Who Profits From Progress? Environmental Justice & Community Development from Coal Mines to AI Data Centers

The powers that be would have us believe that “democracy is an outmoded software”—a relic to be replaced by opaque systems of extraction, automation, and control. In this public conversation, Majora Carter and Ruha Benjamin examine how environmental injustice persists across technological eras, from the devastation of coal mining to the hidden ecological and social costs of today’s data-driven economy. They explore how data mining, energy-hungry AI infrastructures, and so-called “smart” technologies often reproduce the same patterns of harm, displacement, and disposability that have long defined extractive industries.

But this is only half of the story. From Appalachia’s Coal River Mountain Watch campaign against mountaintop removal mining to Memphis Community Against Pollution’s resistance to xAI’s gas turbine-spewing supercomputer, frontline communities have always fought back. These struggles reveal that technological development is never neutral, and that communities most affected by extraction are also the ones imagining and demanding more just futures.