Pope joins chorus of concerns with AI-fueled data center boom

EarthBeat Weekly
Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change

June 5, 2026

Spencer Snakard, president of Protect Fauquier, speaks Aug. 29, 2022, at a rally near Manassas, Va., protesting a newly built data center for Amazon Web Services. Virginia currently houses 609 data centers, the most in the United States. (AP/Matthew Barakat, file)

There is plenty to unpack from Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, a 200-plus page document on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.

That's equally true on the environmental threats and potential posed by AI that the pope raised in the encyclical. Last week, I reported an overview of how the environment and technology intersected in the encyclical. Today, a new story at EarthBeat examines the issue of data centers specifically.

In many U.S. communities, concerned citizens have mobilized to express worry and outrage about the hypersonic expansion of data centers — largely driven by AI's rapid rise — in their towns and fields. A main focus has been the amount of energy and water required to power and cool data centers, which threaten to both deplete resources and raise utility bills.

In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo spoke directly about data centers in a section where he warned the rapid and uncritical adoption of AI "exposes us to a range of risks, including the tendency to overlook the environmental impact."

"Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources," he wrote in paragraph 101.

"As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows too, which requires an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers and energy-intensive infrastructure," he said. "For this reason, it is essential to develop more sustainable technological solutions that reduce environmental impact and help protect our common home."

A typical AI data center uses the same amount of power as 100,000 houses, according to the International Energy Agency. Add to that significant water demands — to cool the around-the-clock graphics processing units training generative AI models — and the ecological impacts come into focus quickly. Those strains on resources have a cascading effect on residents' utility bills, driving up costs for all.

"We're not anti-development, but what we're seeing on the ground is not sustainable for the people or the places that we love and inhabit in the South," Amanda Garcia, a senior attorney who leads data center advocacy for the Southern Environmental Law Center, told me.

Garcia called it "extremely important and encouraging" to hear a world leader like Pope Leo raise the threats and concerns of the AI-fueled data center boom, lending his voice to the many communities facing these developments in their backyards.

What else is new on EarthBeat:

New arrests made in murder of Catholic activist in Honduras

by Paul Jeffrey

"This is an important step toward justice for Juan, and we're hopeful that we're getting closer to the true masterminds who ordered and paid for this crime," Fr. Carlos Orellana said.

Read more here »

Pew: Most Americans who attend religious services have heard about political, social issues recently

by Kate Scanlon, OSV News

Most U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services have heard their clergy speak about at least one political or social issue recently, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Read more here »

From village to village, we share food and pray with suffering Malawians

by Jacinta Chiwayu

In Malawi, families have been left without food after recent years of drought and cyclones. Responding with a traveling feeding program, Presentation Sisters have become more deeply aware of communities' struggles.

Read more here »

Inside a Benedictine monastery, nuns raise lambs whose wool is for the pope

by Chris Herlinger

A new Italian documentary, "Agnus Dei," follows the Benedictine sisters who care for two lambs whose wool becomes part of a vestment for the pope and archbishops — a centuries-old tradition.

Read more here »

What's happening in other climate news:

Think it's hot now? The next five years will smash records, UN says —Seth Borenstein for the Associated Press

A strong El Nino may be imminent. Climate change will make its effects worse —Kate Abnett for Reuters

Trump expected to announce $700M boost for coal —Rachel Frazin for The Hill

Democrats pledge to fight Trump's removal of ocean monitors —Lisa Friedman for The New York Times

House passes bipartisan measures to speed geothermal energy projects —Maria Gallucci for Canary Media

In a years-long fight, the Illinois environmental justice movement gets a win —Keerti Gopal for Inside Climate News

Supreme Court's limitation on wetlands protection will make flooding worse —Lisa Sorg for Inside Climate News

The surprising climate fix that Democrats and Republicans both love —Matt Simon for Grist

Final Beat:

The World Cup begins next week.

For the month that follows, futbol's finest — or soccer if you prefer — are set to take the pitch in stadiums across Canada, Mexico and the United States (including down the road from NCR headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri).

Beyond the teams and fandom accompanying the quadrennial tournament, an environmental angle is at play at the World Cup, too.

In May the Washington Post reported on a study projecting this World Cup could be among the hottest ever, exposing players and fans alike to dangerous levels of heat and humidity. This World Cup could also be the most polluting, climate scientists and advocates told the Los Angeles Times, in part due to air travel (by both teams and fans) across three countries, producing upwards of 9 million tons of carbon emissions — double the amount from recent World Cups. A major sponsor of the tournament is Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil and gas company.

Nevertheless, Catholic dioceses across the U.S. see the World Cup as both a pastoral opportunity and an unprecedented moment of global encounter, as John Knebels reported for OSV News this week.

As always, thanks for reading EarthBeat.

Brian Roewe
Environment Correspondent
National Catholic Reporter
broewe@ncronline.org