NY Fights AI Data CentersTour Albany Part 1

On Thursday, August 27, local activists and community leaders gathered at Albany City Hall to highlight local resistance to data center development and call on Gov. Hochul to sign a strong data center moratorium bill, the Responsible Data Center Development Act. The event is part of the statewide New York Fights AI Data Centers tour being led by bill sponsor State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Food & Water Watch. The event locally was organized by PAUSE/350Albany, Frack Action, and Capital District DSA along with Albany Data Center Resistance and Environmental Advocates of Albany. The groups called on the City of Albany to enact its own moratorium on data centers and to halt the data center proposed for Kenwood Commons in the city's South End, an environmental justice community. The rapid expansion of data centers, with their enormous appetite for electricity and water, takes ecological degradation to a new level. In part one of our coverage, we hear from Isaac Silberman-Gorn of Frack Action, the Emcee; Paul Batman Collins-Hackett; Kasey Charles: of the Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition and the Black Abolitionist Directive; and Diana Wright of People of Albany United for Safe Energy. This has been Mark Dunlea for Hudson Mohawk Magazine.