I can see why so many people thought Utah was the place to be during the pandemic. Where else could you find yourself lying in a little tent in the middle of the desert, gazing at a sky full of brilliant stars? It was the fall of 2020, and my cousin and her husband invited me to join them on a m ountain bike adventure in southern Utah’s Gooseberry Mesa. They were combining the trip with a mission to hand off a rescue dog they’d been fostering to a flight attendant friend who’d volunteered to transport the pup on a red-eye that night. Which meant they’d have to leave the campsite for hours. I could accompany them in their RV or I could stay behind in my tent until they returned. If I stayed, it would be just my little terrier Riley and me, all alone in the middle of nowhere. I had a brief flashback to the scorpion we’d seen when we set up camp, an insect so big I could have thrown a leash around its neck and taken it for a walk. I’d never felt this alone and vulnerable. All that stood between me and the desert wilderness was a few zippers and some flimsy waterproof nylon. But the night air was cool, the sky was beautiful and I had my not-so-vicious attack terrier for protection. What could possibly go wrong? That’s when I heard the distant howl of some creature, possibly as alone as I was and also possibly hungrier. I zipped myself into my sleeping bag and queued up a playlist. Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air” came on, and something inside me shifted. I listened to Riley loudly snoring beside me. I looked up at the stars twinkling overhead. For a moment, the natural world outside didn’t feel scary at all. It felt calm, familiar, as comforting as a church. Lately, as I’ve heard about plans to build one of the largest AI data centers in the country in rural Utah, my mind keeps returning to that night in the desert. “Call out the instigators,” sang Thunderclap Newman into the dark desert night. “Because there’s something in the air.” Something about the hopefulness and sincerity of that 1969 protest song feels especially rare in this world of billionaires and politicians, acceleration and optimization, outrage and futility. It believes change is possible. That people really can come together. And in a world full of cynicism, that sincerity feels rebellious. Like silence. Like solitude. The irony is that the places where people still go to hear themselves think are increasingly becoming the places where massive machine infrastructure is being built. It’s made me wonder lately if what’s so unsettling, so infuriating, about artificial intelligence isn’t so much the technology itself, but the speed and scale at which we seem willing to reorganize the natural world around it. The deserts and wide open spaces where we go to escape noise and distraction are now being recast as the ideal spaces for hyperscale infrastructure. Who will miss it? Who will even notice in sparsely populated rural areas — places with cheap land, distance from population centers and endless room to grow? In Box Elder, a county with 50,000 residents, this isn’t just an ethical question. It’s quickly becoming a foregone conclusion despite widespread public opposition. Residents have packed meetings to protest. Thousands have filed water-right objections. A certain Canadian billionaire has appeared on cable news in a tailored suit and pink flipflops going so far as to suggest local critics were part of something sinister. All of the drama seems justified, though, when you consider the scope of the project. It would occupy a space twice the size of the borough of Manhattan and require more electricity than is currently consumed by the entire state of Utah. And then there’s the $64 billion question: Where the hell are they going to get the water? Environmental estimates suggest the full project could eventually require billions of gallons each year. How will that even be possible when 100% of Utah is already facing some form of drought and, locally, we’re coming off a winter with the lowest snowpack on record? No matter how efficient modern cooling systems can be, projects of this scale inevitably become staggering consumers of physical resources — simply because the scale itself is staggering. What I also find staggering is the willingness of the rich and powerful to consume our natural world. As if it were little more than raw material for the next big thing. As if we’ve forgotten what wild places are even for. It’s said that after 17 months and miles upon miles of cross-country travel, Brigham Young found himself in Emigration Canyon overlooking the Salt Lake Valley and declared, “This is the right place. Drive on.” Maybe he saw a refuge, a place where people could finally settle and build meaningful lives. In a way, Utah has always transformed landscape for survival and ambition. It’s human nature to build things. And the American West itself has always been a place for enormous environmental intervention. But what kind of future are we building now? Would the people who first looked out over this landscape even recognize what we’re turning it into? If every landscape eventually becomes optimized for economic efficiency, where do we humans go to remember who we are? In my mind, I will always return to that star-filled night in Gooseberry Mesa. A place full of rocks and sand and sagebrush and scorpions and creatures howling to one another somewhere out in the darkness. If only we can stand still long enough to hear them. The post Betty Diaries: This is the place appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less