back to the original topic, these people in Tucson
in the sixties were anti freeway and they actively changed
the way Tucson grew. And I think it's one of
(07:24):
the major reasons Tucson, if you've ever been to Tucson
versus Phoenix, is a very different, culturally different vibe of Phoenix. One.
It doesn't sprawl the same, yeah, and it still has
stuff that isn't strip malls. It actually has locally owned businesses,
It actually has some community resources, not all of its
tract home and strip malls. And I think a lot
(07:44):
of that is because of that freeway activism.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Also, you look back into Tucson's past, love him or
hate him, or somewhere in between. The somewhat infamous author
Edward Abbey lived in Tucson and wrote The Monkey Wrench
Gang and wrote a lot of environmental acts divism. He
had a lot of views that were kind of deplorable,
but when it came to climate and when it came
to the environment, he was pretty on point. And his
(08:09):
work spawned an organization called Earth First, which was one
of the not the first, but one of the most
famous direct we're talking direct action, climate activity or Clyde.
You know, they were the ones that were destroying bulldozers,
driving them off cliffs, some burning down Ski Shelle's like
pretty wild stuff because they believed there was no retreat
(08:30):
in defensive Mother Earth. He's a quote, but anyways, he
was Tucson. Earth First birthed in Tucson, and then Earth
First was a victim of the green scare. And many
of them are still in prison for their work. But
they did have an effect. Whether you agree with that
sort of direct activism or not, they had an effect.
But here we are. It's been many years after those
(08:50):
big main activities and all that stuff sort of became quiet.
You don't really think of like direct action activism when
it comes to the environment like you did back in
the eighties and nineties. But when this data center popped
up group started showing up in Tucson, that really felt
very earth First e. I'm not talking direct action like firebombs,
but their speech, the way they were organizing, coming to
(09:13):
city council meetings and not just showing up to speak,
but disrupting the meetings like causing a scene. And their
work so far, and I will mention some of them
later in this topic, how actually sort of forced the
hand of the city Council to deny the project, and
so looking back, you're like, it's interesting to see the
(09:36):
residents of things like those old freeway activists and Edward
Abbey and Earth First it's still there. Tucson still has that,
and you see that coming up now in regards to
this data center project and other things that are starting
to happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I love Tucson and spent a lot of time in
Tucson for years and years and years, and there is
a feeling of like it has got this like diy
community feeling that you do not experience. People think Tucson
and Phoenix are they just small divasion of the same,
But they're incredibly different.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Oh no, yeah, it's hard to describe the difference. You
have to go to both.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, yeah, Oh, you could not go to Phoenix. You
can go almost anywhere else in the US and experience
the same thing as Phoenix. Rite incredibly generic as the city.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, you know, the Phoenix is an old place too,
not as old as Tucson, but the very core the
downtown of Phoenix still has something. However, Phoenix was never
good about preserving any of its historicity or historical content,
and so they never saw a building old enough or
cool enough that they didn't care about bulldozing it and
putting up a Walgreens. Yeah, and so Phoenix is as
I forgot what documentary it was, but it was like
(10:37):
what you just described so many American cities. You drive
to it and it's just like this, like constantly looping
revolving piece of film of Walgreen, McDonald's nail salon, super cuts,
Chili's rinse and repeat. Yeah, and it just every ten miles.
It's the same thing Dutch Brother's coffee. It just never ends.
(10:59):
And Tucson is not yet like that. It still has
still has a soul.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, there are special places in Phoenix who say, like
Guadalupe is cool when my yagie friends live this and
I Sarah, I like getting there. Let's take a little
break and talk about how Tuson and Post is data center.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So there are a number of groups that came togethers
if you can't track everything all at once, because it's
not possible to human being. But the one I've been
keeping eye on and communicating with is called No Desert
Data Center. They have a presence on the web. They're
all over social media, Facebook, Instagram, and for me at least.
And this is not to exclude anyone. If if you're
one of the primary people or groups that we're working
(11:45):
against this and you heard this, please do not feel
like I'm excluding you. This is just the group that
I landed up connecting with and following. So but they
are also doing a good job of aggregating others too.
So almost all of their posts have like a bunch
of other groups tagged in it. So if you were
to look up the No Desert Data Center folks, you're
going to find a lot of them. But they had
some amazing artwork. You know. One of the things that
(12:06):
I think is really important in activism is getting the
attention of the local community. Artwork will do that. So
if they'd this incredible poster that's like says no drop
for data and it's a water drop with a rattlesnake
and havlina and a solaro and they had a rattlesnake
wrapped around a rain drop. Really good stuff that catches
your eye. So they were doing that, but they were
(12:29):
also getting people together. They were having meetings, planning sessions
before city council meetings, getting people together, doing the artwork
there rallying the troops for lack of a better term,
building morale. You don't have activism without morale. And then
they were showing up and showing up in numbers. There's
videos on Instagram on their feet alone, where one of
these city council meetings had over one thousand Twusonians in
(12:52):
it with signs and posters. And they weren't just sitting
there quietly waiting for their thirty seconds to speak. They
were disruptive, They were loud, and they were not going
to not be heard. So that type of activism in
this instance very clearly is the reason that this happened.
Because if you read the writings of a number of
the city council members, they were very sympathetic to the
(13:15):
data center. One of them was talking about, like, this
is the wrong thing to do. If we block the
data center, they're just going to build it anyway, and
it's better for us to be involved because then we
can help tune it to be better for the community. No, no, no, no, no,
you're just whitewashing a horrible thing. And so this group
and other groups called them out on that immediately. Nice
(13:36):
so like, no, that's not it. So I think I'm
answering your question. But it's groups like this, yeah, throwing
up in large numbers, being loud not only online but
in person that forced their hand. That's crazio.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, it's people actually being willing to get out of
the tweets and into the streets so to speak, to
like actually show up in this case of these meetings.
But it doesn't have to just be meetings, could be anywhere.
I guess we should just talk about like Tusunday. It's
from audham Wood. It means dot corner, but it is
not a cool place. It is cooler the Phoenix. Actually,
let's hot that, like this data center would have consumed
(14:13):
a massive amount of energy I presumed, like just keeping
the computers cooled right, and a massive amount of water.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Absolutely, So when you start talking about heat, for example,
I think it's worth I know we don't have infinite
time here on this podcast, but it's worth noting for
people that are not familiar with the concept of heat islands. Yeah,
heat islands are where you build so much metropolitan infrastructure,
including asphalt and concrete, with no thought boards heat or cooling.
(14:40):
You really don't, like Phoenix was built without thinking about that.
They're thinking about it now, but it wasn't built thinking
about it when it sprawled, and it was continually to sprawl. Ye,
Phoenix was always a little hotter than Tuson, just because
of like you know, geographical reasons. But now Phoenix is
measurably and demonstrably hotter yet because it never cool off.
(15:00):
And that's a heat island. So what happens is during
the day, all of that I'll create, all that asphalt,
all those things heat up, and it'll get to at
moments like just this last week, one hundred and eighteen,
one hundred and twenty degree in the middle of the day.
But because the heat island hasn't been architected well and
has no green space to deal with this, at night,
it's still one hundred and five. Jesus see, it never
(15:23):
gets below one hundred and So the problem with heat,
like obviously one hundred and twenty degrees can kill you.
But the problem with the heat is that as you
never get a chance to cool off, heat over time
is more dangerous to human to all living organisms. If
you get a break, that's what keeps you alive. So
it could be one hundred and twenty during the day,
(15:43):
but if it's seventy five at night, that gives you
a moment to heal and recuperate for the next day's heat.
Phoenix is not the worst, believe it or not, but
one of the worst versions of a heat island, and
they are actively working to make that better. But it's
kind of hard to undo what's been done. Yeah, Tucson,
once again, because the sprawl is diminished by activism of
(16:06):
the past, did not become the heat island. Phoenix does.
So while it might be one hundred and thirteen during
the day, it might get down to eighty at night. Yeah,
and that really is a big difference for not only sustainability,
but for the health and safety of everyone that lives there.
One of the things that I find is interesting is
the justification for these data centers is because Arizona is
(16:27):
seen as a place that doesn't have significant natural disaster risk.
But one of the things that's being left out of
the conversation I don't know why this is the case,
is that heat and heat islands are a natural disaster.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah. Yeah, they kill people.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
If the power were to go out in Phoenix at
the wrong time of year, the death toll is hard
to fathom.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, people, Yeah, without air conditioning, it's unsurvivable in
those temperatures, especially for older people, people medically conditioned.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So what have you Anyone at risk? The unhoused is
one example course, which they don't even do proper metrics
and measuring of because our society doesn't care like it should. However,
outside of that, you said people that are at risk,
anyone that has any sort of illness, the young, the elderly,
and anyone like that, they have to live in their
air conditioned spaceship to survive. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, and it would have taken it, like you say,
a huge amount of cooling just to keep this data center.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well that's where this gets so fascinating when they start
proposing these because like, oh, let's be realistic, right, Arizona
is probably low risk for a dramatic earthquake or a hurricane,
that's fair. Yeah, However, it is not a low risk
for a heat casualty event, which is going on every
year and getting worse with climate change. And so these
data centers, the one in twoson that was proposed, what
(17:43):
have consumed and the numbers fluctuate and the course the
numbers you get from the Amazon crew versus others will
be a little different. But as best as I can tell,
the our consumption of this one data center was essentially
the equivalent of that of Metropolitan on pieces. Yeah, so
you double the power load of the entire city for
(18:06):
this data center. And the cooling system. There's two different
ways to cool there's qut unquote air cooled and water cooled.
They can tell you whatever they want. The reality is
they're probably not going to be affected with air cooled
in this environment, so it's going to be water cooled.
And the data on that also seems to be the
water consumption of this was not only equal, may be
(18:27):
worse than that of Tucson itself. Looking at this site
right now. Water positivity claim for the initial two years,
but the initial estimate was six hundred and twenty two
million gallons. Whoa yeah, yeah, with a seven hundred miliwad
expected demand, it's crazy. And so what happens is not
only does the city council just see dollar signs in
(18:49):
their eyes, local electrical infrastructure like TEP, the two soon
Electrical or other data center places where data centers are
located suddenly do things like stop worrying about any form
of carbon positivity, or they get rid of all their
carbon goals so that they can build and work with
people like this, Because if you double the power consumption
(19:11):
of a region overnight for a data center, yeah, think
of the waste that you're going to produce to do that, right, Yeah,
And suddenly how do you produce that power. You're not
going to have a nuclear plant pop up tomorrow, so
you're going to do other things like burn more coal. Yeah,
and so your carbon and carbon positivity or an attempt
(19:32):
to move away from carbon waste, they just throw that
out the door so they can have these lucrative, juicy
contracts with these data centers.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, yeah, that is I mean, it's just on the
face of it. When I heard of it, I was
just like, why are they doing this in one of
the hottest places you know in the region. But I
guess yeah, they just don't see heat as a threat.
Having spent a lot of time in the desert there,
I can tell you it is a threat to human life.
So as of last week, right, the Council has refused
(20:02):
it permission to be built in.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Tucson due to intense external pressure. They were they did
vote against it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yes, Yeah, so that's like it's a victory. I guess
it's a victory in a battle, but it's not the
end of the war.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Oh No. That's the problem with all this is that
these companies and these folks will never stop. So I
just saw an article in fact that two days ago, yes,
this project was voted down. However, they're coming back with
just another proposal to do it a slightly different way,
and so each time they just reiterate and change it.
(20:35):
It's just a new battle, right, so they will change
the words however they want to make it sound until
these people will vote yes for it. So like Nikki Lee,
which is the ward for a councilwoman, was the one
that was arguing against essentially saying that we should approve
this project so we can have better control of it,
and the activists set against that. But it's just they're
(20:59):
just going to keep changing the tune until the activists
get essentially worn out. On top of that, this is
not the only data center being proposed in Arizona. There
are currently three of them under proposal. So there's this
one in Tucson and two of them in Panall County.
The one in Panall County. Starts off at the small
(21:19):
size of three hundred acres, but it's proposed to go
to three thousand acres. Jesus, they want to build a
ultimately a three thousand acre data center that sprawls essentially
from southern Phoenix across the entire north south breath of
Penall County on the west side of the I ten
(21:40):
from southwest of Elois, extending through significant what are indigenous
or what were indigenous lands, destroying whatever cultural remains are there.
But imagine if this two hundred and ninety acre data
center was going to equal the power consumption and water
consumption of Tucson. What is a three thousand and acre
(22:01):
data center going to do.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah, yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That'ssts us And that one is currently still in its
early phases. That one is called the Laosa Project. The
CEO of this company is named Cold Deep Verma Okay,
Verma v r M. I'm not affectioner, that's the right pronunciation.
But in another example of tech bro narcissism, he's calling
this verma Land and his company is called vermal Land.
(22:25):
It's like the most awful version of Disneyland. We're not
even bringing you rides. We're just gonna drink your water
belt heat into the sky, destroy your desert so you
can have a disturbing psychological parasocial relationship with an ai avatar.
And we're gonna do it at your expense. Vermal Land,
Isn't that lovely?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah? Man, I've seen that's weird. They already owned a
lot of land of the iten, I think.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Mm hmm. Yeah, No, they've been they've been purchasing land
throughout Arizona and sitting on it. But this is where
the three thousand acres come from, is Vermaaland.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Jesus, Yeah, that is uh, that's a mind bogglingly vast
data center.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So I guess like this is one you know.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
As you say, this will either move someone else. So
there will be other struggles, right like the For instance,
the United States is waiving many of the waivers, including
ones that protect indigenous human remains, to build its border
infrastructure right now. Actually a lot of the border infrastructure
is coming out of the U of A tech park
in Tucson, right, That's where a lot of these companies
(23:35):
have their headquarters.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
The people who make the border surveillance infrastructure, what can
we learn from this struggle in Tuson?
Speaker 3 (23:42):
If we're not in Tucson, we might not even be
in the US.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Because there are some unique things about Tucson, right, it
has this history of activism, and it's always been I
don't want to use weird in a derogatory way, but
it just hasn't conformed to like the neoliberal capital model
of a city. But I don't think it's unique. There
were things I think that anyone can take from this victory,
and they continued opposition, right, So what can we learn
(24:07):
from it?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, yeah, No, I think that that's a fair way
to put it in. And I think that speaking of
the reverberance of the history of the area and the
types of movements that came out of there, as we
mentioned already earlier, make Tucson unique in regards to it
being at least culturally more ready than someplace to have
this struggle. However, if they do succeed and completely stop
(24:28):
Project Blue and the two hundred and ninety are data
center near Tucson is stopped, it's not going to stop there.
We see three more data centers being proposed in Arizona proper,
the three thousand acre dream site that I've mentioned already
is they're just going to keep changing and moving and
trying to do it somewhere else. The reality of this
(24:50):
is that when we look back at the workers' rights
movement right there was the IWW the Industrial Workers of
the world. The thing is tucson winning fight against this
data center only is a microcosm of the greater macrocosm
of the consumption of these tech bros and tech industry
people who do not care about the climate, do not
(25:13):
care about you, do not care about the community, do
not care about the water they consume, and they will
destroy everything in their patht for profit. We know that
that is what this form of data capitalism is. And
so Tucson's lesson is everyone has to be this And
I agree with you that Tucson isn't unique in that
there are other places that will have the fight. But
(25:33):
this is truthfully everyone's fight, because the amount of pollution
that would be belched out of this data center or
the ones being proposed in Arizona affects everyone. The reality
of climate change is, in my opinion, indisputable. We're seeing
it every year. It's worse, and it is human induced.
At least to a large degree, unlike some people want
(25:55):
to deny, and having your AI avatar on the Internet
is not in the interests of humanity as a whole.
So we have to work on this a much larger
It's a global issue. Yeah, yeah, it is not. It
is not a local issue, That's what I'm trying to say.
And these data companies like Amazon, like Google, like Apple,
although this isn't Apple in this instance, but all of them. Yeah,
(26:17):
they have the power, if not more of power than
that of a nation state.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Oh yeah, Like I think if my friend's in the
Marshall Islands, right, this small nation state, but one nonetheless, right,
they will have maybe thirty or forty years before the
island's around inhabitable due to the rise of the sea level.
And like their response has been a to double down
on community and supporting each other.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
They also did things like if you go in between
the islands on an Atoll and the Marshal Islands, generally
used like a Higgins boat, okay, a landing craft from
World War Two. Right, But they also have these solar
power canoes now to reduce their footprint. They're a tiny,
tiny fraction of a single percent of the world CO
two footprint, and so what happens in Tucson will affect them, right,
(26:59):
and what they do cannot alone help them survive, right.
And they've appealed to the world's solidarity, made a whole
podcast about this, and the world has not shown up
for them.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
So, like I think, people, you're right, like this is
a global struggle. It's one that you know. It doesn't
stop in two sign, doesn't stop in Eloy, doesn't stop
in Phoenix, like it stops when these data centers, which
are antithetical to our survival of a species, stop being
built for shit that we don't need.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This is touching on a point that always that frustrates
me frequently when we talk to people who are at
least on the right side minded in terms of being
concerned about our future, and they do the thing right,
They'll do their recycling, or they'll put up a solar panel,
all those things. Sure, but and this isn't to say
that the individuals shouldn't do the ethical and moral thing
that they can do when they can do it. Absolutely.
(27:50):
Can you recycle, sure do it. Can you put up
a solar panel, Absolutely do that. But the real truth
and reality of climate change and the destruction of our
environment and this planet that we all inhabit. It's not
the individual, it's the corporations is at a nation state
level and a corporate level that is going to destroy
our small biosphere one. Ironically, biosphere is we'll talk about
(28:13):
the experiment is near Tucson. Actually Biosphere two was a
little experiment that was a self contained nineteen eighties thing
where these scientists essentially encapsulated themselves in air tight bubbles
to see if they could live with the CO two
production that they were creating within it. The truth was
they couldn't. The ocean turned to algae and they would
have died. So they learned Biosphere two wasn't going to work.
(28:34):
But we have bios for one, and the individual doing
the solar panels or recycling. That's a good thing, and
that's moral, but that's great, it's something we should do
if we can. But it's us we have to act
against the truly destructive forces. And it's the corporations and
the nation states that are belching destruction into our planet,
not the individual recycling or not recycling a soda can.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, exactly, And I think it's one of the greatest
like fraud so edited cannods. These corporations amants to put
off it is to have people attribute blame for climate
change to the person, not recycling.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
That can not the corporation.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, you know, the political spectrum is always challenging, and
I'm not trying to like point at any one thing,
but this is where I think we all have our failings, right,
and I think this is where like progressive space fails often,
which is you'll see tone policing, and you'll see recycling,
and you'll see solar panels. But the reality is that
isn't really doing shit. It just isn't in the grand
(29:34):
scheme of the numbers. It isn't it that data center.
Stopping that data center is an actual victory. That's something
that needs to happen, and those things need to stop
that kind of stuff across the board, not just in Tucson,
not just in Arizona, but everywhere. It needs to be
a thing where everyone comes together and realizes that these
people are consuming the very planet that we need to
(29:56):
live on. You see Elon must talking about going to Mars.
The human race has to go to Mars because a
meteor might hit the Earth. No your company is what
hit the earth, my friend, you're the one destroying the earth,
not that meteor.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah yeah, it's not external and they like the you know,
it's it's coming from within, right, And it is if
you say, like it did the species level threat to us.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The calls literally coming from inside the house.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. But we should
also celebrate these victories and lemp in them. Right, So
if people are interested in learning more about the struggling
in Tucson, perhaps they're they're living in Phoenix and they're
just now learning about vermaaland right or these other AI.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Projects, Like why can they find out more about this?
How can they involve themselves?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, so I want to first of all, I don't
I hope that I didn't come across as saying like
this is hopeless. I don't think it is. Like when
we see the actions of like what made two soon
unique now, and we saw the actions of what Earththirst
was able to achieve through their decades of work, which
they did achieve a lot. It resonates still to this day.
The plan it is a better place because those people
paid a price to do what they did, and that's
(31:04):
just something that never stops, is what it boils down to. Yeah,
these these companies, these people will never stop trying to
destroy our home for their profit. So that's the point
I was trying to make. And so this was a
success and we should celebrate that. Like you said, ye,
But what I want to reference is No Desert Datacenter
dot Com. Again, I want to very much point out
(31:25):
they are not the only ones. Many people came together.
They're the one I have really been paying attention to.
If you go to No Desert Datacenter dot com, they
have links to all their socials Instagram, Blue Sky, Facebook,
and if you go to any of those, their Instagram
is particularly active and has some great motivational art on it.
I will tell you that they will also link you
to a number of other organizations at the same time. Yeah,
(31:48):
so if you're interested in this particular issue of these
data centers in Arizona, I would reference you to that.
You can go to their link tree, which is also
linked from their Instagram, and that'll connect you to a
number of other organizations that are working on this right
now and to their merit the Project Blue. They succeeded
at least delaying Project Blue, hopefully stopping it. Yeah, and
(32:09):
the next post they put up was about the data
center in Eloy, so they understand that this is broader
in scope than just one desert.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Yeah, data center.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
That's great. Yeah, it's like it was in this movie
There will be Blood if you ever saw that. There's
an amazing line. Of course, I drink your milkshake if
you drink the water south of Tucson or don't. Yeah,
but then put a data center just north of Tucson.
It doesn't matter. It's the same watershed. Yeah, yeah, right,
it's the same same problem. So no desert datacenter dot
(32:38):
com and that'll get you to a bunch of different
links and a bunch of updates about what's going on
with this perfect and color.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
If people want to follow your weg, I mean you
have a presence on the internet.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah, yeah, my project is not necessarily about the desert
data center, but I'm definitely obviously very sympathetic and part
of that too, just not on my project. I'm in
Range TV, So if you want to find all my work,
you can find it by just easily going to Enrange
dot tv. And there's a link on there called watch
and that'll get you to all my socials. I distribute
my video content. Decentralized YouTube is the is the line
(33:11):
in the room must be realistic. But I have my
content in multiple different places. The easiest way to find
all of them is range dot tv, and you'll find
my socials there too, which is Facebook and Blue Sky
and all that. And of course my topic is more
about firearms history and civil rights and how they intersect.
But if our ability to breathe and drink water isn't
human rights, I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's how we should see these things.
Thank you so much for your time, Kyle. That was great, James,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
For having me. I appreciate It's always a real treat
to be on any of the shows here, and I
love all the work you all are doing, and together
hopefully we can I don't know how to put it
stop these corporate maggots from eating our not yet corpse
of an earth.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, man, I think it's like, I guess I'll finish
you up by saying like, it doesn't matter if Way
confronting fascism, It doesn't matter if Way confronting this destruction
of our planet right. The only way through this is
to go and the only way that we defeat this
is through building stronger communities to show up for one another.
And that's something that you have documented extensively in the
historical parts of your channel. So I think there is
(34:10):
a connection that I hope people can see there.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah, community defense is also protecting our planets so we
can live on it. Yeah, I agree with that, and
we have to do that together. Thousands of people showing
up to city council meeting at Tucson is a glimmer
of light in this moment, and hopefully we can see
more of them.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Yeah, all right, Thanks KYP.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here
listened directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.