Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

""The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America. In some places, data centers are welcomed. In others, they are delayed, contested or abandoned altogether. This MAP captures the real-world footprint of that race — revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty.

I am watching as YOU, the communities show up and speak out. In the famous words of Mark Twain … “The secret of getting ahead is getting started,” so let’s go!

— Erin""

Erin Brockovich Asks Americans for Help as She Launches Data Center Map; Newsweek, May 25, 2026

 Joe Edwards and Kate Plummer, Newsweek; Erin Brockovich Asks Americans for Help as She Launches Data Center Map

"Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is appealing to the public for help after launching a website to report data center concerns as the rapid expansion of AI-driven facilities across the United States increasingly clashes with local communities.

The appeal threatens to thrust an iconic anti-corporate activist into the heart of the battle to expand AI infrastructure at a time of growing public skepticism about the technology's impact on jobs, safety and the environment.

The website, brockovichdatacenter.com, lists several “key concerns” surrounding such data centers, including high energy consumption that drives environmental impacts and costs, substantial water use for cooling that can strain local supplies, increased e‑waste from frequent hardware upgrades, exposure to location risks such as natural disasters or geopolitical instability, growing scalability pressures that can outpace local infrastructure, and constant noise from cooling systems and generators that can disrupt nearby communities."

Don’t forget how the movement that changed Hollywood started: With great reporting; Washington Post, March 4, 2018

Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post; Don’t forget how the movement that changed Hollywood started: With great reporting

"The world has changed since last year’s Oscars — and for the better.

So let’s not forget what got us there: great journalism.

Legacy media companies may be under constant criticism, and trust in the press may be at a low point.

But less than six months after the New York Times broke its first story about abusive film mogul Harvey Weinstein in early October — quickly followed by more revelations from the New Yorker magazine — American culture has been flipped on its head.

Nothing is the same: Not awards shows, not the corporate workplace, not national politics."

A New Challenge for ALA: Leading Between Activism and Advocacy; Library Journal, March 9, 2017

John N. Berry III, Library Journal; 

A New Challenge for ALA: Leading Between Activism and Advocacy

"Those of us who are activists are always impatient with our adversaries. ALA’s new administrators will have to find ways to engage with both those activists and their opposition—not an easy undertaking.

Of course, I am already worried that the supporters of the ALA milquetoast approach to advocacy and societal politics might prevail, as they often have. Still, the other side of that coin is that misplaced excessive activism can destroy whatever avenues to real clout librarians have built. ALA management must be willing and able to expend a great deal of policymaking skill and strength to win little power in the larger arena. Fortunately, librarians are used to jobs like that.

ALA’s most recent controversies, such as the debate at the Midwinter Town Meeting in Atlanta over its response to the Trump administration and the close vote to require that the next ED hold an MLS degree, are an early warning of how difficult recruiting new leaders—and their task once chosen—can be. To make that work possible, ALA must develop more effective ways to tap membership sentiment on crucial issues."