Welcome everyone, thanks for being here! I’m Dr. Bernadette Rodgers, a proud card-carrying Portland climate activist, and part of Scientist Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion PDX, who organized this event. I want to first thank the other groups who are here with us today: World on Fire Department, Eugene XR, Water Watch, XRPDX Zany Bits, Bird Alliance of Oregon, 350PDX, Oregon Data Center Defiance, Code Pink Portland, Bark, and Wendy Emerson with the music and sound system! We are all in this fight together and it is so important that we stick together, so we thank them all for their support!
Why are we here? Because Water is Life!! And we want Senator Wyden to know that protecting public land and water in Oregon is way more important than building more data centers!
We have with us hundreds of postcards, which XRPDX and XR Eugene have collected, telling Senator Wyden that house bill HR655 needs to be stopped! This bill was pushed through the House of Representatives last December by Oregon Congressman Cliff Bentz. It aims to clear the way for The Dalles to direct more of our precious public water to Google’s data centers. This is not OK! According to reporting by OPB, Google is already using roughly 30% of all the water used by The Dalles, and now they want more!
Today, we’ll hear from a few people about HR655, and other data center news… and we’ll be treated to a brand new skit from the world-renowned street theater troupe, Zany Bits!
And we are very happy to announce that Senator Wyden has heard us! Just yesterday he posted on social media his opposition to HR655 and the selling off of public lands. Thank you Senator Wyden!
Still, the threat of new and ever-bigger data centers is not going away and we will continue to stand up to it. We call on Governor Kotek to enact a state-wide moratorium on all data center construction until proper regulations and safeguards are in place. We’ll hear more about that from Oregon Data Center Defiance, a new coalition of groups across the state joining forces on this issue.
This event today is part of the Dump Big Tech week of action, because people across this country are standing up to the tech billionaires and saying NO! We don’t want what they’re selling— we don’t need more AI, and we aren’t willing to sacrifice our precious land, water and energy for more data centers! So we are not alone here—we are part of a huge and growing grassroots movement to take back our power and restore sanity to our country.
Who here is concerned about wildfires? Of course, we all are! My sister was evacuated in Spokane just last week when fires there came within a quarter mile of her house. Luckily their house was spared, but as you know hundreds of homes were lost there. The Grasshopper Fire is still growing on the east side of Mt Hood now. The Dalles says expanding their reservoir will help mitigate wildfire risk. Well, that might sound good but if they were really concerned about a reliable water supply, maybe they shouldn’t let Google use a third of it!
We must protect our Mother Earth, our land and water and sky, that is the source of all our needs. We can’t eat money, and we can’t eat data!
[Dr. Bernadette Rodgers then led the activists in this chant:]
Not another dollar, not another drop, data centers must be stopped!
