Environment / Willie Nelson Gets It—This Time About Data Centers “The last thing we need is a loud, water thieving, light polluting, data center anywhere near our town (or any others for that matter).” People hold up signs on a pedestrian bridge during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion in Berkeley, California, on July 18, 2026. Figures as diverse as Willie Nelson, Pope Leo, and Erin Brockovich might beg to differ, however—and all three have warned of the energy-guzzling behemoths’ environmental hazards in recent months. All of which job-strapped communities would perhaps tolerate, if AI data centers produced considerable lasting employment—but they don’t do that, either. Data centers are so resoundingly unpopular that in the response to them the partisan divide marking almost every debate in American life is surprisingly absent.