Data Centers Are Coming For Us All
The case has already been made as to why AI is terrible for us all, from men using it to undress women (and minors), to it creating an economic bubble that is sure to crash our economy, to its disgustingly high water consumption, to its detrimental effects on society’s critical thinking skills, and its role in the expansion of the surveillance state. No matter what angle you come at it from, AI is destroying our society and our world and there is little that three dogs in trenchcoats can add to the conversation. What these scrappy pups can contribute is a look at how the construction of data centers is affecting communities across Wisconsin.
First, a disclaimer. This is very much an ongoing topic that is moving quickly, and we will try to keep this article as up to date as possible. However, there may be aspects that have changed since publication date. Please contact us at milwaukeebeagle@gmail.com if you have any corrections/updates to share.
Attempts to construct data centers are springing up across Wisconsin, but one recurring theme throughout these attempts is that our communities (rightfully) do not want these data centers in our backyards. Thankfully, successful organizing has halted construction plans in Menomonie and Caledonia. Unfortunately, as is often the case when power and money are involved, other organizing efforts have not had the same success. For example, the Port Washington Common Council approved the construction of a data center, ignoring that the majority of the community opposes its construction and violently repressing this opposition when faced directly with it. Fortunately, while construction has begun on this data center, the fight is not over as residents have launched a recall campaign against the mayor who approved the project. We hope this recall effort is successful and that it serves as a warning to other elected officials to not follow the siren song of these data centers. It appears that one possible new construction site may be Greenleaf, where residents have received mysterious offers of boatloads of cash for their land from an LLC that’s not providing any information, a lack of transparency that should be a red flag immediately. The community is organizing against it and we wholeheartedly support them.
Opposition to data centers is a mobilizing force for communities, and rightfully so. One or two data centers can use more energy than the entire state of Wisconsin and more water than an entire city, raising costs for all of us in ways we cannot afford. In fact, some communities next to data centers have reported that they lost access to water after the construction. Noise and light pollution are also common concerns as well. Electricity and water use were actually declining in Wisconsin (which is great environmental news) until the construction of data centers began. Use is now rising. How can elected officials who shill for data centers justify bringing these blights to their communities? Supposedly the jobs and investment these centers will bring to the community outweigh any negative effects. These promised jobs are often grossly over-exaggerated; we need only look just outside the US to countries that have already fallen prey to data centers’ siren song to see that this is the case. Data centers have been constructed across Chile under the premise that they would bring an explosion of jobs to their communities. But the permits suggested otherwise, and once construction was completed, the few jobs that were created were indeed mostly low-paying cleaning and security jobs, a far cry from the promised plethora of high-paying tech jobs. This serves as a reminder that the struggle against data centers is a global struggle and that keeping these data centers out of our Wisconsin communities is just the start. We need to ensure they are not built anywhere.
And let’s acknowledge that all these false promises of jobs and economic growth could be giving Wisconsinites a sense of deja vu after the whole Foxconn fiasco made similar promises, invested over a billion dollars of public money, and never actually built anything. These tech companies will promise us the moon in order to build their centers, but cannot be trusted to keep their word. Resisting these centers, though, may put us into conflict with groups we typically support on the left, namely construction unions. IUPAT (International Union of Painters and Allied Trades) has come out in support of data centers due to the number of jobs the construction will create. While workers’ rights are worth fighting for, unions, especially in the USA, have been on the wrong side of history, fervently supporting Israel and US Imperialism along with tacitly throwing their support behind Trump in the last election. Supporting workers’ rights does not mean that unions are perfect entities beyond criticism. Every situation should be approached with nuance and critical thinking. And applying even the slightest analysis reveals just how shortsighted the union’s support here is. Sure, construction will create jobs, but what happens after construction is done? What additional work to maintain the initial jobs created will exist after completion of a data center? And then there is the moral question. Would we support the construction of an ICE detention facility just because it is built with union labor? The answer is obviously not.
In that same podcast where IUPAT throws their support behind data centers, however, journalist Kristin Brey notes how stopping these centers creates some unique political coalitions. Opposition to data centers seems to be a unifying issue across the political spectrum. This is a very tangible issue that can help left-wing populists build support in communities that might otherwise be written off by the Democrat establishment. If we want to win back control of Wisconsin’s legislature in 2026, we will need to win in communities that have traditionally voted Republican. Opposition to data enters may be just the issue we need to win.
Instead of playing wack-a-mole with these data centers, where individual communities organize against individual data centers as they pop up, the more sustainable solution would be statewide regulation. Even better, a complete moratorium on data center construction, like the one proposed by governor candidate Francesca Hong. The regulations proposed thus far are in a bipartisan bill that would protect residents from rising electricity costs and require data centers to recycle water. These regulations may face an uphill battle, as the Trump administration issued an executive order limiting states’ abilities to regulate AI and data center construction (unsurprising Republican hypocrisy, all for “states’ rights” until it touches their allies’ bottom line). While a moratorium would be ideal, we recommend contacting your state representatives, as well as Wisconsin’s Attorney General, asking them to support these regulations, and resist these unlawful executive orders. All while of course being on the lookout for any potential data center construction in your local community.
