As billionaires and corporations push artificial intelligence (AI), developers push construction of larger and larger data centers - enormous facilities full of computer chips that require as much energy and water as a small city, destroy neighborhoods with noise and local pollution, but provide few permanent jobs or economic activity. Virginia already has more data centers than any other state but remains ground zero for new construction because of its proximity to internet trunk lines.

As developers go from County to County asking local planning commissions and governments for permission to destroy green spaces, raise electricity rates, and suck water out of aquifers needed to irrigate crops and provide drinking water, local activists have energized to stop them. Scott and I sit down with Amanda Doughty (AKA CaptainAmandica on Insta an ...