Dear Friends,
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL PROGRAM, with Kirthi Jayakumar, Kathy Byrnes, and Ed Fallon:
(01:17) India’s climate, political, and land-use challenges — LISTEN
(18:20) Opposition to AI data centers goes global — LISTEN
(38:06) Prepare for the coming national security emergency — LISTEN
(50:47) Garden space’s future remains at risk — LISTEN
Last week was an exciting one at Birds & Bees Urban Farm. Kathy and I celebrated our best honey harvest ever — only half of which is pictured in the photo. Let’s hope the shelves hold!
From pulling frames to labeling jars, our low-tech, little-row-house-on-the-prairie process takes all of a week.
Never to squander an opportunity, the honey harvest is my sweet excuse for running late with last week’s blog. If you don’t find that excuse compelling, give me a minute and I’ll come up with a better one.
But you hardly need my blog to check out The Fallon Forum radio show and podcast.
Perhaps you’ve already caught the program on one of the dozen or so radio stations in ten states that air it. HERE’S THE LIST.
Your town not on the list? Ask a community-owned station if they’d consider picking up the program.
Or perhaps you subscribe to APPLE PODCASTS. If not, now’d be a good time to sign up. With much of the mainstream US media succumbing to the whims of corporate monopolies and an unhinged president, it’s important to support independent, uncensored information platforms.
Kirthi Jayakumar
Our August 24 program focuses on a conversation with Kirthi Jayakumar. Kirthi lives in Chennai, India, and holds a degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution from the University for Peace in Costa Rica. She has also earned a masters degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Security.
A lot of Kirthi’s work is focused on helping survivors of gender-based violence, including authoring Frankly Speaking, a play that channels the voices of eight young women from conflict zones in different parts of the world, interspersed with passages from The Diary of Anne Frank.
Kirthi and I discuss the impact that climate change has had on India this year.
We also discuss how the ascendant Cockroach Party is impacting the entrenched government of Narendra Modi, and how the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolence plays into the conflict.
Finally, we discuss how opposition to AI data centers is becoming a mass movement not just in the US but across India and much of the rest of the world.
Energy: If the entire world’s data centers made up a 51st US state, it would rank second in energy consumption behind Texas.
Water: The world’s AI data centers are projected to guzzle 2.45 trillion gallons of water per year by 2030.
Jobs: The world’s data centers employ roughly 2.3 million full-time workers. On the flip side, according to research published by National University, 300 million jobs could be lost to AI globally, representing 9.1% of all jobs worldwide.
Politics: In the US, President Trump pushes AI forward, despite polls showing that between 70 – 75% of Americans oppose data centers. The opposition in India isn’t yet at that level. But with the Modi government recently backing Google’s destruction of 600 acres of hills and forest land in Andhra Pradesh, public opposition is building.
Extinction: Kirthi and I concur that the risk of human extinction from AI is serious enough that its advance must either be stopped or seriously regulated.
I’ll remind you that some of the most prominent scientists, including Geoffrey Hinton (a Nobel laureate known as the Godfather of AI), hold that the chance of mass human extinction from advanced AI ranges from 10 – 50%.
Iowa State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott on the Fallon Forum last year.
If I were a president, prime minister, or king, even a ten percent chance of extinction would motivate me to declare an immediate emergency.
But I wear no crown nor carry a scepter. You and I — all of us ordinary worker bees — carry something more powerful. Despite Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the fall election, we still have one of democracy’s most powerful weapons. We can vote.
Despite all the flaws in our electoral system, candidates, and campaign finance laws, voting matters. A lot! Help a candidate who agrees that AI poses an existential risk and must be tightly regulated.
When I say “help,” I mean in a big way. Kathy and I have been volunteering extensively for Sarah Trone Garriott, who’s running for Congress in Iowa’s third congressional district.
If you’re not a third district voter, pick another candidate. Help them out. A lot. Sometimes it makes a big difference.
Especially important is control of the US House. That’s where Americans have the best opportunity to throw a road block in front of the bulldozer Trump and his team are using to destroy the East Wing, 60 golf-course trees, several national parks, The Kennedy Center, and democracy itself.
Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action. And if you’re a central Iowa resident, remember to support the local businesses and nonprofits that help underwrite this platform.
Ed Fallon
*******
In addition to our PODCAST, listen to the Fallon Forum on these affiliates:
– KHOI 89.1 FM (Ames, Iowa)
– KICI.LP 105.3 FM (Iowa City, Iowa)
– WHIV 102.3 FM (New Orleans, Louisiana)
– KPIP-LP, 94.7 FM (Fayette, Missouri)
– KCEI 90.1 FM (Taos, New Mexico)
– WGOT-LP 100.1 FM (Gainesville, Florida)
– KRFP 90.3 FM (Moscow, Idaho)
– WGRN 94.1 FM (Columbus, Ohio)
— WJLQ 99.7 FM (Muskegon, Michigan)
— WRWK 93.9 FM (Midlothian, Virginia)
— WDRT 91.9 FM (Viroqua, Wisconsin)