Readers write
Data centers need safeguards for the rest of us
The line Republican nominee for Georgia governor Rick Jackson, and others spout, that individual towns should be able to decide on data center development within their borders is a smoke screen handout to the industry, not a safeguard for the rest of us.
Data centers aren’t about brotherly love and community spirit; they are about making money.
Data centers come with serious environmental impacts — including exorbitant use of land, water and electricity. Obtaining the permits required to develop these facilities costs developers time and money, and complying with the conditions of approval costs even more.
Any data center developer will gladly throw money to a town for “long-term economic benefits” when local tradeoffs supplied in return make doing so less expensive than meeting environmental standards that would safeguard us all.
Environmental impacts don’t respect town boundaries. The water under your town doesn’t belong only to you, and the air above mine isn’t mine alone. Until we have statewide standards that minimize environmental damage, data center developers will keep seeking the cheapest solution — and therefore the most compliant or economically desperate town — for their projects.
Only when safeguards for all of us are assured will the location of data centers not matter.
RICK BURT, ATHENS
‘My president’ is acting like a petulant child
With the midterm elections upon us, I feel the president, whom I usually call “my president,” is acting like a petulant child. It’s my opinion he has become this way because he assumed his supporters would forgive him for almost anything, because he successfully closed the border and stopped illegal crossings. Not so, Mr. President; you also promised no new wars and lower prices.
Your so-called “sleight of hand,” as in telling us the war was necessary because Iran could have a nuclear weapon, did not work. Prices soared because the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz, driving up oil prices. In return, food prices and other necessities went up.
Instead of trying to undo the harm his actions have caused, which could cost the Republicans not only the House but the Senate, Donald Trump is making a spectacle of himself. On campaign stages, he curses and rants nonsensically. He seems delusional about where his popularity stands within his own party.
Trump needs to get off the campaign stage and let the sane Republican candidates try to win with a message against socialism, as that’s about all we have going for us right now.
BECKY SMITH, ROSWELL