Monday, August 24, 2026
A Google data center outside Council Bluffs, Iowa. Photo: Chad Davis / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Three-quarters of Americans would oppose a data center near their home, new polling finds

Opposition has swung 33 points in a year as utility bills climb, and more than 530 counties and towns have restricted or banned the facilities.
A cloud to ground lightning strike over Tampa, Florida. Photo: Christopher Hollis, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Using thunderquakes to X-ray Earth – a new study shows urban seismology in action

With the help of thunderstorms and everyday fiber-optic cables, these scientists are revealing a hidden world underground.
Industrial plants on Zug Island, seen from the Delray neighborhood of southwest Detroit. Photo: Notorious4life, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

They grew up breathing Detroit air. Generations of women are pushing for new approaches...

DETROIT — Joyce Collins has buried nearly her entire immediate family. Her father died in 1992 after cancer spread to his bones. Her oldest sister was diagnosed with lung cancer, later developed breast and brain cancer, and died in 2013. Another sister died from pancreatic cancer in 2007.
The dam at Carraizo Lake in Trujillo Alto, one of the reservoirs supplying drinking water to the San Juan area. Photo: Mtmelendez / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Puerto Rico is rationing water, but many residents stopped trusting the tap long before...

Drought and a ruptured pipeline have forced Puerto Rico into revolving water shut-offs. For many people, the disruption started years earlier, as did loss of faith in the utility.
Old-growth forest in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Photo: Forest Service Alaska Region, USDA (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Forest Service files proposal to rescind the roadless rule on more than 44 million...

The rule's own text puts the 2001 protections at 58.5 million acres, and comments close at midnight on September 21.
A technician works on a server rack at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. Photo: Derrick Coetzee (CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

There’s a better way to cool data centres that cuts their huge thirst for...

Piping water into the server halls could be a much more efficient way to remove waste heat.
An aerial view of the Rio Solimoes and surrounding Amazon rainforest in Brazil, 2009. Photo: lubasi (CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Brazil marks borders for isolated Indigenous group in the Amazon after decades

Agents of Brazil’s Indigenous agency, FUNAI, spent 60 days in June and July 2026 physically marking the borders of the Rio Pardo Kawahiva Indigenous Territory. The 411,000-hectare area in the Amazon biome of Mato Grosso state is home to the Kawahiva, an isolated Indigenous group.
A data center hall. Photo: 123net / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Oracle drops lawsuit over Wisconsin rules that shield utility customers from data center debt

Twenty-three states had approved special rates for the largest power users by May, and Oracle's own credit rating now sits below the threshold Wisconsin regulators set.
Green rolling hills meeting the sea along South Africa's Wild Coast

South Africa’s top court blocked Shell’s Wild Coast oil search: why it matters for...

South Africa’s first climate case at the Constitutional Court has blocked Shell’s oil and gas exploration off the Wild Coast, protecting coastal communities.
Indigenous delegates speaking at a COP30 climate event

Indigenous Peoples Call for Meaningful Influence in Climate Discussions — Nia Tero

Indigenous Peoples have long advocated for the environment through the lens of their traditional knowledge systems and cultures.