Campaigners in Scotland are joining together for a protest against AI data centres on 3 September. 14 grassroots groups from local communities organising against data centres across Scotland have joined together to co-organise the demonstration.
Activists have invited their Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) to join the rally outside the Scottish parliament. The campaigners will attend the parliamentary session to hear questions raised over the rapid expansion of data centres.
Protect the Wild would like to raise our voice in support of the protest. These AI campuses are a significant driver of global dependency on fossil fuels and rely on the mining of large quantities of rare earth minerals, as well as requiring new road and power infrastructure. The climate change consequences of the global ‘AI boom’ will affect all animals on our planet.
The Scottish hyperscale data centres already in the planning system will require more than 7000MW of electricity, in a nation whose winter energy needs currently amount to 4000MW.
The urgency of the current AI data centre construction drive is being driven by wealthy individuals and corporations pushing for more profit for themselves. The needs and desires of communities, the environment and the wildlife that depend on it are being sidelined. The Labour government is aggressively backing data centre construction, despite the protests of ordinary people.
The huge footprint of these data centres will be devastating for British wildlife, fragmenting habitats and generating noise and light pollution that will disrupt nocturnal life and migratory birds. Research has shown that living close to a data centre can even disrupt hormone levels and breeding in some species.
We join with Scottish campaigners in demanding a moratorium.
Skipping over planning regulations
Lanarkshire has been designated an AI Growth Zone by the Westminster government, meaning that data centre planning applications are being rushed through the system. The British government has been pushing hard to incentivise companies to establish AI data centres in Scotland. There are currently 20 Scottish hyperscale data centres working their way through the planning process. Three more are on the cards, but not yet in the system.
14 of the communities affected have joined together to protest. They are:
Larbert, Falkirk
Hurlford near Kilmarnock
Auchtertool, Fife
Chapelhall
Ravenscraig
Annan and Dumfries
Aberdeen (Blackdog)
Bishopbriggs and Lenzie
Hunterston, West Kilbride
Edinburgh (Gyle)
West Edinburgh (Hermiston/Currie)
Lammermuirs (Longformacus)
Dunbar
Cockenzie
In four of those applications, local authorities had ruled that a full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) would not be required. However, the Scottish government has just this week ruled that EIAs must be conducted before new data centre projects in Fife and Edinburgh are approved and that ministers must be notified of any new data centre applications exceeding 50MW. Activists are clear that this is not enough. They are calling for a full moratorium.
We don’t need mitigation, we need prevention
To illustrate the devastating effects of these schemes on wildlife, the ecological impact assessment carried out for the Larbert AI data centre found a significant population of narrow-bordered five-spot burnet moths throughout the western part of the site. The proposed development location is at the northernmost limit of their UK distribution and they are otherwise scarce in the region. At the same time, the surveys also found something more troubling elsewhere on site: if its grassland turns out to be groundwater-dependent, the report states that loss of this habitat "cannot be mitigated". Destruction like this doesn't just need evaluating, it needs preventing.
“We need a moratorium”, say campaigners
Campaign group Stop AI Data Centres Scotland wrote on Instagram:
“We need a moratorium. We need a definition of a green data centre. We need communities to be considered and heard.”
The group’s statement called out the concept of a ‘green data centre’. Developers in the UK are deploying this vague notion to make their projects seem more palatable, with little explanation of what the term actually means.
Global Justice Now, who are also supporting the protest on 3 September, have produced a briefing on the need to resist AI data centres in Scotland. They wrote:
“Big tech corporations are facilitating the roll out of new hyperscale data centres across the UK. The US tech giants need this new infrastructure to store and mine vast amounts of data as they seek to entrench their monopoly hold over the technology – and insert it into all parts of our lives.”
Sign Protect the Wild’s petition calling for a moratorium on all UK AI data centre building: ‘No to Data Centres, Yes to Wildlife’.
Action to Protect Rural Scotland has provided a handy map of all the data centres planned in Scotland.
Check out Global Action Plan’s map of UK data centres. Please note this resource is a work in process and may be incomplete.
Read our article on Labour’s aggressive backing of data centres, and the dire consequences for British wildlife.
Photo Credits: Photo of anti-AI placard in Kansas, US via Catboy69/Wikimedia Commons, image of Holyrood via Dun_Deagh/Wikimedia Commons.
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