so the provincial government is building an ai data centre in my hometown and for context's sake, i grew up in an extremely conservative province. a province that wants to separate from canada, even! every comment from non-albertans has been to some effect of "lol, they deserve it for voting in the united conservative party! that's what they get!", or "oh no, the conservatives discover consequences to their own actions!", or even the loathed "well, they want to separate from canada, so the problem will stay with them lol"
and that has been my absolute least favourite response to this whole news story, because here is the fucking thing. my hometown has been financially destitute for a while, after their investments in marijuana farms has fallen through due to law changes in alberta. they're constantly thousands of dollars in debt, have no real touristic appeals to bring money in from outside the town, and a large part of the decision to build a datacenter in the residential bounds of that town specifically is because it's going to bring a bunch of money in.
what do you think happens when this dinky little town experiences a resurgence in financial growth (that yes, will absolutely only be temporary because once the data center is built and everyone who came to that town realizes there's no real infrastructure for new residents AND their families to permanently stay in) thanks to the gold strike of an ai data centre? data centres become the cheap paste rolled over any town far away enough from major city lines financially desperate enough to build one. regardless of provincial political affiliation. regardless of who lives within that town.
even assuming that's not what's going to happen outside of alberta, they will build more data centers in alberta. and do you think that arbitrary border lines will restrict the problem to just alberta (a province that does, in fact, have a sizeable community of non-conservatives who are dedicated to changing this place for the better?) it's just so aggravating to see people who claim they're not conservatives act exactly as repugnant as them, not caring about the problem until it affects someone they hate, not caring about the other people it also affects, not caring about the environmental backsplash that will reach them eventually. just cowardly fucking spineless behaviour from a bunch of people lucky enough to have been born or who have the means to move away from where this is happening who don't have to care about the hundreds of thousands of people they're leaving behind and laughing at
