We’re All NIMBY’s Now
“No one wants a data centre in their backyard” is a truism, if ever one was spoken: residents in US states that live near hyperscale AI data centres testify to the impacts locally from noise, data centre water use, air pollution from generators, spiking electricity prices, and the huge areas of green field and agricultural land transformed to industrial facilities.
However this phrase, that could be considered a NIMY response to development, wasn’t spoken by a protester or a local resident close to a data centre; it was Microsoft’s own lawyer Lindi Stone
speaking at a webinar for lawyers.
This week groups campaigning against hyperscale AI data centres in Scotland gathered outside Holyrood to make their voices heard to decision makers (see below). It coincided with Climate Action and Rural Affairs parliamentary questions where three MSPs had lodged questions on hyperscale data centres and which resulted in so many follow-up questions, that the Presiding Officer had to finish the session before they had all been asked.
Each one of these protesters came from a community where a hyperscale AI data centre is planned: Dunbar, Hermiston and the Gyle in Edinburgh, Larbert, Hunterston, Auchtertool, Bishopriggs, the AI growth zone at Chapelhall and Longformacus/Lammermuirs. One campaign, against the 550MW site at Hurlford, Ayrshire couldn’t attend in person but sent emails to MSPs inviting them to meet the campaigners.
These communities were all there because they see the immediate impacts on their own communities but they also are campaigning on the wider impacts for Scotland and globally. And one of these is accelerating climate emissions.
See also:
Eh? Aye? Resisting Scotland’s Hyperscale Data Centre Revolution by Mike Small
The AI Backlash Is Real. And It’s Winning by Ewan Morrison
We are experiencing a historic heat wave which is an alarm bell for the impacts climate change will have on Scotland and on the world. The energy use of hyperscale AI data centres is driving fossil fuel use across the world as data centres cannot get the energy they need from the grid. The first data centre consented under the national infrastructure regime in the UK is being built off-grid with an on-site gas-fired power station to provide the electricity for cooling. Energy bosses said that hundreds of connections for gas have been applied for by data centers waiting for a connection to the grid.
The questions in the Parliament saw MSPs across the political spectrum question the Cabinet secretary on the impacts hyperscale AI data centres would have on their constituents and on Scotland as a whole, and questioned what preparation and studies the Scottish government had done as this wave of hyperscale data centre applications comes in.
In response to the parliamentary questions we heard the minister say, again and again, they should be ‘in the right place’. But what is the right place for a planet-destroying development like a hyperscale AI data centre? Surely the right place is no place at all.
It is these local people who gathered at Holyrood who care deeply about their communities and their area who are at the forefront of this battle that is one for the very existence of a habitable planet.
Until the Scottish government comes to its senses and implements a moratorium while it starts to do the work of properly assessing the impacts and putting in place the governance and policies required, we are relying on local communities fighting each data centre one by one as it comes through the planning system, holding the line while the rest of us campaign to help the policies catch up.
Developers love to throw around the phrase NIMBY at campaigners but local people are usually the first responders when unsustainable development is proposed, as Norman Philip from the Larbet campaign said to Vicky Allen reporting for the Herald:
“I’m from Falkirk where the mega data centre has been proposed 500 meters from the local hospital. This is the same community that was faced with fracking and managed to… get it to the Scottish Government, where we got a moratorium.”
We, who care about environmental action in Scotland, and international action on climate change, owe a debt of gratitude to local campaigners for the huge amount of work it takes to oppose a planning application. 95% of planning applications are approved in Scotland and volunteers with no experience of planning go up against planning consultants, planning lawyers and people whose job it is to know everything about planning and the planning system through years of experience.
We are all NIMBYs now because a hyperscale AI data centre is not something that should be in anyone’s backyard. Our collective backyard is Planet Earth, our unique and fragile home. We all need to draw inspiration from these local campaigns who are seeing an existential threat to their communities and the places they love and fighting against it with all they’re worth. We need to see the existential threat of climate and ecological breakdown to our own planetary home and backyard and start to be NIMBYS for the planet.
If you want to get involved with a local campaign or start one where one doesn’t exist yet there is advice here.
If you have special knowledge as a planner, ecologist, hydrologist, power engineer, AI expert, and can help local communities please get in touch with me [email protected]
More info on how to engage with the planning system and oppose planning applications for hyperscale ai data centres is here.
We nearly have the funding raised to employ a full time planner to assist local communities in fighting each data centre application by application. If you would like to contribute to this you can do so here.
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