For decades, technology felt like an unhindered, consequence-free benefit we all got to enjoy. Shopping at your fingertips, childhood friendships just a few clicks away, all accessible from a device that fits in your pocket. The gains were instant and exciting, often just within reach of your pocket. 

The idea that your photos, your messages, your work, existed somewhere weightless and feathery, remote and removed from the physical earthliness - almost otherworldly. Magical. The losses, if there were any (were there?) were nowhere to be seen. 

In the experiential sense, it was true; technology, for all of us, felt that way. The gains were so real and so personal that the losses were an afterthought. This was by design.

The word "cloud" was one chosen intentionally. The hardware supporting all of it is anything but weightless. Every part of that “cloud” lives in a physical building, often near a rural community that had little say in the matter. These “cloud” data centers draw enormous amounts of power and water. The distance between you and that building is the result of efforts toward externalizing costs and keeping it out of the public. Out of sight, out of mind, out of the public conversation.

Technology’s impact on the environment is vast. Rare earth mining and e-waste are part of this story too. We're starting with data centers because it’s a conversation on full public display now.

That conversation is now at the forefront, and we all need to be a part of it.

Hidden Costs

Data centers require enormous amounts of water to cool their servers. A typical 100-megawatt facility — mid-sized by today's standards — consumes approximately two million liters of water per day, equivalent to the daily water use of 6,500 American households. 

US government projections suggest domestic data center water use could increase by a further two to four times between now and 2028, as AI infrastructure continues to expand rapidly. 

What makes this significant is not just the volume, but the location. Roughly two-thirds of data centers built since 2022 have been placed in water-stressed regions — not because water is plentiful there, but because land and energy are cheap. Around Phoenix, Arizona — a desert city already under water pressure — homebuilders have had to pause construction due to shortages, while data center approvals continue. In Europe, Ireland has become a cautionary tale: data centers now consume roughly 20% of the country's entire electricity supply, and water concerns have contributed to a moratorium on new approvals in Dublin.

Who Pays?

Tech companies are not picking up the bill. Through aggressive lobbying and tax abatements, hyperscalers have avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in local taxes, in exchange for a small number of permanent jobs and vague promises of investment.

The people paying are the ones who live in surrounding areas.

They are residents of Hermiston, Oregon, whose town of 19,000 now hosts data centers that drew 66.8 million gallons of water in a single year. They are families around Phoenix watching homebuilders pause construction due to water shortages while new data center approvals are earmarked and breaking ground.They are residents of Dublin, where data centers consume so much of the national grid that the city has paused approving new ones. They are communities in Chennai and Bangalore, where data center expansion is accelerating in cities long burdened by severe water shortages.

They are also you.

If you live in Ohio, your power bill is projected to rise $16 a month to underwrite grid upgrades for facilities you will likely never see with your own eyes. If you live in northern Virginia, that number may pop more than 25%. If you live anywhere on the the Chicago-to-Atlantic power grid, roughly 65 million Americans, you’re likely already paying more this year than last, largely due to Big Tech.

The pattern is consistent and unrelenting. Profits are concentrated in a handful of trillion dollar companies. The water, the power, the rate hikes, the hit to agriculture, the energy blackouts; those are burdens the people carry. Those are burdens you carry.

This is not a side effect. This is the business model in dire need of restraint.

What We’re Fighting For

The technology to build responsible data centers already exists. What is needed is the will and support of the public to enforce it:

1. Location — sited in regions where freshwater is not already under stress

2. Efficiency — use of dry cooling or other low-consumption technology where feasible

3. Transparency — public disclosure of actual water consumption, not just sustainability targets

4. Fair pricing — paying market-rate or above for water, not lobbying for subsidized commercial rates

5. Community consent — meaningful consultation with local communities before approval