Climate Change

Utah’s Desert Could Fry If America’s Biggest Data Center Gets Built

"Plans for a celebrity-backed “hyperscale” data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state’s current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is “industry” and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development."

Source: Grist, 05/22/2026

"$6 Gas And Refinery Fears Collide With California’s Climate Ambitions"

"California is considering giving oil refineries and other major polluters billions in free pollution permits under a major overhaul of its carbon market. The fight is exposing a deeper question inside Gov. Gavin Newsom's climate agenda: Can California lower emissions without driving up gas prices?"

Source: CalMatters, 05/22/2026

Firms Rush Toward Deep-Sea Mining As Trump Regulators Fast-Track Permits

"In the year since President Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to create a deep-sea mining industry from scratch, businesses have raised millions of dollars from investors, stock prices have soared and federal regulators have raced to fast-track a permitting process."

Source: AP, 05/22/2026

Trump Eases HFC rule, Claiming It Will Lower Surging Grocery Costs

"The Trump administration on Thursday loosened federal rules that require grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment, a step that President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs."

Source: AP, 05/22/2026

Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast: Milder Than Normal Thanks To El Nino

"A developing El Nino that is forecast to get quite strong will likely dampen the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, but it won’t make the potentially deadly storms disappear, federal and outside meteorologists predict."

Source: AP, 05/22/2026

"Solar To Overtake Coal On Texas Grid For The First Time Ever This Year"

"For the first time ever, solar is set to generate more electricity than coal in the power market managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Nobody is building new coal power plants in the state, but developers are adding more solar there than anywhere else in the country."

Source: Canary Media, 05/21/2026

"Europe’s Green-Energy Future Has a Problem: Reindeer"

"In northern Norway, Sami people fear a copper mine will disrupt their traditional lifestyles."

"Each summer, Nils Mikkelsen Utsi guides his reindeer to highland pastures overlooking a fjord, known to locals as Repparfjord, in northern Norway. There, under the Arctic midnight sun, female reindeer give birth and Mr. Utsi marks the ears of the calves. His ancestors have done this for generations.

“This is my reindeer district,” he said. “This is my life.”

Source: New York Times, 05/21/2026

Scientists Accuse Livestock Industry of Downplaying its Climate Emissions

"A group of the world’s leading climate scientists are warning governments and the livestock industry against adopting an “accounting trick” that will imperil the all-out global effort required to control heat-trapping emissions."

Source: Inside Climate News, 05/21/2026

Wet Weather in Argentina Helped Fuel the Cruise Ship Hantavirus Outbreak

"The hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship has created a global public health crisis. But the driver of it is a rodent that weighs about an ounce, and climate shifts this year that have helped increase the odds of transmission."

Source: WIRED, 05/21/2026

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Climate Change