My Life Un-Learning

New York City, photo by George Hodan

Like many people born in a city, I grew up thinking that food comes from grocery stores; water comes from a faucet; electricity comes from flicking a switch; cheap long distance phone calls start at 11pm; medicine = aspirin, antibiotics + birth control pills; driving to work gives people time alone; everything sold is safe (except for cigarettes); garbage gets picked up on Tuesdays; everyone has enough money; and nature is where people go for summer camp.

I’ve had a lot to un-learn.

In my twenties, when sugar and bread made me sick, I started questioning pesticides, GMOs, MSG and soy. At 32, I could identify carrots and onions in a garden.

After a prescription made me sicker than the infection I needed to heal, I began looking for alternatives to pharmaceuticals.

By 40, I pined for Internet access, but my eyes simply would not tolerate a computer screen. (I bought and returned about ten of them.)

And then I began learning our society’s rules and regulations around technology: they supported corporations. They usually failed to protect the public or environmental health. Meanwhile, very few people knew these laws.

RULES & REGULATIONS

Throughout history, many societies have recognized that human survival depends on a healthy environment. Indigenous children learned to respect water, soil, animals and plants as relatives. People considered land and water part of the public commons, not for individual “owners.”

The Hippocratic Oath gave physicians the clear direction to first, do no harm.

As technologies emerged, some societies created ways to ensure their safety. Hammurabi’s code, written around 1750 BCE in Babylon (modern-day Iraq), determined that if a bridge collapses and harms a person, the bridgemaker holds responsibility.

At the turn of the 20^th century, with the introduction of electrification, states enacted statutes that required liability-carrying professional engineers (PEs) to ensure the safety of a project (i.e. a power plant, a water treatment facility, a telecommunications network, a smart utility meter system) before it could go live.

SHIFTING RULES TO SUPPORT CORPORATIONS

With the Industrial Revolution and electrification, rules and regulations began to prioritize tech developments and corporate profits over public or ecosystem health.

In 1886, lawyers representing corporate interests used the Fourteenth Amendment (created at the Civil War’s end to grant rights to freed slaves) to extend “personhood” rights to businesses and corporations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are “persons” who hold the same protections held by natural persons. (Until 1886, corporations were considered “artificial persons” and subject to significant regulations.) Since 1886, U.S. laws have prevented natural people from significantly regulating corporate behavior.

In 1934, the FCC defined “harmful interference” as anything that interferes with existing radio, TV or (now) Internet broadcasts. Nearly 100 years later, no agency defines biological harm (to people or wildlife) from transformers or broadcasting equipment that emit electromagnetic radiation.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 makes it unlawful to “take” (harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect) any endangered species of fish or wildlife within the United States. However, if an applicant (wanting to drill oil or mine lithium or deploy wind turbines, for examples) submits a habitat conservation plan and the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) finds that the project’s harm to endangered species will be “incidental,” will be mitigated, and will not appreciably reduce the survival of the species in the wild, then FWS and NMFS will issue a permit for the corporation to conduct business.

Section 704 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act prohibits a municipality from denying a telecom corporation’s request to install radiation-emitting antennas based on environmental concerns. After this law’s passage, at city council meetings and judicial hearings about cell-site deployments, I saw legislators (scared that a telecom corporation might sue their city) warn citizens not to speak about the health effects of living near a cellular antenna. When I showed my state senators an image of a cell site in front of a California house, one asked an AT&T lobbyist, “What could I do if you install a cellular antenna in my yard?” The lobbyist said, “You could make a comment”—and the legislator joined his colleagues in voting to permit the telecom corporation-supporting rule.

I began to wonder: realistically, legally and ecologically, what can we control?

MANUFACTURING REALITIES

More rapidly than answers came to that question, I received reports about industrial manufacturing (of computers, refrigerators, air conditioners, gas-powered cars, EVs, solar panels, you name it). Manufacturing these goods (and data centers, access networks and battery energy storage systems) requires electricity, mining, smelting, chemicals, fossil fuels and international shipping—which wreak havoc on ecosystems and public health. While most products’ toxic waste is generated during manufacturing, at the end-of-life, electronics do not biodegrade.

Then, like rats, cell sites, solar PV facilities (not “farms”), wind turbines, battery energy storage systems, EVs and data storage centers (for AI) started infesting urban and rural neighborhoods. People nearby these facilities reported power outages, no water or dirty water at their tap, and doubled utility bills. They wondered how to restore local authority.

THE NEW RULES & REGS

Meanwhile, the FCC and others serving corporate interests presented lots of new bills in Congress.

The Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA, S.1462) would fast-track large-scale logging, including in mature and old-growth forests, by gutting core environmental laws like NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. It would expand industry loopholes, block public oversight, and allow commercial logging under vague “emergency” declarations.

Several states have banned the Rights of Nature.

The Trump Administration EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers announced The Polluted Water Rule. If enacted, it would further restrict The Clean Water Act’s ability to protect water bodies from pollution and destruction. This rule would let polluters dump in and destroy more waters all across the country than any time in the last fifty years. Upon publication in the Federal Register, there will be a 45 day comment period. For more info, see The Clean Water for All Coalition’s toolkit.

The FCC has introduced bills that would fast-track cell tower permits and end the local authority that remains over cell-site placement. House Bill HR 2289 (formerly HR 3557) is now at the House Energy & Commerce Committee. To help to stop HR 2289, tell your Congressmember to vote against it. Reinette Senum also explains calls to action around FCC bills in Congress.

And then come bills that support AI and data centers. Last May, when Republicans amended the 2025 budget reconciliation bill with a statement that “no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act,” it drew critical headlines. In early November, The Trump Administration and big tech followed up with “Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy.” If enacted, this law would penalize U.S. states that pass (or have already passed) laws that limit AI…by threatening litigation against the state and by withholding federal funds for broadband. On November 24, 2025, President Trump launched The Genesis Mission, a “dedicated, coordinated national effort to unleash a new age of AI-accelerated innovation and discovery.”

Good news: from Steve Bannon to Elizabeth Warren, bipartisan backlash has erupted over the push to block states from regulating AI.

WHILE DROUGHT & DATA CENTERS (& OTHER TECH) FLOURISH

Manufacturing a data storage center’s cement, computers and cooling systems requires an energy-guzzling, water-guzzling, toxic waste-emitting global super-factory.

A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes. For one example, the Utah Data Center (part of the U.S. National Security Agency) daily guzzles seven million gallons of water. Also see Jon Y’s Big Semiconductor Water Problem and Data Centers in Southeast Asia.

Tech-loving-rule-writers apparently don’t notice that people need water or that people and wildlife matter more than data. They don’t notice that some countries and cities are running out of water. In Tehran, Iran, rainfall has decreased 82% in the past year. Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian says: “If it does not rain in Tehran by December, we should ration water; if it still does not rain, we must empty Tehran.” (Tehran houses nearly 10 million people.) 13 U.S. cities also face alarming water shortages, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, Salt Lake City, Denver, Atlanta, El Paso, Miami, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. 25 countries face extreme high water stress, including Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Chile, Belgium and Greece.

But even in areas with water shortages, corporations build water-guzzling transistor fabs and data centers. From 2017 to 2024, the number of data centers in the U.S. increased from 318 to 5,208.

More than ever, we need laws that protect people and waterways.

Because of data centers, electricity demands are also growing—along with risk of massive power outages during intense cold snaps. New York Governor Kathy Hochul just approved a natural gas pipeline that will carry Pennsylvania fracked gas through Raritan Bay and New York Harbor to Rockaway Beach, where it’ll connect with another pipeline off the Long Island coast…probably to help power the state’s 144 AI data centers (with more on their way). Environmentalists warn that building this pipline will churn up copper, mercury and other toxins, harm marine life and sicken swimmers.

In North Carolina, legislators have passed The Power Bill Reduction Act: if there’s a contest between consumers and data centers over who gets the power, data centers will get it. Today, consumers use 40% of power and pay 40% of the cost. With this bill’s passage, consumers will still use 40% of the electricity; they’ll pay 50% of the cost. Electricity bills will go up 30%.

In Mumbai, Amazon’s coal-powered data centers keep the city in toxic hell.

TOOLS FOR FIGHTING DATA CENTERS

The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South, MediaJustice’s report about data centers, complete with an organizer’s toolkit.

Communities like St. Louis are considering a temporary ban on data centers. Protesters in Indianapolis got Google to withdraw its plans for a $1billion data center on 460 acres…at least temporarily. Tucson’s city council has rejected Beale Corporation’s water plan for a new data center.

30-minute documentary about data centers from Business Insider.

Alistair Alexander reports that every Sora AI video burns 1 Kilowatt hour and…

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez warns about AI’s threat to the American economy and warns that we should not bail out the industry if it fails.

But our technosphere involves so much more than data centers and AI. (I haven’t said anything about digital ID or crypto-currency.)

RETURNING TO QUESTIONS

I return to questioning my assumptions. Does facing development of AI, data centers, solar facilities, battery storage—and the rest of our technosphere—require facing our dependence on technology and our powerlessness over corporations?

How do YOU keep healthy in a toxic world? How do you deal with rules and regulations that prohibit local authority? What do you consider constructive use of your attention at this time?

WEBINARS & A FILM

CO-EXISTENCE, MY ASS! A film about Noam Shuster Eliassi, literally the poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before she became a stand-up comedian and political satirist. Available online THANKSGIVING WEEKEND.

Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents come together to grieve and build peace.

MediaJustice will host a conversation Wednesday, December 10th at 3PM Pacific/6PM Eastern, From Project Blue to Stargate: How the Southwest is Resisting Data Centers. Their guide to fighting data centers is available in English and Spanish.

Here are highlights from Safe Technology’s November 1rst webinar, Unplug to Uplift, about creating safer technology choices for children.

When these people rewild, nightingales, grass snakes, slowworms, bats and insects return in droves.

KATIE SINGER will present MAPPING OUR TECHNOSPHERE TO BUILD RESPECTFUL RELATIONS WITH NATURE on Hart Hagan’s December 9 webinar at 7pm/Eastern, 4pm/Pacific. Katie will map how mass-produced technologies impact nature from their cradles-to-graves. She’ll outline technology’s four pillars (the power grid, manufacturing, access networks and data centers); share what she’s learned to decrease extractions, energy use and water use; then invite each of us to explore how changing our tech use could reduce biodiversity loss, water pollution and extractions.

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