I made this picture of Elephant Butte about twenty years ago from the beach of the Caballo Reservoir. The prominent light band at the base of the butte signals what was then considered a low water year.
A hundred miles to the south near the Texas border a huge data center called Project Jupiter is under construction. It will require massive amounts of water and electrical. power.
Given the trajectory of climate change it seems extraordinary that a go-ahead should be given for this development. Yet, that is what happened when Doña Ana County gave a rubber-stamp approval to begin construction of the facility.
New Mexicans are bombarded with slick daily TV ads from Project Jupiter minimizing the environmental impacts and touting the jobs potential. It is an all-or-nothing proposition with the implication that there is no other way to put together such an undertaking. Of course, that is not true.
Given the time an effort, the smart fellows behind the Artificial Intelligence boom could quite likely devise ways to produce needed hardware and processes without fatally compromising the State's essential natural resources. It is not technical limitations that stand in the way of such a strategy. It is basically just the unwillingness of the technofeudalists to postpone maximum profits.
Protests and regulatory initiatives are gaining some ground against Project Jupiter, but the outcome of those efforts is far from certain. What is clear is that an overhaul of State regulations regarding such projects is urgently needed.
Every year the State surrenders millions in tax exemptions to industrial developers. One. useful step away from that path might be to make those kind of contributions in support of innovative strategies to develop industrial projects which actually help avoid catastrophic environmental degradation.
No comments:
Post a Comment