This week on Behind The Lens, with the explosion in the use of AI, a new report warns that Big Tech’s rapid buildout of data centers across the South could usher in a brand new wave of environmental and economic harms for Black and working-class communities, drawing parallels to the area’s infamous Cancer Alley. Critics warn that the buildout of high-tech data centers by companies like Meta, Amazon, and Google, will leave residents with higher utility bills, water scarcity, and increased pollution.
And in 2016, Louisiana received nearly 50 million dollars in federal grant money to relocate 37 residents or families of a once-thriving fishing community in Terrebonne Parish, as climate-charged hurricanes and sea-level rise made the area increasingly uninhabitable. Now nearly 10 years on, the former island residents say their new inland homes are substandard, with rainwater seeping through doorways, and flooded yards causing costly repairs.
This weeks guests are Lens photojournalist Gus Bennett and Floodlight News reporter Terry Jones.
Theme music by Podington Bear. Additional music Unexpectedly Untroubled by Podington Bear soundofpicture.com.
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