In Birmingham, Alabama — a city where the legacies of civil rights and environmental justice are deeply intertwined — one organization has spent decades refusing to let polluters off the hook. GASP (Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution) has been a relentless advocate for clean air and healthy communities, running air quality monitoring programs, educating residents on the dangers of particulate matter, and using the power of the law to hold industries accountable. As Grassroots Organizer Barbara Jackson puts it in a new video, “Clean air isn’t optional. It’s essential to our health, our families, and our future.” That mission has never been more urgent. Birmingham already sits in one of the most industrially burdened regions in the country, and the communities bearing the heaviest pollution loads are disproportionately Black — a pattern that reflects not just geography, but decades of deliberate, racially inequitable land-use decisions.
Video made by All the Way Entertainment
Now, a new threat is emerging that GASP has stepped up to confront head-on: the rapid expansion of AI data centers into Black communities. When “Project Marvel” was announced in Bessemer, Alabama — a hyperscale data center campus spanning 4.5 million square feet across 18 buildings — community members and environmental advocates sounded the alarm. The project was quietly classified as “light industrial,” minimizing public scrutiny and obscuring its true environmental footprint: enormous electricity demands, millions of gallons of water usage, and gas turbines that will compound the cumulative pollution burden on nearby residents. GASP’s Community Science and Research Coordinator, Zion Sharpe, stood before the Birmingham City Council in January 2026 to urge a moratorium on another new data center application, warning that Birmingham must not repeat Bessemer’s mistakes. The Council heard those concerns — and while it sent the moratorium to committee rather than passing it immediately, it has since set a public hearing for March 3rd, signaling that the fight is far from over. This is exactly the pattern that’s being spotlighted during Black Climate Week 2026: Big Tech, like Big Oil before it, is deliberately targeting communities of color — banking on their political disempowerment — and treating them as sacrifice zones where corporations extract value while leaving pollution, higher utility bills, and deepening inequality behind.
This Black Climate Week (February 21–28), GASP’s work stands as a powerful reminder that Black communities are not passive victims of environmental harm — they are organized, informed, and fighting back. From packing city council meetings to filing environmental complaints to hosting community listening sessions, GASP embodies the core message of Black Climate Week: that the best climate and environmental solutions come from those closest to the problem. The Solutions Project has documented how Black-led frontline organizations deliver outsized impact — securing policy wins, building community power, and proving that environmental justice and community prosperity go hand in hand. As Birmingham weighs how to regulate the next wave of AI infrastructure, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Supporting organizations like GASP — and amplifying their work this Black Climate Week using #BlackClimateWeek— is how we turn local resistance into national change.
Learn more about GASP at www.gaspgroup.org and follow them on social media for clean air updates @gaspgroup