Utah Nature Security

Today I used an Instagram story filter on a photo. Why? Because it’s fun to give new photos a vintage fade. It is one of the few ways I actually enjoy wasting a little time on social media. (Scrolling, I still loathe.)

The platform was originally built with pre-set filters, and since it functions closer to a personal scrapbook than high art, I have no qualms about using them. However, said filter was not labeled as ai until after I saved and, later, posted it. In horror, I considered deleting it and starting over. At which point, I realized I needed to question what I was doing on Instagram. Instead of writing, I was giving time to a platform created by tech oligarchs, dismantling creativity, human touch, and the environment.

My carousel of nature photos, taken on a day offline between mega deadlines, turned technoexistential in a blink. When we turn the lens on ourselves, that is, make it about us humans, we must be prepared to see harsh, unfiltered truths.

I am not a fan of ai. Maybe someday it will do something positive for me or someone I care about. However, I personally love to struggle with my imperfectly human writing and art. ai has pirated Outlandish to train its systems, and my small Anthropic settlement check will arrive…someday. I look forward to what burritos the robots will cook up in the desert someday.

Perhaps they will be able to warm tortillas and fry eggs on the asphalt outside the massive Stratos data center that was approved this week in Box Elder County, Utah? Stratos will be two times the size of Manhattan and will use more energy than the entire state of Utah. As power and water (during a dire drought) are used to cool the technology inside the plant, the center will function like a 400-acre hair dryer blasting locals and the ecosystem at 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

The project is backed by Canadian venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, who most of us only know from the TV show Shark Tank. He’s making the media rounds touting a degree in environmental studies while wearing a “Utah National Security Hat” (whatever the hell that means) while claiming, without evidence, that anyone opposing the data center has been bused in or paid by Chinese spies. This includes a team of independent journalists at Elevate Utah. Their response is among the best things I have enjoyed on the internet as of late:

Kevin is very worried about Utah’s security. We are, too, actually. Just a different kind. We are worried about the Great Salt Lake. We are worried about water. We are worried about air quality, carbon emissions, land deals, and what it means for northern Utah when a 40,000-acre gas-powered data center moves in and doubles the state’s energy consumption. We are worried about a public process that kept Utahns in the dark until the powerful people were already positioned.

Elevate Utah has fully spun this around. They are now selling “Utah Nature Security” hats,

“Because the actual threat to Utah isn’t us. It’s a 40,000-acre gas-powered data center that could increase the state’s carbon emissions by 50%, strain our water future, and put even more pressure on the Great Salt Lake, all while the politicians behind it expect Utahns to stop asking questions. We’re not a cell. We’re Utahns. And we take Nature Security very seriously.”

The opposition is not foreign nor paid. It is coming from Utah residents of all political affiliations and faiths, and they are showing up by writing letters, signing petitions, attending public meetings, and at the steps of the Utah state capitol.

Another data center and natural gas plant, proposed West of Cedar City, UT, is provoking its own local opposition. They point to the Stratos Project as the origin of their concerns. And my friend, journalist Beth Henshaw, has been diligently reporting on the approved data center in Page, AZ. Adding to the lack of public transparency is the still unknown water source to cool the data center. Will it draw water from the drought-riddled Lake Powell reservoir, now only 23% full with emergency measures?

It is worth reading Len Necefer’s Outside Magazine article about data centers and the Colorado River. Next time we are on the river together (or through the Substack interwaves), I want to ask him at what scale does this still hold true, and at what point is even a small percentage of total Colorado River water too much for a drying watershed? These are sincere questions, not a callout. We need more dialogue and data about all of this than we are getting.

What do residents have to gain from a data center? Across the country, communities are pushing back against data centers because they increase electricity rates, affect water sources, generate noise and pollution, all while being passed with a lack of public transparency and creating minimal jobs. Even the Jeff Bezos-owned Wall Street Journal calls data centers a “job creation bust.”

I was not supposed to go online for more than a few minutes to check in today. My day planner insists only: “write. book.” Instead, the hidden use of ai carried me into a rabbit hole leading toward this rant about data centers. If I have imparted anything through this post, I hope it brings awareness to how discerning and alert we need to be right now, and the questions we need to be asking, as changing technology we have not fully consented to creeps ever more into our lives.

Each day, I grow more wary of the few remaining benefits of handheld app-driven devices. And yet, as creatives (most of us) barely scraping by, what are our other options to share our work and engage with readers?

So here we are. I am so grateful for all of you who subscribe to Wild Words. Thanks to you, Substack is now where my publishers and event partners link to share more information about my work. And hopefully, it will also lead you offline, under a shady tree or saguaro, with the pages of real books between your fingers.