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A chronological record of major political events in modern American history.

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AI Environmental Impacts

2025 July

2025-07-25 Data centers (a.k.a. data colonialism) and mining are heavily threatening indigenous lands and sovereignty.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/04/data-centers-indian-country/

https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/data-centers-and-ai-are-a-betrayal-of-indigenous-lifeways/

https://icmagazine.org/indigenous-peoples-push-back-as-data-centers-expand-across-north-america/

https://www.honorearth.org/stopdatacolonialism

https://aipi.asu.edu/blog/2025/07/tribal-sovereignty-age-ai-exploring-opportunities-and-risks-tribal-nations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac0-fBK0LVQ&list=WL&index=7&t=81s

2025 September

2025-09-01 Residents started reporting that the infrasound noise produced by data centers had been causing sleep disturbances, illnesses, seizures, headaches, dizziness, and the noise was forcing residents to move. 

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/10/09/texas-hood-county-crypto-noise-incorporate-city/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93dnnxewdvo

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/data-storage/what-are-the-5-main-causes-of-noise-in-data-centers-

https://people.com/resident-living-near-elon-musk-data-center-says-cant-open-windows-rotten-smell-11869646

https://mississippitoday.org/2025/11/24/southaven-residents-fear-pollution-complain-of-noise-from-elon-musks-xai-data-center-turbines/

2025 October

2025-10-24 News outlets began to warn about the massive environmental impact of AI sites.

https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/ai-has-environmental-problem-heres-what-world-can-do-about

https://hbr.org/2024/07/the-uneven-distribution-of-ais-environmental-impacts

2026 March

2026-03-25 Bernie Sanders and AOC introduced a bill to impose an AI data center moratorium. The bill includes efforts to quell environmental impacts, prevent an uptick in utility costs, prevent job displacement, and impose a ban on exporting computing hardware to any countries that don’t provide the same protections (i.e. China). The bill had already received backlash from Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who labelled the policy proposal as “China First” according to an article by Fox ‘News’.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/25/datacenters-bernie-sanders-aoc

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/25/sanders-aoc-data-center-moratorium-bill

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-aoc-bill-stop-ai-data-center-construction-1235536665/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fetterman-slams-ai-data-center-moratorium-proposal-china-first

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/03/bernie-sanders-ai-senate-bill-data-center-construction-moratorium-aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/

https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-ai-electricity-sanders-aoc-65651bd28c3d911d18eeb46cd54f4c75

2026 May

2026-05-22 More reports emerged linking data centers to major environmental issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3vMidXgWoQ&list=WL&index=10&t=82s