Foreign. Hello, and welcome to Live like the.
World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times.
I'm one of your hosts today in Minarowin.
I'm Brooke. I'm Miriam Inman. Didn't do the silly voice that time. I feel so betrayed.
Nailed it.
And this is this Month in the Apocalypse. There. Is that a good enough silly voice?
Noice, your. Your monthly news roundup for all the.
Bad shit happening in the world. I can't do it. I can't do the silly voice anymore. I'll be stuck.
There's nothing silly about British accents. They're not silly, they're just British.
I don't know, cockney accents. A little goofy.
And yes, after our protracted silliness, this is our this Month in the Apocalypse segment of the month, where we talk about all the things that happened in the last month, whether they were good, bad, or portents of upcoming disasters or whatever. We literally take the bones and we throw them and then we tell you what they say. That's what what we do on this Month in the Apocalypse. We're going to be talking about some cool things, and I have, like, a kind of cool thing to say. And we're also going to be talking about some not cool things. We're going to be talking about data centers, water usage, forest fires, and, like, some pretty distressing trends in policing. And you, the listener, get to guess which one of those has a positive spin on it.
Place your bets now.
Call centers are open, but not data centers. You spoiled it.
But before we get to all of that, we're a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network.
I know the kind of pain you're feeling, Alex.
I once had it myself.
You some kind of doctor?
No, Alex, I am Magneto, and I.
Have come to offer you sanctuary.
Hello.
This is our jingle for our podcast.
The Grounded Futures Show.
This is the show where we discuss topics ranging from climate change to identity, to how youth can gain new skills to thrive amid current and ongoing disasters.
That we are collectively facing.
We are your hosts, one Gen Z, Liam, and one Gen X, Carla. And we think we all deserve to thrive now and not in some distant utopian future. Yeah, but that's in the future.
Oh, I hate the future.
Yeah, we're with Bolin. Grounded Futures is a larger project, so check that out over@grounded futures.com.
And we're back. I was about to say thanks so much for coming on the show today. Oh, you're so welcome as a normal episode. But thanks so much for coming on the show today, y' all to talk about the world of fun. You know, one time I played a D and D campaign with Margaret and in that world the the plane of Hell was called like the Plane of Fun. Or maybe I'm thinking of the Adventure Zone. I can't remember if it's the Adventure Zone or Margaret, but the plane of Hell was called Fun. And so we all talked about how much fun we were going to have and that seems really applicable right now.
Having a lot of fun these days.
Hell being usually depicted as being on fire. What else is on fire?
Brooke yeah, it's so great. We are in the depths of forest fire season here with it hitting August, which is sort of a weird idea because I feel like we're seeing forest fires globally pop up sort of year round in all kinds of different places because everything tends to be more on fire these days. So the idea of a forest fire season is maybe less and less applicable. But the so called United States has had a very weird fire season so far this year in the fact that it's been mostly very mellow, which is not to say that there aren't fires going on and there haven't been bad fires, but just in terms of like the number of fires that we would normally have and the number of acres that that would normally have burned by now, it's, it's more, much lower nationally than it would usually been. So for instance, in this calendar year 2025, we've air quotes only burned about a million acres in the United States, which is a lot of acres. But at the same time in the last few years we've seen singular fires that have, have burnt almost that much like the, the Dixie fire in Northern California. That was 2021, that was a single fire that burned almost a million acres. And a couple of years prior than that, there was the Mendocino fire. That was actually only half a million, only half a million acres. 2020, there was a fire that was over a million acres in California. So the fact that like so far for this whole fire season, the US is again only still a lot of acres, but only at a million is, is really low relative to at least the last several years. And the thing that really drew my attention to it is that normally Oregon, where I'm from, is way more on fire this time of year. And it starts July, August with usually lightning strikes cause some, some big fires to flare up. And there's only one or two forest fires Burning over again right now. Which is just kind of wild for what we've seen the last few years.
Does that mean global warming is a lie?
Climate change is real? Inman. I'm sorry.
I just, I feel like this is like a thing I see like, like fucking politicians bring up or specifically like fucking like Trumpers or whatever. They're like, see, they were lying to us. There aren't forest fires. And I just, they also say that.
Anytime it's cold out, they say, see, global warming isn't real because it's cold where I am right now, now some. And sometimes that will be like an air conditioned room. Also Republicans will fully like go into a walk in freezer and be like, checkmate. Climate change activists. They're all Ben Shapiro now. I don't know. Our silly voices have gotten away from us.
Yeah.
Okay, so I'm sorry to tell you that in fact climate change is still a major contributor to forest fires. If you look at data from the last 25 years, it used to be that the annual amount of tree coverage lost due to fires was like 20 to 25% in a year. So like you've got, you know, deforestation via logging or die deliberate taking out a forest to build stupid shit that we don't really need. You know, that's all the different reasons that we have tree loss. And usually 25 years ago, only about a quarter of that was because of fires either prescribed or forest fires, like unplanned forest fires. And now that average has moved up and is like 40% and has been on the rise for the last 15 of the last 25 years has just kind of steadily climbed for the most part. So we are definitely losing more of the tree loss that we have globally is due to fires. And it's definitely climate change that's contributed. So go stand in your coolers, put your head in a bucket of ice. But things are gonna burn.
Yeah, and it's like, it's, it's, it's the contrast between like here and like Canada, like for instance, is obviously like really stark. Cause Canada's having like one of its worst fire years.
Yeah. So I had a great chart. I think I closed that tab. But it showed like Canada's average fire burn also over the last 25 years or so. And it, so, and it was showing that like the last two years have been extraordinarily out of the normal for Canada. They were definitely experiencing like a slight rise over time. But then like last year it was something like six times worse than the average. And Then so far this year is also still significantly up from the average. And that's not necessarily to say like suddenly this is their new normal, but that, you know, what went from like kind of a slow and steady very moderate increase in like the amount of forest fires going on really exploded in the last couple of years. So just for instance, right now or 2005 year to date, there have been 7.6 headaches have burned. I usually think in acres, head acres is like 2.5 head acres to an acre. You can do the math. Actually I can do. It's like 17 million acres have burned so far this year in Canada. And the annual average over the last 10 years in Canada is more like 3.3. Just, it's just a huge difference in the, the number of fires and the amount of land that has burned in Canada. And they're really experiencing something exceptional over the last couple years. And I certainly hope it's not their new normal. But that's. We're seeing more boreal. Is that the right, the right term for that type of forest? Boreal. Boreal, Sorry, not great with the plant names, but that's the type of forest that we're seeing burn more and more and more is, you know, things that have conifers, pines and, and furs.
Yeah. And I feel like it speaks to the. Whatever's going on in your locality is not necessarily an indicator of larger trends. I don't know. Where I live in the Southwest desert, I was remarking on this because I was like, I feel like we're having a more mild summer than usual. And then it was comparing it to some averages and it was like, wait, no, the last few years have just been absolutely bonkers, higher than average. And it's like what we're experiencing this year is just what might be a lull or what might be a more normal norm for 10 years ago.
Oh, that's a really good point. And also just like a good reminder of the weirdness of climate change that like, you know, average global temperatures are rising. But that doesn't mean that everywhere is going to rise or all the time. Like it's, it's an average. And also the ecosystems are all kind of in flux in different ways. So like Oregon has had a much, much drier summer than usual, but temperature wise has been a little bit more moderate. Usually we have like one really bad heat wave and we haven't quite had that this year. Meanwhile, other places have seen like New York has seen some of the highest recorded temperatures this summer.
Yeah.
And, and it barely registered because I think at this point New York and other. Major, other major cities that get heat waves are so sort of accustomed to getting heat waves that it doesn't even register as sort of an out of the ordinary occurrence. It's just sort of a thing that happens every year now.
Yeah, Miriam, this is a weird question, but I was talking to someone about this not too long ago. I have this distinct memory of being a child at the Macy's Day Thanksgiving parade or whatever and, and like, it being a utterly brutal affair where there were like, there was like feet of snow on the ground. Does it snow during this? I'm not going to say the Macy's Day parade. I'm using this as like a reference instead of the other thing that happens on that day.
I definitely have memories of there being snow at that time of year in the past. I cannot, I don't like, that is a childhood memory. I don't remember the last time it snowed at that time of year. But, you know, that is just sort of like, again, like kind of my experience is not, you know, like, we know that the temperatures are going up there. It certainly still snows around here, but like much more rarely and much less. And I think probably not until later in the year. I can't remember the last time that it snowed around that time of year. Now somebody is going to be like, it was like three years ago, Miriam. You're just not paying attention. And like, yeah, you're probably right. I don't remember it though. I am not climate data.
You're not? Yes, it's true. Is there anything else going on with Firesbrook or any helpful reminders? I'm asking you a leading question.
What it's like, you know, what I'm gonna say next. How could that happen?
Because I have thrown the bones. I have thrown the bones and they have told me.
Yeah, that's what it is. Magic. Yeah. I just wanted to give a broad overview, not talking about any specific fires. So that's kind of like the broad overview of where we're at with fires right now. And also just recommend, you know, if you are someone who's in a forest fire prone area or an area that could have a fire even if it's not prone to them. Preparedness is important for that. We did an episode, and by we, I mean Margaret, back when this was just her podcast. Podcast, before we all got to share in the love of it. It's one of the earliest episodes and shoot an episode on forest fire preparedness. Fire preparedness that is still really great and relevant and worth taking the time to go back and listen to. So I highly recommend that for our lovely listeners. But we can move on from things being on fire to things being so.
Speaking of things that are not on fire but are under military occupation, the city of Washington, D.C. has been under National Guard occupation. The National Guard is engaging in law enforcement activity there. This is part of Donald Trump's, much like talked about by him, crackdown on crime. As I will say, like, over and over again throughout this next piece. Violent crime is down nationwide and has been for a while. There is no major uptick in crime that. That needs addressing. It is entirely a sort of fictional construct of like, oh, the streets are so dangerous, people can't go out. It's like, that's just what people who watch Fox News think. It is not an actual reflection of crime statistics. Anyway, there has been a lot of talk about this national guard in D.C. thing as unprecedented. And I want to talk about that because I think it's really important that people remember that the US Government was authoritarian before Donald Trump. And if the US as an entity somehow survives the next few years and survives him, it will continue to be authoritarian. This is not unprecedented. It is not unprecedented for the federal government to use the National Guard for law enforcement, and it is not unprecedented for them to do it over the objections of the state government. Now, I. I bring this up not to do, like, a gotcha. I found the historical precedent. You're all wrong. But because although I do love a gotcha and I do love telling people they're wrong, I think it's actually really.
Valuable to look at, like, the reason.
We talk about precedent is, like, when you look at precedent, you get an idea of what could be happening. So let's talk about precedent here. So past National Guard deployments were done for a variety of reasons, including ones that people might be kind of cool with, like, forcing through integration in Southern states that refuse to comply with civil rights laws, as well as ones that are obviously more evil, such as crackdowns on labor organizing or shooting student protesters to death, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But, like, there have also been National Guard troops in major subway stations in New York city for over 20 years now, like, on a daily basis. This is not unprecedented. They've been there holding giant rivals. Yeah, usually it's just. It's a. Yeah, it was a big part of Post 9, 11 Security Theater. They're at Port Authority, they're at Grand Central, they're Just there with giant guns while you wait for your bus. The same as how they're, you know, sometimes at airports and stuff like that. But what's. What's most interesting to me about this particular deployment is that Trump is lying about what its goal is. Right. He says it's to combat violent crime, which, as I said, is down nationwide and it is down in D.C. in particular. Um, so violent crime here is being used as an excuse to exert militarized federal control over an American city, which means that it's not trying to accomplish a specific goal that will end. It will just end when Donald Trump feels like it. Right. And of course, this started in LA during the anti ICE protests. So it's pretty clear where this is coming from and why. So at this point in dc, just to give you a sense, homicide rates are down 68% from their highest point in the 90s. All other crimes are basically. All other crimes are down across the board. What Trump has done in D.C. is, which already, by the way, was a mess of overlapping law enforcement agencies. If any. Anybody has ever been at a protest in D.C. or even just kind of walk around D.C. you will notice that there are many, many law enforcement agencies there getting in each other's way, confusing the situation and like, making it very unclear who. Who is in charge in any given moment. The National Guard is just adding to that. Right. What they are doing is patrolling, like sort of regular law enforcement. Arrests are way up, which is includes mostly arrests for things that would usually get a ticket as well as arrests for things that are not actually crimes at all, but which a person who is not from that area might just mistakenly think is a crime, like smoking a joint, which is allowed there, obviously.
Like, Are you talking about that video of, like, that porch altercation or something?
No, I'm there. There actually have been arrests for. There was a video of a. Of an agent, I don't even remember from what agency, but saying, oh, we're just making sure people aren't smoking and drinking, as though those things are crimes, which they are not. But there have actually been arrests for things like that that are just straight up not crimes, as well as arrests for things that would normally be like, oh, you're doing something you're not technically supposed to do. Here's a citation. Go ticket. Right. This is pretty targeted. It is hitting black and Brown Washington, D.C. residents much more than anybody else. And of course, immigrants, as well as people who might be identified by law enforcement as immigrants are being targeted. There's like, just anecdotally I've heard people talking about how, like, people. People like out making deliveries for doordash are getting arrested. People like doing regular jobs that they do every day are just being grabbed sort of on suspicion of being migrants. All of this is awful. All of this is horrendous. It is a significant escalation. And I think that the fact that the National Guard is involved has kind of been the thing that. That people have focused on as like, oh, this is the military in an American city. This is, you know, not to say the word again, but unprecedented. This is meaningfully, meaningfully different than what has been happening before. And I don't see it as meaningfully different. I see it as a significant escalation. I'd like to look at some of the ways that people are resisting, but we'll do that in a. In a second. A big part of what's going on and a significant escalation of something that's already been happening is the ongoing redefinition of what is considered violent. Right. I think we're pretty used to seeing any protest that includes property damage getting labeled as violent. I would sort of consider violence to be action undertaken to harm humans and not inanimate objects. But the government definitely portrays any property crime as violent as well as sometimes protests that are simply unruly. Right. Video of protesters walking in the street will sometimes be described by media and by the. And by the Trump administration as evidence of violence. When what you're actually seeing is like jaywalking.
Yeah.
Which is not violent. In dc, of course, we did see that pretty incredible video of a. Of 1. One man, one. One hero. Hero throwing his sandwich at a federal agent. He was subsequently arrested first. He was subsequently arrested for assault. He was arrested in his home by like, bunch, like basically a SWAT team. Despite trying to turn himself in, he lost his job and was slandered on the Internet where people kept describing his cute little mesh top as a polo shirt. Not okay. But more significantly, Attorney General Pam Bondi described him as a part of the deep state.
What?
Just in case we missed the thing where conspiracy theory is really dictating government policy. But, like, I wanna. I wanna look like, focus on this, because if a largely symbolic. Is it technically assault to throw a sandwich at somebody?
Yes.
Is it violent? I think most people would say that a food fight is not violent. I. I think that the person at whom he threw the sandwich was unharmed, and it would be difficult to see how they could have been harmed by a sandwich striking them in the chest from several Feet away.
But, yeah, it's like the escalation that gets used for. Like, there's this case here in Arizona, Mexico, where a border patrol agent shot and killed a kid from across the border. And the justification was that the kid allegedly threw a rock at the border wall.
Yes.
Like, and that. That was, like, a justification for, like, murder. Air quotes. Violence, you know. Yeah, it's fucking crazy.
Yeah.
Yes. And that's going to come up in a lot of the precedent that I talk about, too, where throwing things, I mean, often rocks, but, like, in this case, a literal sandwich is sort of equated to violence. And when the term violence is. Is used as this sort of flattening term, then violent retaliation meeting, violent protest is okay, according to the people describing protests that way. Right. The fact that, like, the violence of throwing a sandwich and the violence of, let's just say, shooting at somebody are not really equivalent is something that we have to be really aware of and, like, part of why I think we need to really call it out when people throw around the term violence. I mean, obviously, that guy was awesome. It is awesome to call those fascists fascists. And it was very funny when he threw a sandwich at them. Have you seen the full video, by the way? Because I love how he, like, he yells at them for a while and then he, like, starts to walk away, and he gets like, 20ft away, and then you just see him be like, no, this will not stand. And he turns around, goes back, and then throws the sandwich.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You think about how much different it would have been if he'd done, like, a softball throw, like an underhanded throw of the sandwich. And then he could have been like.
I was just sharing it.
I was. I was throwing it to them, not at them. You can do a violent. You can do an aggressive underhand throw.
Yeah. I mean, depends on how much softball experience he has. But, yeah, it's just a very. A very good video. Obviously, this podcast does not endorse doing crime, and throwing a sandwich is technically assault. Every other point share.
Don't throw underhanded. Underhanded sandwich tossing when necessary.
Hey, what's up? This is miriam from about 24 hours in the future where we have found out that, in fact, the Subway sandwich thrower was not indicted for the felony assault that the prosecutors were trying to charge him with. This is obviously good and funny, but also really interesting because it's pretty unexpected. Prosecutors usually get what they want out of grand juries. In fact, the. The cliche about this topic that people who pay attention to grand juries will use is that a prosecutor could, quote, indict a ham sandwich. Like, I've heard people say that many times. Obviously, the Internet's been having a lot of fun with that, given the context here. And obviously, you know, it's, we're happy that this guy is not facing, I think he was facing up to a year in prison if he were to have been charged and convicted of this. And we're glad that's not going to happen. But it's also really interesting because this is the second time in the last few days that a grand jury has declined to indict somebody charged with a felony assault of an officer in D.C. in the context of everything that's going on right now. So that's interesting. It is being talked about as jury nullification. I think that's fair. I mean, we don't have a ton of information about what went into the decision making process, but I think it is very possible that the grand jury, you know, took a look at the evidence and said, yes, we can see that you have video of a person throwing a sandwich at a person who does not want a sandwich thrown at them. And we agree that that meets the technical definition of assault. But counterpoint, get the fuck out of here. Which would, I think, I'm not an expert, I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like jury nullification to me, which is just a great reminder to read up on jury nullification and a pretty positive sign, I think, for where people's heads are at right now. That doesn't mean that I think we're going to jury, grand jury nullify our way out of this, you know, military occupation of American cities. But it does mean that people are doing a variety of things in opposition to it, and that's good. So congratulations, sandwich guy. And now back to the rest of the show that we already recorded. Thank you. But what I, the reason I bring it up, though, is, is not to reminisce about how cool that video was, but to highlight how any act of resistance will get called violent and will get cracked down on as though it is violence. And that is why they are doing this in the first place. It's to assert federal control over people, over cities and to help Donald Trump project an air of strength and power. That absolutely doesn't mean people shouldn't resist. It means people actually should resist and that they should do so smartly in large numbers. And keeping in mind that National Guard acting as law enforcement have shot and killed nonviolent protesters in this country within living memory and there is absolutely no reason to think they will do not do. They will not do so again. So at the risk of sounding alarmist, please do go out into the streets against this. And please also learn some basic first aid skills. Do a stop the bleed course if that's available to you. They are available online. Carry a first aid kit. Be ready to intervene if somebody is injured. Be aware that violent escalation is a possibility here, because that is something law enforcement does. I want to look at the precedent here that I keep alluding to. The reason that Trump decided cities are out of control, like the reason he started with that narrative, was largely due to the nonviolent Black Lives Matter and pro Palestine actions in major cities and on college campuses. And the obviously the first place he sent the National Guard was to LA in response to nonviolent anti ice actions. All of these actions have been nonviolent. But and I really think that the most relevant history to look at here are National Guard deployments against student protesters in the 60s and 70s. Famously, of course, there was a mass shooting by National Guardsmen at Kent State on May 4th of 1970. National Guard troops fired on unarmed anti Vietnam War protesters. This was a situation where rocks were allegedly thrown, but the National Guard response was to fire live ammunition, shooting 13 students, 13 people, four of whom were killed, one of whom was left permanently paralyzed. And this is definitely something to think about when we have National Guard acting as law enforcement. It is also important to point out that near the same time there were two other mass shootings, both against black student protesters. These were at Orangeburg in South Carolina and Jackson State in Mississippi. Those were in 1968 and 1970 respectively. These shootings are less well known than Kent State, and I don't think I need to tell anyone why, but I will. It's because of racism. These happened, like I said, in 68 and 70, so around the same time. But both of these shootings were actually committed by local police departments. I believe that the National Guard was at Orangeburg, but were not the ones who actually did the shooting. I it was the South Carolina Highway Patrol at Orangeburg. Black students had been protesting segregation at a local bowling alley when police opened fire on the crowd, shooting 31 people, killing three. And usually when we're talking about student protesters, by the way, we're talking about college students. Most of these were college students, but one of those killed at Orangeburg was a high schooler at Jackson State, which happened just 11 days after Kent State. Black Student protesters were again fired on, again by local police, with 14 shot, including two killed. And I bring this up to point out that while National Guard acting as law enforcement is scary and a significant escalation, regular law enforcement acting as law enforcement is scary and violent, too. And what is happening in D.C. is an escalation. But our cities are already under violent law enforcement occupation, and those violent law enforcement agencies can and do already murder people. And we should be bringing the same energy of resistance to the police that we do to the National Guard, because it's not actually better when people are shot by local police than when people are shot by the National Guard. And it's not actually better when people are arrested by local police than when people are arrested by the National Guard. Anyway, again, it's. None of this is unprecedented, and we should look at the precedents to see what happened next, because the best time to stop them was years and years ago. But the second best time is right now. So let's talk about what's happening right now. In D.C. youth are organizing to oppose the presence of local and federal law enforcement officers. In schools, people are organizing patrols to keep an eye on the movement of different types of officers and record their actions. Mutual aid groups are supporting unhoused people, migrants, and other targeted groups. And everyone, everywhere in the city is taking every opportunity to make these officers feel like shit. And that is super meaningful. Like, you actually do have to tell these people what you think of them. Tell them you don't. They're telling them they don't want them here. They're telling them, get the fuck out. And that is important. All of that has to keep happening. We have to support the people being targeted. And we also have to let these know they're not welcome. Morale is very much a. A platform of struggle here. And if this is not yet happening in your city, find those mutual aid groups to plug in with now. And if it has come to your city, tell these motherfuckers what you think about it. As of the time of this recording, Trump has said that Chicago is next. Violent crime is also down in Chicago. But we've also seen in just last day or so, Trump starting to hedge on whether he's going to go to Chicago at all. He's kind of trying to give himself plausible deniability to back out. And today, Stephen Miller made a big, dumb speech about how, for the first time in their lives, D.C. residents are able to, like, go outside without being murdered. He. He literally said that, like, actually, people are much more staying home. You Know, as I said, people are getting arrested, like, while doing their jobs. A lot of people are staying the home people are not feeling safer to go out now than they were a week ago. And also, fuck you, Stephen Miller. But obviously this is absurd and full of lies. But we should be looking at what it's trying to signal, because it signals that the administration may already be backing down. Right. The only way they back down is by declaring victory. Right. So if they're declaring victory, it kind of looks like they are already thinking about leaving, which, this is a secret. It actually means they lost. Shh.
Don't say it.
If they're. They're wieners. They totally weaned it. If they are ready to back down, it's entirely because of the resistance they've faced and the overwhelmingly negative reaction this move has garnered. And I think that that is what's happening. Like I said, it is a scary escalation. But I also think that the resistance is working, which just means we need to do more of it. I don't think this is working out for them. I think that the fact that they're trying to be like, yeah, we did it, is like them saying, oh, fuck, we gotta. We gotta quit this. This is not gonna. This is not gonna go well if we keep doing this. I would encourage people to follow Remora House on whatever social media they are great for. On the ground updates from D.C. and they have. They did an interview with it's going down recently that gave a great sort of blow by blow of like, what kind of resistance is happening in D.C. right now. So I would encourage people to check that out as well as check out what's happening. What is happening right now that is going to be the resistance in your area when the National Guard does show up, or can be the resistance now when your city is already under violent law enforcement occupation. Because we're already there. Again, I don't. I'm not saying, like, you're all wrong to be like a gotcha. I'm saying, like, we. We. Actually, there is a useful way to reframe how we're thinking about this, I think. And it is. We kind of know how this goes and we kind of know what's happening and we know how to resist it. It's not a mystery. People are doing it. Help them out.
Yeah. And you know how else people can resist?
By supporting radical media?
No, by resisting data centers into my own topic about data centers. Because no one segued for me, so I had to segue myself. So what I have to talk about today is data centers. And it's not really going to be data centers in general as much as like a specific data center. Even though I think there's a lot to learn from this data center resistance and that the problems and impacts of this data center are indicative of like larger trends. But I'm going to be talking about Project Blue in Southern Arizona. So Project Blue was this kind of giant data center complex that was being proposed in Tucson, Arizona that would build three different data center centers kind of like in and around the city of Tucson. The timeline and planning of this project was like in kind of a like ridiculous amount of secrecy. It was being planned and talked about by the city with Beale Infrastructure, which is a development company since 2023. And the only kind of public information about it at that time was being related as being like talked about with Beale Infrastructure. The project was not public until June of this year, to be clear.
Secret talks. Secret talks with Beal.
Yeah, secret talks with Beale Infrastructure which is essentially being treated as a shell company for guess who, guess who is behind this data center?
Facebook, Google, Amazon?
Is it Elon fucking Musk or is it Amazon?
It's Amazon, the other.
Other billionaire asshole.
Yeah. And it's like Amazon's kind of been doing some expansions in and around the southwest. But this project was being talked about since 2023. The first public engagement was not until June of 2025. And the way that this information was revealed was really funny. So this media outlet, AZ Luminaria just did a public information request and they received for public records including the phrase Project Blue. And, and they received a memo that was about how the real developer of the project was Amazon Web Services, which Amazon Web Services is essentially these like data servers where they like store a lot of information for a lot of people. And the kind of way that they bill Amazon Web Services is like, it's like for people's blogs and Netflix, Netflix and all this wholesome Internet content. When in reality a lot of what these web services servers are being used for is the development of AI, which is not a very big surprise. What is also kind of really funny is the city later claimed. So when Az Lumenera put this out, it was news to everyone. And the city was like, oh fuck, what do you mean sh. Wait, you can't put that news out there. And they're like, why? And they're like, because the city is under a non disclosure agreement with Amazon for 18 months to not reveal who the developer and operator of the project was.
Wait, you can just do that.
Yeah, yeah. These companies are making cities sign NDAs to not reveal who the operator of a, of like a data center project is because of public outcry. And so they're making them sign these non disclosure agreements until it's essentially too late for people to do anything about it.
That look, I'm not like a law knower, but that feels illegal.
Yeah.
Like it feels like the whole point of having to publicly file for like all this stuff is that you have to do it publicly so that people can like have a chance to be like, no. Right?
Yeah.
You know, like I thought NDAs were just for like when you work for a celebrity and then they have to be like, don't tell anyone how many drugs I did.
No, they're for, they're for city contracts too. And it's like by the time the project went public, the city had already approved, approved a land sale of like 280 acres to Amazon for this project. And they had already begun the process with the county of annexing the land because it was like unincorporated land. And so they were annexing it into Tucson to give them access to Tucson electric and water infrastructure basically. And so people like freaked out. And then there were these public meetings about the annexation and people were fucking pissed about it. They were like. And like hundreds and hundreds of people showed up to these meetings and there was like huge public outcry about it and like the city was kind of forced to like reconsider the deal. And the kind of cool thing is that ultimately the deal gets squashed because there was so much public outcry about the data center from the public and from like other pieces of like Tucson infrastructure that were like this is a bad idea. And so the city board or whoever's like voting on it unanimously eventually, eventually due to extreme public outcry, voted to not proceed with the annexation of the land, which essentially like quashes the deal. You know, the project claims that it would have employed 3,000. The meetings for this were very funny too because they were taking like public questions and these public officials were like really confused about the public outcry for it. They were like, why is everyone being so mean? And it's like people, people who were like engaged in these questions were basically like asking these questions and like having officials like talk around them. And people, the people were asking the questions were like, why are you talking around this? You're not answering my question. That's not a good enough answer.
Hell yeah.
This is like across the board, like just regular I don't know what regular people means, but like you're not professional activists, you know, who are like you're lying to us and we know it.
People who don't want their water stolen to make AI generated bullshit that no.
One asked for word.
Which is like everybody. That's everyone.
Yeah, which is everyone. And so sort of, sort of the appeal of this project from like this, the city and from like Amazon, you know, is that they claimed they would have employed 3,000 construction workers for a couple years to build it. So they're like, we're creating jobs, but it's these 3,000 temporary construction jobs which they alluded without commitment could be through union labor. And so a couple of the, one of the construction unions jumped on support supporting it. And what's really funny is talking to some other like union union friends were those union friends were basically like, well that union. And I was like so happy to see like, like from, from a, a union that I'm involved in be like, yeah, we'll them like they're thinking short sightedly. And I was like, that's awesome.
Okay. But that's fantastic.
Yeah, yeah. It's also, I'm like, do you think Amazon's gonna hire union construction companies?
No.
If they can help it.
Yeah. It's like this is a fucking farce. And I'm like, I'm sorry, y' all are fucking kidding yourselves that you think like that you're gonna like fight for this and like think that it's gonna help you. The project is also claiming that they're like, guess how many long term workers. They're like, we're bringing jobs to the city. Guess how many. Guess how less. Fucking less.
It's going to be like like 12 guys to, to draw hands with. With like weird claw fingers.
Yeah, it will bring, it could have brought 75 to 180. 75 is what they're contractually obligated to do. 75 to 180 permanent air quotes. Jobs that would have salaries as high as $64,000 a year.
And fuck these people.
Yeah, yeah. One of the Pima county board supervisors also like half of the government's like, wait, there was an NDA? Why the fuck didn't we know about this?
Oh snap.
Because it's an NDA. It's a secret.
Yeah. And so one of the Pima county board supervisors in a little interview said, it feels like we're bending over backwards and contorting ourselves to accommodate what may well be Amazon to bring 70 plus full time jobs and consume 1.3 gigawatts of energy and nearly 2 million gallons of water a day. And it defies logic to talk about one of the other big parts of this, which is, you know, water is like Tucson. Not famously a water rich place, you know, it's a, it's a fucking desert. But Tucson does have pretty robust aquifers. But it's due to, that is in part due to the city is like huge efforts to do water reclamation projects that specifically feed water back into the aquifers after removing pfas from it. Yeah, the, the water requirements for this project are huge. And Amazon claims that they will replace water drop for drop and secure new water resources for the city.
Just going to magically invent them. Like come on.
Yeah, they're going to, they're going to ship them in on Amazon prime drones like drop by drop. Like, fuck off. These people are just liars.
They're just lying. It's like these are like aspirational.
And if this deal was so good, if this deal was so good, why did they demand an NDA?
Right? Yeah. Why was it shrouded in secrecy? The construction of just two of the sites over two years would use 2,000 acre feet of water a year for two years. And like I don't know how to quantify like an acre. Like a. Yeah, I've never measured water that way. It's an insane amount of water.
How much does the entire city use? Or you probably don't know that off the top of your head. That was a stupid question for you to ask, but some sort of comparative metric.
So we're talking about a significant, like a significant percentage of the city being used by the, of the water being used by the city every year being used just for the construction of this Bullshit. No one wants.
6% of the water would be used. And this is for the first two years. This is potable drinking water that they're using for construction.
Yep. Of course it is.
Oh yeah.
So just ask, just ask 1 out of every 20 people not to drink any water or take a shower for a year and you'll make up for it.
Perfect.
Yeah. Yeah. And so after that for like the, after the construction for like the casual usage of like water for cooling the data facility.
Oh God.
It would continue to have huge, huge, huge water demands.
Yeah.
And their plan after construction for like using more sustainable air quotes water was to use reclaimed water from one of the city's reclaimed water projects.
But that's your drinking water.
A lot of this water isn't drinking water. It does.
Oh, it goes to the aquifer, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a little confusing. Like, one of the sites they were thinking about using it was going to be water reclamation for. For drinking water, but there were too many PFAs in it. So instead it's being used for habitat restoration and the restoration of the Santa Cruz River. And so the city claims that 40% of the water from these reclaimed water projects is available for use for the data center, which they would build a pipeline or something for it across the city. But that 40% of air quotes available water is what's being currently used for riparian habitat restoration.
Ah, that's kind of important.
Yeah.
I like riparian habitat restoration way more than I like Amazon data centers.
Amen.
Yeah, that's kind of the background. There's so much more about it. I won't even get into the energy use stuff, but it's like. Yeah, or just larger environmental impacts which we're seeing from like, data centers which famously produce enormous amounts of CO2 and like, affect the heat of an area. And that's like one of people, one of like the neighborhood where it was going to be built. Concerns is, they're like, like, we don't fucking want this. Like, this is going to ruin our shit. And I don't know, it was really cool to see that people really came out for it and the public outcry is essential. Like, this Tucson City council kind of changed their tone and we're like, okay, I guess we have to vote against this. Some of them were against it from the start, I think, but yeah, it's just all wacky. But this is so a small victory. However, the data center still plans on being built. It's like this crazy thing where they're like, they're. They're like, essentially like, well, we're still going to build it kind of like with or without the consent of the city. And that was some of the council members, like, reasons for wanting to build it is because they were like, it feels like this is going to get built regardless of what we say. And if we do it this way, then we can regulate it more, which I'm like, the city voted that they didn't want it. Why? How is it still being built?
Like, yeah, like, can it, can it still be built in the same area even if, like, they won't permit it?
Yeah, it's. I don't know about that stuff. That's kind of like where my research ended. Um, that's fair. Yeah. They still plan on Building it.
They're just going to build it far enough outside the city limits that they have to get, you know, county approval or something instead of city approval. And so it's a different body of people they can bribe time to come.
Up with a new shell corporation.
New shell corporation. But yeah, that's kind of my bit on data centers there.
It's.
Yeah, it. The thing that I think reveals really about it is that there's huge public outcry cry about data centers, and corporations are getting sneakier and sneakier about it by kind of like what they did here, which was essentially force the government to tentatively agree to it without public hearing and make them sign an NDA until it was almost impossible for public outcry to change the outcome. But in this case, public outcry did change the outcome, but they might build it anyways.
Wild.
Then the trick becomes mobilizing that public outcry again. Right. And like, it's clear that people are against this, which means that there should be people ready to take action to oppose it.
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, it's this thing where it's like. I mean, it's the liberal fantasy that it's like we just need people, better people in office to like, vote for better things. And it's like this is a case in which, like, air quotes decent people, like people who like, did the right thing and like, it doesn't matter.
Yep.
And yeah, because it's a liberal fantasy that like, this shit is going to. Yeah. I don't know. Sorry.
Or the idea that, you know, you just. You defeat them once and then it's over, you know, as opposed to the resources they have to just do this war of attrition and you have to keep fighting against it over and over and over and over and over again.
Yeah. But that's all we have for you in this month in the apocalypse, except for what you can do. I know we just talked about a lot of really doomful things and we're trying to end these now with cool things that you can do this month in order to prepare. Prepare for our next month in the apocalypse. And my suggestion today comes off of. It's in celebration of the desert, of things that you can plant in September. If you live in the Southwest Arizona desert, you can plant greens like spinach, lettuce, chard, collards, kale, mustard. And you can plant garlic, carrots, onions, parsley, peas, cilantro, radishes, sweet peas, beets, broccoli, cabbage, celery, turnips, garbanzos lentils, desert chia, rutabaga, artichoke, and.
Nasturtium.
Nasturtiums. I can't say this word. You can also think about shade tree planting at this point. And I got all of this information from rainwaterharvesting.com, which I was like, is this a credible resource? And then I was like, this is my. One of my old neighbor's websites who, like, does a lot of, like, water reclamation and harvesting stuff from. So this is suggestions from Brad Lancaster.
Boy, I love that you can still plant so much stuff at this time of year where you live. That is such a gift to be able to do that still.
Yeah, well, I think we're kind of moving into a more viable season to plant things, right?
Because you can't really, in the summer, right? It's too hot.
You can. You can plant things. You can grow things here. And. Yeah, there's lots of things you can grow here in the summer. That's my suggestions for next month. Y' all got any suggestions for next month?
Well, fall's coming. I always like to take the time to slow down and reflect a little bit in the fall here and get ready for harvest and appreciate the bounty that we get from the coming out of the earth this time of year and bedding down the. The plants and the. I mean, for you, you can plant a bunch of stuff. We're getting towards winter where it's not really viable to plant. So there's a lot of giving gratitude to the earth and preparing it for the cold seasons to be done up here in the northern climates.
Cool.
Yeah, I think my. My suggestion is just the. The ongoing suggestion. I have to find those local mutual aid groups and get plugged in now. Start doing the work if you're not doing it already, so smart. And if you are doing it already and you're. You're fucking tired, you know, go easy on yourself, too. You can't do the whole thing all at once.
It's true. You can't do it all by yourself.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, then remember that today is always a good time to start. And the things you start today will. There's like a fucking parable or like homily about this, and I can't remember what it is, but I think you all know what I'm about trying to say. And also if you enjoyed this podcast, you can support it and you can support the show by listening to it, by telling friends about it, by forming new mutual aid groups and joining ones that already exist and finding out what you can do today to prepare for tomorrow. And you can also support it by supporting our publisher, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. And you can support Strangers Support Strangers by checking out our website, tangledwilderness.org where we've got a bunch of cool books and zines. We have some new cool fancy zines, like a really awesome little history zine called Like Mushrooms After a Rain, which is about some rad Jewish teenagers who caused a lot of chaos for the Russian empire. And you can also support us by signing up for our patreon@patreon.com strangersinatangled wilderness where for a variety of different tiers of support, you can get a lot of really cool things. That's where we post a lot of stuff and we post monthly updates and stuff there. So even if you can't give us money, check it out because there's a lot of kind of just free content on there and is a great place to learn about what we're doing and what we're planning. And we'll usually post, we try to, we don't usually succeed post about episodes that we're doing and invite you to ask us questions about them. So check it out@patreon.com strangersinatangled wilderness and also you can get us to thank or acknowledge a thing of your choosing. Oh yeah. And we would like to thank these wonderful people, concepts and animals. And this first list is a special thank you for people who became new friends with strangers as part of the Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice Kickstarter. Thank you Na thank you. Uliksean Alder Tikva's favorite Stick the Waterfront Project Nico the KO Initiative Groot the Dog the Black Trowel Collective. I wish this was from her and not a cat. But it's cool that it's a cat. Thank you. Dolly Parton and Edgar Meowlin Accordions Experimental Farm Network Arguing about what to Shout Out Tenebris Press Potatoes Staying Hydrated, brought to you by Hannah and Simone Weil. And as part of our regular Patreon acknowledgments, we'd like to thank Opticuna, TSNB baby Acab and her three great pups, Sarah Mr. Craft, your Canadian friend, Vale Ferreau. Mark Tiny Nonsense the Golden Gate 26 Jonathan the Goose the Ko Initiative again the Incredible Renai Alexander Gopal A Future for Abby Hun Hee Max the Enchanted Rats of Turtle Island. Lancaster chooses Love Karen the Canadian Socialist Rifle association the Massachusetts chapter of a different Socialist Rifle Association Farrell in West Virginia Shova Jason Jenny and Phoebe the cats Blink Cat Aiden and Yuki the dog Sunshine Amber Ephemeral Appalachian Liberation Library, Portland Seatron Hackerspace Boldfield, Violet People's University of Palestine Julia Carson, Lord Harken Community Books of Stone Mountain, Georgia Princess Miranda, Janice and Odell, Ally Paparuna, Milica, Theo, S.J. paige, David, Dana, Micah, Kirk, Chris, Micaiah, Nicole and Took for the Dog and the immortal Hoss the Dog. Thanks so much for every all of your support and we will talk to you next time.