“Memphis is a rich tapestry of American history and culture, beauty and heartbreak,” said Isabel González Whitaker, Moms’ Associate Vice President for Public Engagement, at an NYC Climate Week event yesterday at The New School. She was setting the stage for a panel discussion about the environmental impacts of AI data centers, like Elon Musk’s xAi, located a few miles from her home in Memphis. She was also following the advice of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who had been on the stage moments before encouraging the audience to make connections between climate impacts and real-life harms.
The event, titled AI, Energy, and Our Fight for Democracy and a Healthy, Affordable Future, was hosted by the Tishman Environment and Design Center, in collaboration with Climate Desk Live, Mother Jones, Capital B, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It brought together a powerhouse lineup of mayors from other cities, too, from Boston to Phoenix, community leaders advocating for clean energy and clean air, and artists and journalists using their work to make change. Over three panel conversations, event attendees covered the collision of technology, energy, and democracy, not just the explosion of AI data centers, but also the legacy of the nuclear arms race in Indigenous and other communities of color and pathways for building people power to shape real solutions.
Tell Congress: Protect Families From Dangerous Data Center Air Pollution
Isabel’s remarks, excerpted below, captured many of these themes. The xAI data center is in the majority Black Boxtown neighborhood of Memphis. It materialized virtually overnight with no community input. But since it started operations in 2024, it has faced enormous public pushback, and the community has celebrated some wins. Read on for Isabel’s story:
Now newly added to Memphis’s soulful landscape is a soulless creation of our modern day: a data center. And not just any data center, but Elon Musk’s xAI, the single largest artificial intelligence data center and supercomputer cluster in the world.
This two-gigawatt behemoth uses enough power for 1.5 million homes. It came online about two years ago, when most people didn’t know what to expect from data centers. In Memphis, many of us were cautiously curious, even naively hopeful. Look what Elon is gifting our community: Thousand of jobs! Sexy tech! The future!
But here’s what it really brought: dozens of illegal industrial-sized methane gas turbines located next to a historically marginalized neighborhood, just 10 miles from downtown Memphis. Thus far, xAI’s lasting gift to Memphis has been nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, soot particles—not to mention the methane that’s warming our planet and turbocharging our extreme weather.
For those of us who breathe in this stew, there’s the risk of premature birth, cancer, strokes and heart attacks, and asthma—especially in the most vulnerable populations.
Curiously, my young son developed asthma as xAI started operating, and while many doctors didn’t want to make the connection between the generators and his asthma, I couldn’t help but notice we were never the only families dealing with respiratory issues when we landed in urgent care for yet another nebulizer treatment.
I approached that difficult season with the ferocity of a mama bear, fighting for my son’s health while simultaneously fighting against this conniving intruder in my backyard. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. At Moms Clean Air Force, where I work, nearly 2 million fellow caregivers link arms fighting for policies that protect children from air pollution, climate pollution, and toxic chemicals…
And even at a moment when the administration is most unfriendly to the well-being of children, we are logging wins. Thanks to the power of organizing, mobilization, and good old civic engagement, Moms are stopping data centers in Wisconsin, shutting down “advanced recycling” plastics burning plants in Ohio, ensuring the strongest methane regulations in New Mexico, and plugging the 400th leaking gas well in Pennsylvania.
And in Memphis? Thanks to broad collective effort, xAI stopped running some of the turbines, and my son’s health is improving.
Of course, it’s one battle after another, and sometimes those fights seem as daunting as the Mississippi itself. But just like that mighty river, we persist, fueled by a mother’s love.
Read Isabel’s full remarks here.
Tell Congress: Protect Families From Dangerous Data Center Air Pollution