Taking All They Can: Data Centers, Climate, and the Future of Work (Panel and Workshop)
Doors open at 6:45pm, Program will begin at 7:00pm.
From the affordability crisis to a federal government hostile to clean energy, our current economic systems are pushing both workers and the planet to the brink. Today, the massive boom in generative AI and data centers reveals the darkest side of "growth at all costs"—ruining land, derailing the clean energy transition and our climate goals, and fueling job insecurity. But what if AI is just a symptom of the bigger problem, the latest and most extreme iteration of capitalism’s relentless drive for economic growth?
Whether you're fighting data center expansion, organizing to overcome crises of affordability, for climate justice, or simply seeking radical answers to today's crises, you belong in this conversation.
This presentation and workshop brings a fresh, post-growth perspective to the data center fight and a critical approach to AI tech from a convivial lens. Together, we will examine how current fights against data centers can spark broader eco-socialist demands—like a public job guarantee and universal care income—that put people and ecological balance over corporate greed.
Hosted by Caracol DSA Caucus, NYCDSA Tech Action, the North American Center for Post-Growth Research (PGR), Research&Degrowth, and ICTA-UAB's REAL Project.
What to Expect:
Presentations:
The Data Center Boom, on the ground stories of opposition, convivial/critical analysis of AI tech.
Post-Growth, Eco-Socialism & Tangible Policies
Breakout Discussions: Small-group, facilitated conversations exploring how these ideas apply to each of our own contexts and campaigns. Then we will reconvene as a full group to share insights, build solidarity and organizing collaborations across NYC and beyond.
Come share your voice, connect with fellow organizers and concerned citizens, and help envision a movement that prioritizes our collective well-being over the extraction of greedy techlords!
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Speakers:
Tristan Partridge is a social anthropologist and Executive Director of the North American Center for Post-Growth Research (PGR) – supporting diverse practices of degrowth, solidarity, care, and connectedness. He has worked for 15 years with the Indigenous community of San Isidro in Ecuador and with environmental justice movements in India, Chile, Scotland, and California. His books include: Mingas+Solidarity; Energy and Environmental Justice; and the co-edited volume Demanding A Radical Constitution.
Jack Hammond is professor emeritus of sociology, City University of New York. He has done research on social movements in the US, Latin America, and Europe and is the author of Fighting to Learn: Popular Education and Guerrilla War in El Salvador and Building Popular Power: Workers' and Neighborhood Movements in the Portuguese Revolution.He is a member of Caracol, the degrowth caucus of DSA.
Dallas O’Dell is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Originally from NYC, she has spent the last 6 years abroad studying the psychology, behavioral science and public opinion of alternative ways of organizing high income economies to prioritize wellbeing, anti-imperialism, and environmental protection over profit accumulation and economic growth (i.e., degrowth). In her current position, she studies working class perceptions of eco-socialist policy proposals and how to frame these policies for different audiences.
Federico Arcuri is a project coordinator at Barcelona-based think-tank Research and Degrowth International, coordinating the Policy Brief editorial team and the Degrowth Media Circle. He organized the last three editions of the Degrowth Summer School. Co-organizer of the Beyond Growth conference Italia (April 2024), he is active in the Italian and Spanish degrowth movement. His current research looks at how post-growth policies can be mobilized to form a politically relevant coalition of social movements, unions and policy-makers.
and others