Green New Deal Network« quietly disbanded on December 31, 2025. No vigil. No farewell press conference. The coalition simply declared that the situation had "fundamentally changed" since Trump's reelection, which had undermined federal action to combat climate change. But the former campaign manager Saul Levin He hasn't disappeared into consulting. He created a Signal chatroom—according to Levin, it has about 350 members from 40 states. Their goal isn't a pipeline or a fracking well. It's a massive server farm being built outside your city that will drink your water, overload your power grid, and drive up your utility bills, all while promising jobs that, in most cases, never materialize.
The scale is staggering. In the report Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory It is said that data centers in the US can provide approximately third of the total growth in electricity demand between 2024 and 2030. The IEA estimates that a single data center using artificial intelligence could consume as much electricity as 100,000 households . A Cornell University study predicts that artificial intelligence-powered facilities alone could contribute to the annual waste atmosphere from 24 to 44 million metric tons CO₂ emissions by 2030 are equivalent to adding 5–10 million more cars to US roads. This isn't an abstraction. It will impact local power grids, groundwater levels, and utility bills.
From Federal Government Failure to Your City Council
Local organizations have already blocked or delayed tens of billions of dollars in data center projects and changed their approach to combating climate change.
The resistance is organized, self-financed, and, surprisingly, effective. 500 organizations , including Greenpeace USA, Food & Water Watch, and Third Act, signed a letter to Congress calling for a nationwide moratorium on hyperscale data centers. Key facts from this fight so far:
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According to DataCenterWatch, projects worth at least $1 million have been blocked or delayed in the US over the past two years. 64 billion dollars .
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There are 24 states that have them. 142 activist groups .
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The Seattle City Council unanimously passed the moratorium after it was revealed that five planned projects would consume about a third of the city's normal daily electricity.
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According to the World Resources Institute, nearly half of the approximately 700 data centers audited in the United States are located in areas with above-average environmental stress levels.
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According to according to Gallup , 75% Democrats and 63% Republicans oppose locating data centers nearby - a rare case of bipartisan agreement in any fight.
«"Without serious climate change mitigation measures, data centers could be a disaster for our climate." — Aru Saini-Ajay, Sunrise Movement.
The Seattle-based Soapbox Project called the moratorium campaign "a very good starting point" for people who feel politically disenfranchised—city council hearings suddenly became more relevant than any federal climate debate. However, divisions within the environmental movement are real. The Sierra Club, NRDC, and The Nature Conservancy ignored the moratorium letter. Thomas Meyer Food & Water Watch points out that Amazon outbid Puget Sound Energy for a major solar project, diverting clean energy rather than expanding it. "You didn't make the pie bigger, you just redistributed it," Meyer told Grist. Some major NGOs tend to follow the Democratic mainstream; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, for example, is actively pushing for data center development.
Big promises, low returns
Harvard researchers have found that arguments for job creation and tax increases rarely stand up to reality.
Developers promise economic development to secure zoning approvals and tax breaks, but Harvard researchers found that the region actually experiences "very little economic development." Job creation is modest. Tax revenues are absorbed by the incentive packages that initially attracted these businesses. Recommended solutions include:
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Special tariff protection measures , so that the costs of upgrading the power grid are not passed on to residents.
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Full contract transparency
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Requirements to the disclosure of information on water use
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Eliminate speculative tax breaks that fuel construction.
These conflicts are uniting farmers, rural landowners, and climate activists under a single banner—either the beginning of a genuine movement or the most unlikely coalition since punk musicians and urban planning committee regulars found themselves on the same side. Either way, a server farm outside your city has become a new channel of communication.
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