The Big Data Center in the Sky with Aaron Regunberg

In this episode of Time to Say Goodbye, host Jay interviews Aaron Regunberg, a progressive organizer and senior climate policy counsel at Public Citizen, about the growing national movement to impose moratoriums on the construction of AI data centers. The discussion centers on a recent debate in Jacobin magazine between Regunberg and author Holly Jean Buck, who argues against the moratoriums on equity and technological progress grounds. Regunberg counters that the movement—driven by grassroots coalitions across ideological lines, from rural farmers to urban progressives—is a powerful, democratic pushback against the unchecked power of big tech billionaires. He emphasizes that data centers are not abstract digital infrastructure but physical, resource-intensive monoliths that strain local grids, consume vast water supplies, and disproportionately burden communities with pollution and rising utility costs. The episode critiques the notion that opposing data centers is 'NIMBYism,' arguing instead that it's a rational defense of community well-being. Regunberg and Jay also explore the political opportunity this issue presents for Democrats, framing AI not as an inevitable technological force but as a product of specific class interests that can and should be challenged. They argue that the data center moratorium movement offers a rare chance to unite diverse constituencies around a tangible, local issue that exposes the broader dangers of unregulated tech power and climate inaction. The conversation concludes with a call to center climate justice and democratic governance in the AI debate, rejecting both techno-utopianism and technophobia in favor of a politics of accountability and public control.