Jeb Bladine: Step up in the resolution game: Adopt a cause

It has been a rare — and fleeting — opportunity to write columns in back-to-back print newspapers published on Christmas and New Years eves. Last week’s “Season of Hope” messages now moves on to the “Mother of all Resolutions:”

Adopt a Cause!

First, of course, let’s cycle through all the oldie-goldies related to health, personal growth, finances and relationships. Let’s resolve to exercise more, eat/drink less (and better), manage spending and get organized. Let’s make goals to travel more, sleep better, pontificate less and rekindle some important personal and family connections.

Prediction: One perennial Top 5 resolution, weight loss, will hit No. 1 in 2026 after the January launch of affordable Wegovy pills for chronic weight management. It is going to be a year of expanded education about semaglutides and appetite suppression, combined with attention to diet and exercise.
People sometimes resolve to learn a new skill or hobby, but this may be a good year to inflate that notion into embracing a new cause with behaviors and actions that contribute to a valued outcome.

There’s no shortage of possibilities in areas of health, poverty, environment and other human conditions. I’m considering adoption of the still-fringe but worthy cause of slowing the development of massive new data centers until we can better understand and control the risks from artificial intelligence (AI).
Many modern technologies have expanded human capabilities, but a few — electricity, computing — have been transformational. AI may join that category by integrating and optimizing other technologies in ways that revolutionize invention and production.

It’s happening too fast for critical assessment of risks that accompany the promises. In response, new local, state and national organizations want to impact that speed by slowing or stopping the growth of giant data centers.

Motivations of that movement include concerns over massive new energy requirements driven by AI platforms. But increasingly, people are realizing that AI itself may be the greater concern without time for research-based rules and regulations.

One environment group, Food & Water Watch, is calling on Congress to enact a moratorium on construction of new data centers that power AI. Just for perspective:

The Switch Citadel campus in Northern Nevada reportedly is building toward 17.4 million square feet of data center space — almost 400 acres. Its power-use capacity has been reported as 7.45 TWh/year, or enough to power almost 700,000 average U.S. homes.

That “cause” seems likely to be overwhelmed by an insatiable appetite for more AI advancements in health, education and day-to-day life.

We read and hear concerns about loss of human jobs, risky rewiring of America’s youth and even general subjugation of people to all-powerful knowledge, skills and whims of AI. But we keep returning to the lure of Open AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Azure, Bedrock, NVIDIA and more.

Most people may consider the cause of slowing data center expansion too Don Quixote-ish, and maybe so. But there are a million more causes out there to adopt in 2026 — things to do with all that time available from eating less!

Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.