What’s happening—and what comes next.
Welcome to the Arc of Outrage! In this series, I have explained the Arc coming for data centers, warned you that facts and explainers will not stop it, and explored the topics in a recent solo pod. I am writing this series to help data center proponents flatten the Arc and, ultimately, survive it.
If you’re planning and building data centers—company leaders and staff alike—every day now is a breathless frenzy. Every day a reporter calls, a politician grandstands, or a council denies an application. Every day you’re going from fire drills to dumpster fires until you land in bed, exhausted. And then, after tossing and turning, you wake up and do it all over again. I’ve been there.
Surely, my clients tell me, we are approaching peak outrage.
Surely they’re right? Surely this pace is not sustainable and the opposition can’t continue to grow? Surely we are approaching peak outrage?
I’m afraid not.
But do not fear. I’ve been where you are and—rather than run yourself sick and ragged—you can learn from my experiences and engage with the Arc of Outrage with something resembling dignity and a plan! Today I’ll tell you what the Arc’s narrative really looks like, so you have no illusions.
Share this newsletter with a colleague
Both of these things are true:
- Data center outrage is going to get worse before it gets better.
- Leaders who understand the Arc now can still flatten it and shape what happens next.
The situation
Outrage feels nearly alive and wholly unpredictable. But outrage is not random—it has a consistent narrative. Let me outline that narrative for you.
The Before Times. What used to feel like the thick of things we can now recognize as the Before Times. For many years, data centers were built without much fuss. Occasionally a land use controversy or construction faux pas created a dustup, but no more than could be expected of the build-out of a box store or strip mall. On the Arc of Outrage, the Before Times end when a unique project becomes a proxy for a larger social battle.
The ascent. It’s hard to catch the beginning of the ascent, but one sure sign is when a set of neighbors seems to morph overnight into a community organization with a logo and a Facebook page. Soon, such groups are raising money and showing up at hearings accompanied by a lawyer. The ascent builds in fits and starts, until suddenly there is a pattern to the opposition. And the pattern starts repeating:
- Reporters are connecting hearings into stories.
- Politicians notice that the opposition has energy that makes for good press conferences.
- Approved projects get delayed, then postponed indefinitely.
- Commissioners start fielding requests for moratoria, sometimes before a project is even proposed locally.
You now fully find yourself engaged with the Arc of Outrage.
Note: This is the phase where you and other project proponents are most likely to underestimate the problem. Every new hit, because it’s the worst you’ve ever seen, seems as though it must represent the worst that will ever happen. But you’ve only just begun.
What comes next
Pick any public infrastructure battle that erupted into a national movement: the fracking wars, nuclear power shutdowns, CO2 pipelines, wind turbines. If any of them can be used as an example—and they all can—you are still climbing the Arc of Outrage, and I’m going to tell you what is coming next.
The ascent (continued). Inside your company, every new fight still looks like its own unique issue to be addressed. Your Whac-a-Mole day includes: a difficult county planning commission, an enterprising reporter, and an academic report that reads like an indictment. If you’re handling this like most companies, your comms strategy looks like spaghetti thrown at the wall, and your staff is scrambling to respond to everything everywhere all at once.
Outside the company, national eNGOs take up the cause and philanthropists (particularly climate philanthropists) fund local groups and academic studies. Political candidates race to propose more regulatory barriers.
What you won’t see? Champions, soothing voices, and rational compromises. Why? Because during the ascent (and indeed at the apex), there is no constituency for the data center proponent. You are going to have to build that from nothing.
The apex.You will know you are approaching the apex of the Arc when the social momentum feels overwhelming and the opposition has become mainstream. At the apex, opposition becomes easy, cheap, and socially rewarded. It will cost no social or political capital to be against data centers. (In contrast, it will cost an individual a lot to defend them with nuance.)
This is when professional opposition arrives by the busload (often literally). Yes, they may be blogging and posting using the AI and data centers they now despise. And yet you will gain nothing by pointing that out.
Universities, think tanks, and advocacy organizations will produce negative health studies. You will be faced with the impossible task of arguing against studies that show lower birth weights and higher incidence of cancer. Some studies may be well done, but some may be thin and conflate correlation and causation. The hardest part: Your local stakeholders will not care! They will not care even if you can definitively prove the studies were funded by money from a Swiss bank account held by Russian gangsters. Inflammatory study findings will go viral overnight, and mothers will cry—authentically—out of fear while holding their toddlers and testifying at the legislature.
Your leadership and board may be dismissive and scornful and frustrated and impatient. Why can’t you get this in hand?
And then the celebrities will join in. Take comfort—you are nearing the Apex now. The next Muppet movie will have a data center company villain. State-capitol opposition rallies will be headlined by bands and name-brand movie stars. The rallies will start to feel more like festivals.
Then you will know you’ve reached peak outrage. Thank heavens—now you can start to see the fruit of your months (or years) of effort.
The time you’re planning for
The descent. The descent begins when communities, companies, regulators, and local officials start sorting toward reality. Many communities will have said no. But now some will be looking for ways to say yes. Projects will get better. Negotiations will happen. Thoughtful, brave Problem Solvers will see a positive end game for their communities, and they will make it happen.
The new normal. Outrage burns out, but expectations do not reset to those of the Before Times. The new normal is more demanding than where you started: more scrutiny, regular and organized opposition, better regulations, and battle-hardened regulators.
That is what happened after the fracking wars: Companies got better. Regulators got more sophisticated. Communities sorted themselves into those that would use development to their advantage and those that would forbid it outright. This is ultimately where the data center issue is headed.
Seize the day
The companies that do well will be those that accept the hand they have now been dealt (not the one they thought they were going to get). Smart leaders will use the Arc’s ascent to set internal expectations and build real capacity to make it to the descent and, ultimately, succeed in the new normal.
The companies that do poorly will be treating opposition as isolated, irrational phenomena and failing to build either the strategy or capacity to ride out the ascent.
So what’s your job right now, if you are building data centers, powering data centers, permitting data centers, investing in data centers, or defending the infrastructure that makes data centers possible?
Staff for the Arc as it always plays out—the Arc you are actually in. Not the one you hoped for.
More on staffing correctly for the Arc in forthcoming Both Trues.
The Arc of Outrage series
This Both True series is not about avoiding the Arc of Outrage—because that’s impossible. Data centers are industrial infrastructure with real local impacts, and communities are going to react. This series is about how to flatten the Arc, survive it, and, in the process, get important projects built. I will continue to bring you series installments in the months ahead.
Right now is the best time to develop your Arc of Outrage strategy—reach out if you would like a briefing and tailored advice for your situation.
Forward this email to the people who need to get projects built.
Heart this piece and comment below so we can all learn from each other.
It’s (not) all downhill from here,
Tisha
