Not to sound like a Luddite, but these AI data centers have gotten out of control. I live in Coweta County, Georgia. I've lived here for decades. In all that time, we've had zero data centers. At the current moment, there are plans to build five. I'm no statistics major, but that seems like a big increase.

The locals are not particularly happy about this sudden spurt of this particular kind of development. To be honest, the locals are rarely happy about any development that doesn't bring them a new restaurant, but they are very not particularly happy about this. Last weekend, people stood in line for hours at the park up the street from my house (on Jefferson Davis Parkway, if that gives you any idea of my county's usual politics) to sign a petition they hope will force their suddenly development-friendly elected officials to quit ignoring our torches and pitchforks and finally have a public referendum on the matter.

It's noteworthy that most of the land those data centers want was until recently zoned "Rural Conservation." For refence, the Coweta County Georgia Code of Ordinances Appendix A Article 7 defines a "rural conservation district" as... oh, hell, just read it:

The rural conservation district is intended to provide for agricultural land use, and low density single-family residential land use in an area of Coweta County shown on the future development map as the rural conservation area. Agricultural land uses include farming, forestry, horticulture, wholesale plant propagation, dairying, ranching, and equestrian activities. Rural residential land uses include rural homestead lots, and low density rural residential developments designed to preserve woodland and open land along Coweta's roadways, to preserve primary conservation land: river or stream corridor, areas of vulnerable groundwater recharge, floodplain, steep slopes, habitat of endangered species, archeological sites, cemeteries, and burial grounds, and to provide neighborhoods with their own private, yet common, recreation areas.

Does any of that sound like the place anyone was ever planning to put a resource-intensive information warehouse? But who doesn't want a shiny new water-guzzling, 800-acre data center next door to their low density single-family residence? And as for preserving river or stream corridors and areas of vulnerable groundwater, the developers themselves have asked for 1,010,000 gallons of water per day. If that sounds like a lot, that's because it is. It's 13% of the Coweta County Water & Sewerage Authority's current production ability for only five new businesses, which is the equivalent of all the existing CCWSA customers donating 33 of our gallons of water per day to our thirsty new AI overlords.

In defense of the Board of Commissioners, the data centers are promising that once they are up to speed, they'll pay an astonishing $176 million in property taxes. Considering that the county took in less than $76 million in property taxes in 2024, that also seems like a pretty big increase. Assuming the data centers are telling the truth — AI would never lie to us — that's a lot of money to turn down. Who needs equestrian activities when you can ask a computer to turn you into a cartoon character for a social media post? With all that money, at the very least the county will be able to afford to pay the CCWSA to find us some extra water somewhere. I hear the arctic is melting.*

*Superman Month Sidebar: Speaking of "our national water crisis," Eric Brockovich (heard of her?) has lately been crusading against data centers like these in large part because of their "substantial" water usage. Her 2020 book on the subject of is titled Superman's Not Coming, which is both disheartening and, I hate to say it, accurate.

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It's the end of the world as we know it: Keanu Reeves is starring in the upcoming remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still as -- you probably guessed it -- Klaatu. As if having Neo, "the wooden one," playing the intergalactic harbinger of alien distrust with strong Christian parallels isn't bad enough, this time around instead of warning us about nuclear proliferation he'll be lecturing about how we mistreat the environment. That's right: Al Gore is an alien.

Where did we go so wrong? How did a B-movie warning about the evils of the Cold War become translated into a modern political statement against our own carbon footprints? More importantly, where was I when nuclear weapons became less of a danger to the continuation of the human race than automobile exhaust? To quote the director, Scott Derrickson, "the original being a Cold War film was addressing what was clearly the greatest threat for the human race at that time, mutual nuclear destruction, and that's not the most pressing threat that we face now." Hmm: the gradual warming of the Earth versus instantaneous incineration by terrorists. They don't teach you much about the real world in film school, do they, Scott? Remember the Doomsday Clock? It's still ticking.

What's next, a remake of On The Beach where the Earth's last survivors huddle on Mt. Everest as the rising ocean levels guarantee an unavoidable death by drowning? How about a new Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Greenhouse Effect) in which Slim Pickens determinedly sprays CFC-laden aerosols in the upper levels of the stratosphere? Will the modern version of Failsafe detail the intentional extermination of the endangered American Bald Eagle in exchange for the accidental destruction of the Siberian Tiger? No doubt the perennially invading Body Snatchers will be reborn as Earth plants striking back at the human race that has focused on dooming them.

You know what the kicker in all of this is? Since Hollywood can't leave well enough alone, Gort will not be a robot this time around. (Heck, he won't even be real! Just a CGI cartoon.) Though this is ostensibly because the aliens are "green" -- read: "hippies who prefer biological engineering (good?) to manufacturing (bad!)" -- I suspect that it's actually because they didn't want any unfavorable comparisons between the acting of Reeves and an immobile piece of metal.

Sigh. Klaatu Barada Nikto, indeed.

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