This is a fascinating article, but would seek more nuance in the NE renewables pushback where there's been issues w/ solar siting scenarios where it called for forest clearing & studies suggesting more could be done with rooftops. See bsky.app/profile/vive... -> news.mongabay.com/podcast/2024...

molly taft@mollytaft.com · yesterday

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

Wrote about this, and talked about it with Abrahm, who wrote the story linked above, on Hot Take a couple years ago: www.hottakepod.com/untitled-2/a...

Ecofascism: Where the Far Left and Far Right Kiss

Hey Hot Cakes, We’re gonna take next week off the newsletter, so we’re making this week’s edition FREE! So please share with impunity! Also, in some good climate news: Scott Morrison lost the Austral...

hottakepod.com

“The Lower Pecos Canyonlands contains thousands of archaeological sites dating back more than 10,000 years, including hundreds of sacred murals painted by the ancestors of the Indigenous communities that continue to occupy the region. The oldest surviving paintings are about 6,000 years old”

IFLScience@iflscience.com · yesterday

US Government waives laws protecting Native American graves to build border wall. www.iflscience.com/us-governmen...

The replies/QTs are pretty brutal, think folks on here are forgetting that: - Despite how terrible RFK Jr. IIRC he polled ~9-10% back in June 2024 (pre-MAHA). That's a lot. - These voters are seemingly tired of MAHA leadership, see bsky.app/profile/alic... & bsky.app/profile/alic...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 2d ago

There is pervasive corruption across our healthcare and agricultural systems that defy party lines. I meet with MAHA activists because a lot of their concerns are bipartisan issues that major corporations paint as partisan. The fight isn't left and right, it's top and bottom.

We're short #satx and #texas voices, so holding open this #callforsubmissions a bit longer. Send us your #degrowth #poetry :) Also your #art #music #photography #flashfic #flashcnf of the #pluriverse.

Deceleration@deceleration.news · 2d ago

#Callforsubmissions extended thru 8/15! Send us #poetry, #flashfic, #flashcnf, #art, #music that imagines an alternative future or celebrates other ways of doing, being, & thinking--counterimaginaries to the official US 250--which flower even now amid the violence of the current moment. #pluriverse

Hydrology Paper of the Day @hydro-kyleb.bsky.social on the future of urban hydrology: the need for a community of scientists to work together; understanding impacts in the context of sociohydrology; definitions of urban areas and processes; and the need for novel sensing systems and data collection.

Kyle Blount, Ph.D. (they/them)@hydro-kyleb.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🎉🎉NEW PAPER🎉🎉 "Out of the Forest and Into the Concrete Jungle" This is some of the work I'm most proud of to date: a new commentary co-authored with 15 amazing urban hydrology (or adjacent) folks after the 2024 WaterSciCon! Details and highlights below... 1/5 doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Not sure which hurts worse this morning: the fact that 600+ families just lost their home, or the knowledge that this will only keep happening in a warming world.

Alexandra (Alex) Duggan@alexdugganreports.bsky.social · 3d ago

The front page of this morning’s Spokesman-Review, Aug. 2, 2026, the day after one of the worst wildfires in Washington state history. More than 600 structures, mostly homes, have been lost in the #OldTrailsFire. Read local news.

My brother flies air attack for wildfire: he drives the plane as the Fire Watch guy in the right seat calls in aerial assets (water bombers, helos etc). Yesterday he was flying one of the many other fires in Eastern Washington (probably the Modrite Complex on the Columbia).

First draft drawn in a notebook of a map of occluded and buried tributaries to Boggy Creek (East Austin) -- 5 creeks and 2 springs -- listing the years they were disrupted. Not to scale, obv, just trying to situate them in my mind. Will do a nicer version in photoshop for publication.

A really cool Texas organizing tool I want to share is something my friend put together. Gateway to Voting pulls live in-person Texas voter registration events. Search for an event near you, use it when registering or helping voters across the state check it out at the link 🔗 gatewaytovote.org

Alex aka @digiconomist.bsky.social (he who took on the Bitcoin bros) is a worthwhile follow on data centre misreporting, particularly on water-washing and deceptive disclosure tactics. lnkd.in/p/eEDd6vKQ

Over the past year, my research has first highlighted the rapidly growing power demand of AI systems, followed by an assessment of the associated carbon and water footprints. My latest research addresses another, often overlooked consequence of the expanding AI infrastructure: electronic waste.

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

As a PSA: In the last week, two people I know got tricked by scam websites that used AI to replicate the websites of real businesses they had bought things from in the past.

“We also propose that the total human population of the area in 100–300 ad was 1.25–3 million people. If similar results are found elsewhere in Amazonia, the …current Amazonian …biodiversity and even some modelling of the global climate should be re-evaluated” 🧪 🌐 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Over 20,000 precolonial earthworks in the Southwest Amazonia - Nature

Using canopy-penetrating LiDAR data, the northern part of southwestern Amazonia appears to contain as many earthworks as previously estimated for the whole of Amazonia.

nature.com

"And, by its nature, AI training demand comes in short-term surges. This cycling on and off appears to be sharply reducing the life of the turbines, leading to downtime and costly repairs or, worse yet, the need for new equipment." Data centers are fundamentally different from other large loads.

Harriet Weber@harri.bsky.social · last wk.

Here's the deal with the pre-review study Tesla funded on turbine carnage. This is my first piece on the Data Centers Breaking Things beat. TLDR; AI training is wearing out, even breaking, a critical source of energy for AI training www.investors.com/news/turbine...

Ketan's full post ( ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g... ) is chock full of graphs and more on genAI energy/emissions and the articulation between 'traditional AI' vs. 'consumer generative AI' - worth bookmarking to share whenever it comes up in conversation.

Google’s exponential path to climate-wrecking digital bloat

Google’s latest report reveals a completely unprecedented rise in energy consumption – more than any of us expected. Generative AI is a climate carbon bomb.

ketanjoshi.co

Jason Hickel@jasonhickel.bsky.social · last mo.

I predicted that even if their AI found ways to improve efficiency, Google's energy use would go up, not down. Seven years later and this is where we're at:

Apparently today is the last day to submit a comment on this, been meaning to do it myself and some good talking points are here: morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/nine-days-...

Nine Days to Save Chaco Canyon

The BLM's own environmental assessment says erasing the buffer around a World Heritage Site yields fourteen wells and fourteen jobs. Comments close July 29.

morethanjustparks.substack.com

Source New Mexico@sourcenm.com · 3w ago

The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday began a public comment period for its proposal to roll back or completely undo protections against oil and gas operations near Chaco Culture National Historical Park, prompting outcry from environmental advocates and members of NM's federal delegation.

Upwards of 200,00 people may have lost their jobs today; or will in the upcoming days. There is a palpable sense of fear among the Haitian community right now. They need your support.

Heba Gowayed هبة جويد@hebagowayed.bsky.social · last wk.

My Haitian friend was just fired from his job. "They said I don't have a legal status now." This is likely happening to hundreds of thousands of people across this country today. Sick.

Thanks Paul Koberstein (@canopyoftitans.bsky.social) for the important background and science surrounding pyrocumulonimbus ("fire clouds") like the one we just saw in France, and the forest-thinning operations (read: slash piles) that could make matters worse. Edited by @jasondovemark.bsky.social.

Earth Island Journal@earthislandjournal.bsky.social · last wk.

“Fire clouds” are in the news as wildfires rage across Canada and Europe — a pyrocumulonimbus storm cloud was just recorded in France for the first time. But our understanding of this phenomenon — and what makes it worse — traces back to California's 2013 Rim Fire. By @canopyoftitans.bsky.social.

The interesting part of this newer critique of The Ocean Cleanup is it also brings some more context around their pivot to upstream river plastic collection work. Worth noting when watching recent YouTube personalities with lighthearted pieces (e.g. youtu.be/Rqpfnj7dAgw from a few months ago)

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 3w ago

I talk a lot about the complexity of ocean conservation, and how real solutions can’t fit on a bumper sticker. Enter the Ocean Cleanup. Launched by a teenager giving a TED Talk, they claimed they were going to scoop all the plastic out of the ocean. 🧪🦑🌎

My paper is out today in PNAS documenting how ICE activity in Trump 2.0 compares to the last 10 years and the mismatch between the action and the rhetoric. Joint with the fabulous @caitlinpatler.bsky.social and @elizabethacox.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Check out this 🚨NEW REPORT🚨 from @gaiazerowaste.bsky.social that examines the environmental and health implications of lithium-ion battery recycling in Nevada’s rapidly expanding “Lithium Loop” and beyond. Download link below: www.no-burn.org/resources/cr...

The last time I heard the name Richard Heinberg IRL it was a friend frustrated by me for mentioning peak oil. I get that the movement had issues (theres some fair criticism in bsky.app/profile/mtsw... ) but it created space for questioning human ambitions & resource futures, and how to transition..

John Fellowes@jrf66.bsky.social · last wk.

"I can’t help thinking how different the world would be right now if it had paid more attention to Richard, to his work, to his wisdom." www.robhopkins.net/2026/07/27/i...

Very sad to hear of Richard Heinberg’s passing. I didn’t know him at all well, but I always found him a charming interlocutor. Even when the matters being handled were very serious - as they usually were.. I agree with what Rob H. says here about him and our time…

John Fellowes@jrf66.bsky.social · last wk.

"I can’t help thinking how different the world would be right now if it had paid more attention to Richard, to his work, to his wisdom." www.robhopkins.net/2026/07/27/i...

Next year, I'll be teaching a seminar about "writing the [Mississippi] River," focused on nature and nationhood -- exploring how those two concepts shaped and were shaped by the way people documented and described the river through the years. What are some must-include texts?

The plan wasn't revealed until a 2025 meeting at Kealing MS, and even then, the public announcement didn't mention the creek and coverage didn't mention diverting its headwaters. No press coverage has explored in any serious way the implications of eliminating the sourcewater for an historic stream.

TxDOT spends $748M to burrow bus-size tunnels under Central Austin

The Texas Department of Transportation is set to launch one of Austin’s largest underground construction projects in 2026—digging 6.5 miles of 22-foot-wide tunnels beneath the city’s busiest highway.

communityimpact.com

Oh no, I built something new on the atmosphere. Introducing, atmowx.net

atmowx — weather on the AT Protocol

An open, decentralized network of weather stations publishing SI observations to the AT Protocol.

atmowx.net

Those farms, Jones says, are an attempt to control nature, and “what has controlling nature here done for us?” He turns back to the pond. “It’s polluted all our water. It’s really destroyed a lot of Iowa.” www.esquire.com/news-politic...

There’s a MAGA-MAHA Brouhaha Brewing in Iowa

Pesticides and fertilizers are washing off the state’s farms and into its waterways, sending cancer rates through the roof. Guess who’s backing the chemical conglomerates?

esquire.com