Across the U.S., data center companies promise jobs and growth from AI infrastructure, but many residents are unconvinced, especially in communities shaped by heavy industry. In Philadelphia, activist Shawmar Pitts of Philly Thrive grew up in Grays Ferry next to the East Coast’s largest oil refinery, which closed after a 2019 explosion. He told TechCrunch that he connected his family and neighbors’ chronic illnesses to refinery pollution only after reading Philly Thrive’s materials in 2018. His organization is now leading a campaign for a data center moratorium. There are no formal construction proposals yet, but city officials have identified two potential sites: one in Northeast Philadelphia and one in Grays Ferry.

At a Monday rally at City Hall, Philly Thrive board president Sonya Sanders said her husband, a Grays Ferry resident, died of rare bone cancer in 2020 and blamed pollution from the refinery: ‘In my eyes, they killed him.’ Clean Air Council attorney Annie Fox said a typical data center planned in Pennsylvania has hundreds of diesel engines that spew air pollution, and that even if intended for emergencies, the government has indicated they should be used during heat waves instead of drawing from an overstressed electrical grid. ‘Fossil fuel-hungry data centers will worsen climate change, making those heatwaves more frequent and severe,’ Fox said.

The local fight is part of a wider backlash. New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order temporarily blocking new permits for large projects, saying ‘Progress shouldn’t arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted water supply, or noise pollution.’ Data center moratoriums have also been approved in Denver, Indianapolis, Asheville, Charlotte, and Reno, often to give officials time to study impacts. Residents worry about pollution, surveillance, and the water and electricity that would be drawn away from neighborhoods.

The stakes are tied to AI’s energy demand. BloombergNEF now predicts that by 2035, U.S. data centers will consume more natural gas than Germany and Japan combined—almost double the firm’s projection from nine months earlier. Burning a cubic foot of natural gas releases the equivalent of 60 grams of carbon dioxide, and the added data center demand is expected to produce an extra 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution per day, roughly 12% of current U.S. emissions. The article also cites Harvard researchers’ 2021 finding that fossil fuel air pollution is responsible for one in five deaths worldwide.

More than 100 people attended the kick-off rally for the No Data Centers in Philly campaign. ‘I just think that our community standing up and fighting back is tremendous,’ Pitts said.