Thirsty Forests and Expansive Droughts : The environmental impacts of data centers in Latin America

Abstract

Given the vast resources required to operate data centers today, their environmental impacts have gained increasing attention. As awareness grows, this industry is facing mounting pressure and has begun announcing mitigation strategies aimed at strengthening its environmental and social responsibility. However, are these strategies effectively addressing local environmental impacts and benefiting communities?

To answer this question, this paper proposes a ‘feral’ approach by weaving ‘feral patches’. That is to elucidate how nonhuman beings are affected by the impacts of large-scale data centers. To do so, we present two Latin American case studies situated in Quilicura (Chile) and Queretaro (Mexico). Both sites are emerging as key data center hubs exposing signs of ferality: thirsty forests and expansive droughts. This paper contends that shifting from ‘global’ or ‘planetary’ scales to ‘local’ and ‘patchy’ approaches reveals the contradiction of mitigation strategies to deliver promised benefits. Instead, these compensations are increasingly entangled in the feral effects within the Anthropocene.