Some perspective is important, I think.

This is unpopular in the current climate of hysteria, but it's worth reminding ourselves: data centers are probably one of the least polluting industrial sites imaginable. That's not to say it's nothing, but contrast it with, say, a refinery. Or mineral processing. Or basically any other type of industrial activity on which modern civilization relies.

They hum. That's about it.

The problem with your reasoning is that nothing ever matters, because you can always divide things in smaller and smaller chunks and in the end "it's really not that bad it's only 0.x percent of emissions/pollution/etc"

> They hum. That's about it.

lol. just by having a light pole there you start disturbing the insectoid life

[dead]

Would you mind a data center sprouting up in your backyard? Just ask residents near Elon's new gas turbine powered GPU datacenters how lovely they find the hum.

Framing the choice as a dichotomy between data centers and other industrial plants misses the obvious third option: nothing at all, preserve the status quo.