Today on Volts: What should local officials do when a data center comes calling? With Saleem Chapman, I walk through @climatecabinet.org's comprehensive blueprint: what to require of them before they're built and when they are running, so that they benefit communities, not just investors.

What should state policymakers do about data centers?

A conversation with Saleem Chapman of Climate Cabinet.

volts.wtf

A spot-on analysis by Arundhati Roy on the #CJP, and if this is more than another singular attempt to upend India’s fascist regime or something more. Either way, for the first time, I feel more than hope — I have excitement. اِنقلاب زِنده باد ! m.thewire.in/article/righ...

Cockroach Democracy: Unarmed and Dangerous - The Wire

Can all the people be fooled all the time? Can a country with a population of a billion-and-a-half be dragged around like a corpse forever? It cannot. The Cockroaches are out and about.

m.thewire.in

In a low-key plaza on Alondra Boulevard in Norwalk, a pathway of LED lights in red, white, and green leads you to Cafe Palestina. It is a coffee shop, but it is also a statement, a room built to make a community feel like it belongs. The full story: lataco.com/cafe-palesti... By Karina Soriano

Re-upping this 2024 @bloomberg.com explainer: Why Older Adults Are Uniquely Vulnerable to Extreme Heat www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Everyone You Know Will Eventually Be Highly Vulnerable to Extreme Heat

As we get older, our bodies become less adept at responding to high temperatures. On a warming planet with an aging population, that’s a problem.

bloomberg.com

Big win in LA! In November, Angelenos will get the chance to let aspiring citizens vote! Huge S/O to @hugoforcd13.bsky.social for spearheading this effort! https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-06-17/measure-to-give-non-citizens-right-to-vote-in-la-elections-headed-for-nov-3-ballot

L.A. City Council agrees to put noncitizen voting, police oversight measures on Nov. 3 ballot

City Council approves package of city charter reforms, including noncitizen voting, for the Nov. 3 ballot. A measure to expand the council to 25 members was sidelined for further study.

latimes.com

NEW: This week, Seattle become the biggest city in the U.S. to pass a moratorium on new large-scale AI data centers, calling it a “moral imperative” to put people and our planet above tech profits. Olivia Rosane in @commondreams.org:

'We're Not a Company Town': Tech Hub Seattle Passes Data Center Moratorium | Common Dreams

To celebrate, the network of local activists who fought for the moratorium launched a People’s AI Bill of Rights to advocate for fairness, privacy, transparency, and accountability in technological…

commondreams.org

Voters are heading to the polls for this year’s midterms, but the electoral maps are shifting under their feet in real time. SCOTUS's gutting of the VRA has supercharged a redistricting fight that began when Trump urged states to change their maps to mitigate possible losses in Congress.

How redistricting is upending America’s midterms

Mother Jones national correspondent Tim Murphy examines how court decisions and GOP-led states are redrawing midterm electoral maps in real time.

motherjones.com

In Sept 2020, historian and leftist activist Umar Khalid was jailed amid a wider crackdown on those defying Modi's India. He remains imprisoned. Join @jamhoor.org and @equatormag.bsky.social for this event, featuring Banojyotsna Lahiri and @gautambhatia88.bsky.social

Jamhoor@jamhoor.org · 2mo ago

With @equatormag.bsky.social, we're hosting an online event on Umar Khalid and His World, an anthology of writings by and about him. Featuring Khalid's partner, researcher Banojyotsna Lahiri, and legal scholar @gautambhatia88.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/umar-khali...

Authorities in Southern California on Friday were racing to figure out how to prevent the explosion of a storage tank that has been leaking a hazardous chemical used to make plastic parts, as some 40,000 people were under evacuation orders in the area.

40,000 people under evacuation orders after a chemical tank leak in Southern California

About 40,000 people are under evacuation orders and schools have shut down in Southern California due to a hazardous chemical leak.

bit.ly

See y'all in Louisville this fall! Can't wait to share more soon.

the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley@obi-belonging.bsky.social · 4mo ago

We don’t want anyone leaving the 2026 Othering and Belonging conference as a stranger or arriving as one. That's why we're hosting pre-conference meet-ups for registrants to start bridging well before we get to Louisville. Our first virtual meet-up is on June 23 at 1:00 PM ET!

Excellent point. Here's the AQI right now. (The World Cup matches will be played at SoFi stadium in Inglewood, near LAX.) bsky.app/profile/awal...

Alissa Walker@awalkerinla.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This is LA's reality. In May. Just a few weeks before the World Cup is about to start. It smells like smoke at my house. What's the plan if we can't, in fact, safely host the first U.S. match of the World Cup in 23 days?

How does the idea of #landscape help us understand wartime harm to people and the environment? Our new post with the Center for Earth Ethics explores land, damage, loss and longing, explaining why people must be at the heart of post-conflict environmental recovery: ceobs.org/landscape-a-...

Landscape: a human lens on the environmental cost of war - CEOBS

If landscape and community are inseparable ideas, both must be central to post-conflict environmental recovery.

ceobs.org

Across the country, the world’s largest corporations are pushing to build massive data centers, promising benefits such as tax revenue and jobs. But while their outlook is rosy, the reality is far more dire. Check out our new resource: https://localprog.org/DataCenters101

Imagine if everyone had the healthcare, housing, food, education needed to thrive. We have enough to make that a reality. NEW TODAY: a resource from us & @itep.org on how local electeds can tax the ultrawealthy to fund public goods and vital programs. localprog.org/taxtherichfu...

If my (re)emergence on BlueSky means more doses of @theferocity.bsky.social in my daily life… habibi, I am here 👏🏽 for 👏🏽 it 👏🏽. Also, same ⬇️ 🤓

Saeed Jones@theferocity.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I’ve said this already, but I’m really in awe of people who are great listeners and ask great questions. It’s an art. #CouplesTherapy

The Great Displacement is a gripping read on the silent & loud ways that people across the US are increasingly forced to migrate after climate-intensified disasters & how our systems need to shift to better adapt to this constantly changing future. Spoiler alert: Housing needs to be a human right.

RebelFema@rebelfema.altgov.info · 3mo ago

The Great Displacement:Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle. He covers people whose lives have been altered by climate change w/ compassion. He covers 3 major forces creating climate displacement: weather disasters, govt policy, & the housing market. there is a FEMA thread

“Hormuz does not yet signal the end of this hydrocarbon dollar complex, which has always been a combustible mix of power and volatility. But it does reveal the structural changes that would be needed for a hegemonic transition.” www.equator.org/articles/the...

The Reckoning • EQUATOR

Hormuz and the end of American hegemony

equator.org

You might have noticed the centrality of the welfare state to Operation Metro Surge. In this essay I show how the Trump administration has turned our social safety net into an infrastructure of mass deportation.

Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“It turns out that as much as policymakers crowed that they were ‘ending welfare as we knew it,’ they proved incapable of knowing the poor in any other way.”

David Wolf, thank you for introducing me to @equatormag.bsky.social. I haven't stopped reading this magazine since this edition of the SLR. They are consistently producing incredible writing & reporting the most interesting stories I'm reading in (digital) print right now.

The Sunday Long Read@thesundaylongread.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Morning! We've got a collection of awesome stories for you curated by this week's guest editor, David Wolf. David is the editor of the Long Read, The Guardian’s flagship longform section. Enjoy his picks! mailchi.mp/sundaylongre...

Data centers are spreading across the country. Communities trying to fight back are on their own.

Data centers are spreading across the country. Communities trying to fight back are on their own.

Our AI future lives inside miles and miles of windowless data centers spreading across the US. Communities trying to fight back are on their own.

motherjones.com

California wildfire season starts up to 2.5 months earlier than in 1990. UCLA research shows climate change is responsible for as much as a 1.5 months of that. theconversation.com/wildfire-sea...

Wildfire season is starting weeks earlier in California – a new study shows how climate change is driving the expansion

Parts of California are seeing fire season start more than 10 weeks earlier now than in the 1990s.

theconversation.com

🦋 New platform, new opportunities. Better World Group is an environmental, energy, climate, and conservation policy and advocacy firm headquartered in Los Angeles. We're here to make connections, share insights, and stay curious. Learn more about our work: www.betterworldgroup.com

new place, same face. 👋 @bsky.app