Data Centers: Far Bigger Disasters Than You Even Thought

This week in the Anthropocene

The road is dusty and trash strewn. My friend and collaborator Colby Groves is hanging out the car window as I drive, gazing at a patchwork of solar panels lined up behind a chain-link fence. “This has to be it,” declares Colby, balancing a large camera on his lap, hoping it doesn’t bounce off as we traverse a series of bumps and divots.

We are in this land of scorching sun and heat, searching for a large Amazon solar installation in rural San Bernardino County, California. This is the home of the endangered desert tortoise and Joshua trees, but more recently, it’s become a plaything for greedy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

In 2024, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon connected its Baldy Mesa solar-and-storage project, which helps to power the company’s nearby data centers, to the electrical grid, earning accolades for its use of renewable energy. It’s the first of its kind in California. Despite its gargantuan size, the project faced very little opposition, as is often the case with such “green” projects.

As we step out of the car, we immediately hear the loud hum of a football-field’s worth of batteries, powered by solar panels that surround us in every direction. The entire setup is connected to the grid by towering transmission lines. Altogether, this sprawling array covers 1,500 acres of Mojave Desert habitat, almost twice the size of New York City’s Central Park.

Baldy Mesa’s impact on this delicate ecology is stark and tangible. Where Joshua trees once stood, Lego-like blocks of batteries the size of shipping containers now buzz and radiate heat. Where coyotes once scampered and desert tortoises burrowed, solar panels now blanket the landscape. Amazon avoided controversy by relocating 153 doomed Joshua trees, but the fact remains, there’s not a single Joshua tree where these photovoltaic panels now sit.

This particular Amazon Web Services (AWS) facility is an AI-driven machine-learning operation capable of analyzing 33 billion data points each year. That’s over 90 million data points a day. They claim it will allow their batteries to run more efficiently, while making you a better, wiser consumer of Amazon’s products and services.

As far as corporate marketing gimmicks go, this sure sounds nice. Yet, as I stand in the middle of Amazon’s solar farm, I can’t help but wonder what this desert must have been like before they decided it was better suited to powering AI programs. What was it like out here when the soil could still sequester carbon? Building on these lands has eliminated its ability to absorb fossil-fuel pollution. These solar panels are actually hurting the climate, not helping it out.

Even though this behemoth runs on renewable energy, nothing about it feels eco-friendly. Like so much of this AI-driven madness, there is a very post-apocalyptic aura to it all, made worse by the fact that Jeff Bezos is reaping the spoils. “Wow, look at that.” Colby points to a fence set up to protect the battery installation. The gate is wide open.

Someone more inclined to commit sabotage would have no difficulty gaining access. But we aren’t here for data center mischief. Colby sets up his tripod to shoot footage to accompany Bad Energy, my forthcoming book exploring the downside of the so-called green energy transition.

Few people will ever make their way to this remote spot in the Mojave to witness firsthand what Amazon has wrought. Aerial photographs obscure the reality of what it’s like on the ground amid the AI upheaval being thrust upon us without our consent. And, despite my many misgivings, this whole monstrosity is allegedly one of the better ones. Most new data centers aren’t powered by renewables but by fossil fuels.

Unless you’ve been slithering under a rock for the last few years (I empathize!), you know data centers are bad news.

-They suck up water. 17.4 billion gallons annually in the US.

-They burn electricity. 176 terawatt-hours (4% of all US energy use) yearly. Globally, they use 415 terawatt-hours, which is more than that of only 10 countries.

-They are creating heat islands. In some cases, warming the land around them by 16 degrees Fahrenheit.

-They eat up land. The average data center is the equivalent of 450 football fields.

-They aren’t long-term job producers. Even the Wall Street Journal calls data centers a “job-creation bust.” And of course, they are the beating heart of the AI revolution, which is encroaching on every aspect of our lives.

But really, how bad are these damn things? After all, they aren’t a new invention; they’ve been around since the dawn of the computer age. Yet, something is quantitatively different about what’s happening. At the current pace, data centers globally will require $1 trillion in annual infrastructure investment by the end of the decade.

It helps to put all of this in numbers. In the United States, there are between 1,500 and 1,600 data centers in the planning or construction phase, with over 4,000 already operating. A Pew study estimates that 67% of these new plants are coming to rural America, where 87% of existing centers currently operate in urban zones.

There are 754 data centers planned in the South. 277 in the West. 419 in the Midwest and 106 in the Northeast. Right now, Pew has shown 38% of Americans live within 5 miles of a data center.

Globally, there are 11,000+ data centers, and economies of scale are expected to dominate. This means the footprint of future data centers will matter more than the number of data centers being built. The energy required for this growth, as the Southern Environmental Law Center predicts, will supercharge climate chaos.

This is because many of these new plants use natural gas to generate power. Natural gas, while not as dirty as coal, releases methane, which, in the short term, is even more harmful than carbon dioxide. Gas plants also emit carbon. Lots of it. A study released in April predicted that just three of Microsoft’s AI-powered, methane-gas-powered data center projects will double the company’s carbon footprint and spew large amounts of pollution.

Another paper from researchers at Cornell predicts that up to 44 million metric tons of CO2 will be emitted by decade’s end if operators continue to rely on natural gas to power their data centers. As Grist reports, that’s like adding 10 million new vehicles on the road. The UN just published a study stating that by 2030, data centers will account for 3% of the world’s total energy use, a total of 935 terawatt-hours of electricity, emitting 440 million tons of carbon dioxide

This week, Columbia Riverkeeper (a fantastic org that deserves your support) dropped a startling report on what planned data centers will do in their corner of the Pacific Northwest. The study exposes how fossil fuel companies, utilities, and Big Tech are colluding to use the surge in data center development to expand gas-fired power plants and more pipelines.

“After years of progress toward achieving our region’s climate goals, we’re suddenly a potential new market for the fossil fuel industry,” says my friend Audrey Leonard, a staff attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper. “Cloaked under a shroud of secrecy, Big Tech opened the window, and now the gas industry is poised to seize an opportunity to build.”

This is a microcosm of what is happening nationwide. Data centers, fueled by massive capital investments in AI, will make it even harder to reduce the country’s contribution to climate chaos.

Then there’s the issue of water. A crowdsourced map compiled by Erin Brockovich shows that many data centers in the United States are operating in areas experiencing extreme drought. This isn’t good news where water conservation is needed, which may soon be much of the country. As mentioned above, data centers in the US, by one estimate, directly consumed 17.4 billion gallons of water per year. As more of these centers get built, that amount is expected to grow to 38-73 billion gallons annually. That’s a lot of water, more than the cities of Seattle or San Francisco use in an entire year.

-Joshua Frank, CounterPunch

June 6, 1944

 

"Hegseth has fired or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military officers"

 

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stripped nine navy officers including women and Black service members from a promotion list last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, resulting in an all-male, overwhelmingly white slate of 22 advancing as nominees to become one-star admirals.

Hegseth’s unusual intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, the New York Times said on Tuesday, and extended the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military. The original promotion list included three women and two Black officers in addition to the two who remained, the newspaper said.

A navy source said that officials in the service had been “very confident” with those on the promotion list, including the officers whom Hegseth removed. He said Hegseth did not explain to the navy why he removed the officers from the list.

One government source familiar with matter said Hegseth had “his favorite MOS’s [military occupational specialties] and then gender and race. He went through the list and scrubbed a few names. It was felt loud and clear.”

The Pentagon disputed that Hegseth blocked promotions based on race or gender. “As we’ve said before, military promotions are given to those who have earned them. The department will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions,” said Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson. “Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the war department.”

The move has direct parallels with Hegseth’s reported interposition in a similar army promotion list in March, in which he is said to have directed the army secretary, Dan Driscoll, to remove two women and two Black officers from a nomination slate to become one-star generals.

Hegseth has previously railed against diversity and so-called “woke” in the armed services. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons – based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” he told a keynote meeting of military commanders in Virginia in September. “The sooner we have the right people; the sooner we can advance the right policies.”

Hegseth’s involvement in the promotions list is unusual, according to a former military official. “It’s supposed to be an up-and-down vote from the defense secretary. He continuing to meddle on an individual basis,” he said. “He’s stripping autonomy from the service secretaries.” 

One name still on the latest navy list published on 22 May is Capt. Sean Barbabella, Donald Trump’s White House physician, who last week declared the almost 80-year-old president to be in “excellent health”, despite photographs showing him at times with swollen ankles, bruised hands and a blotchy neck.

Hegseth stepped in to overrule a board of navy admirals that had drawn up the list, the Times said, also removing four white officers. The outlet noted that the list as published, which must be confirmed by the US Senate, bears little relation to the makeup of the force the nominees will lead.

The report cites a 2024 government profile of the navy’s active-service composition, which revealed that more than 21% are women, and that almost 40% identify with racial minority groups. The Guardian reported in March that Hegseth, who styles himself the “secretary of war”, acted soon after his confirmation as defense secretary last year to block promotions or redeploy senior military officers, 60% of them women or Black.

He reassigned V Adm Yvette Davids, the first woman to lead the US naval academy, and dismissed another navy vice-admiral, Shoshana Chatfield, as the US military representative to the Nato military committee. Hegseth also dismissed Adm Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations.

Coast guard commandant Linda Fagan, who served for 37 years and was the longest-serving active duty marine safety officer, was dismissed on 20 January 2025, the first day of Trump’s second term of office, four days before Hegseth’s narrow Senate confirmation.

Overall, the Times said, Hegseth has fired or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military officers. The actions extend the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the US military, which have included attempts to ban women from combat roles and blocking transgender troops from serving.

A federal appeals court in Washington DC on Monday delivered a setback to the anti-diversity push by ruling that the government acted illegally by moving to dismiss transgender service members. That case is expected to reach the supreme court.

-by Richard Luscombe, Joseph Gedeon and Aram Roston

Related: Transgender troops can remain in US military, but enlistment can be blocked, court rules

Trump's Attack on Science

Trump is ripping up $368 million worth of ocean sensors to blind America to climate change and the collapse of the Atlantic current. Congress funded it. Scientists built it. Trump is tearing it up anyway.

The Trump administration is sending ships out in June to physically remove more than 900 deep-sea instruments from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that monitor things like ocean acidity and temperature — dismantling a $368 million monitoring network that took a decade to build and was designed to operate for 25 years.

It will be gone in 15 months.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative is not redundant government bloat. It is the world's most advanced continuously operating ocean observation system — monitoring greenhouse gas absorption, marine heat waves, commercial fisheries, coastal flooding along the East Coast, and most critically, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, the massive global conveyor belt of water that some scientists fear is weakening due to climate change. A collapse of that current would trigger severe weather catastrophes across multiple continents.

The instruments measuring that current are anchored 9,200 feet below the surface of the Irminger Sea, between Greenland and Iceland, as part of an international scientific collaboration. They are now being pulled out of the water.

The Trump administration tried to cut the network's funding by 80 percent — twice. Congress restored the money both times. So, the administration is simply dismantling it anyway.

The annual operating cost was $48 million. That's less than four days of the Iran war. It's a rounding error on the $1.776 billion slush fund Trump created for his January 6th allies. It's less than half what Trump is spending to gold-plate four horse statues near the Lincoln Memorial. "By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership," said Craig McLean, former acting chief scientist at NOAA.

Scientists warn that decades of institutional knowledge and engineering expertise will be lost — the kind that can't be reconstructed from notes. Commercial fishing industries along the Pacific Northwest and East Coast will lose critical data. Coastal communities will lose flood prediction tools. The entire planet will lose visibility into one of the most consequential ocean systems on Earth.

The National Science Foundation called this decision "nimbler prioritization." Scientists call it what it is: willful blindness to climate catastrophe, funded by your tax dollars and executed against the explicit wishes of Congress.

Please write your senators and representatives to urge them to stop the Trump administration’s foolish and ignorant attacks on climate science, and please like and share this post everywhere to spread the news of this catastrophic assault on environmental information.

"A Weekend of Hissy Fits"

Over the past week, we have seen something new from Donald Trump. When he loses, he now appears more inclined to throw a tantrum and stalk away. After U.S. Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered that Trump’s name be taken off the Kennedy Center and his plan for the two-year shutdown be halted, Trump went on a Truth Social rampage. That’s not new, but this attitude is:

"Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER, NEVER LAND.’"

Essentially taking his ball and going home, he declared he would “make all necessary arrangements with Congress to allow a full and complete transfer of this Institution, giving them the responsibility for its Operation, Maintenance, and Management.” 

In a weekend of hissy fits, he also angrily canceled his Freedom 250 concert after a long list of musicians cancelled. Sad!

The Kennedy Center ruling wouldn’t be the first time Trump essentially threw in the towel after an adverse court decision. His DOJ lackeys have decided against appealing some of Trump’s myriad legal losses (although when DOJ tried to back down from suing law firms, Trump jumped in to stop the retreat). That said, the Kennedy Center was something in which Trump was personally invested. His lack of interest in appealing such a rebuke is unusual for him, the sort of fit of pique you see from cranky seniors.

This incident would be striking enough, but Trump also walked away from his $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund. (The Wall Street Journal’s reporting last week suggested Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche “hadn’t anticipated the level of backlash the fund has generated among Repzublican lawmakers.” If true, this confirms Blanche is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.)

As soon as the slush-fund-for-insurrectionists deal was announced, Republicans (for once, finding a Trump outrage they could not swallow) and Democrats condemned the deal, halting progress on the Department of Homeland Security funding bill. By late last week, two courts stepped in to disrupt what was arguably the single most corrupt gambit in presidential history. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence, in tune with many U.S. senators, including the “Wounded Bear Caucus,” weighed in as well on Sunday’s Face the Nation: “The idea of creating a fund that could compensate people who assaulted police officers and vandalized the Capitol that day is totally unacceptable. My hope is the administration will drop it, drop the idea entirely.”

By early this week, at least the slush fund portion of the “settlement” was dead, although Blanche refused to put it in writing. However, the part of the noxious scheme agreeing to release Trump and his family from all liability for audits underway remained in place, despite real concerns about its legality and even potential criminal liability for those who brokered the deal. Democrats intend to force votes during reconciliation on this corrupt bargain, perhaps leading to yet another humiliating defeat for Trump. 

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami, who reopened Trump’s taxes case in response to the ethics issues raised by 35 former judges, may still want to examine this part of the deal. We will see if, in the face of congressional opposition and a possible embarrassing court inquiry probing the legality of the bargain, Trump again walks away.

The Kennedy Center and slush fund fiascos are not the only Trump ego/vengeance projects that have stalled out. 

Trump’s pet projects (e.g., the ballroom, his face on a $250 bill, the eyesore arch, his golf course takeover, revenge prosecutions) have all gotten bogged down, many in losing court fights. Republicans went so far as to take funding from the ballroom out of the DHS funding bill. (If not pre-midterms, then once the Democrats win majorities in one or both houses, funds for many of these gambits will disappear.)

As with his self-glorification antics, Trump is not getting his way very often these days when it comes to big policy matters. 

He got himself trapped between making a cruddy Iran deal that would expose him to humiliation and scorn (from his own party) or resuming a war for which he lacks public and congressional support (and for which he may lack funds and munitions). When Iran broke off talks on Monday, he sounded relieved. Like a petulant teenager, he says such talks “bored” him. Perhaps he simply loathed having his failure in the daily headlines.

The House vote passing the War Powers Act resolution delivered another stinging vote of no confidence on Trump. (The measure will go back to the Senate now.) At this point, he may, as many predicted, walk away from the war and leave it to others to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Again. Trump may find abandoning the war in a huff preferable to dragging out his ordeal. To him, that’s better than getting mocked for reaching a deal worse than the JCPOA at a much higher cost.

With his domestic agenda in no better shape (the reconciliation bill has been in disarray, as have defense appropriations) it is easy to forget that all this losing is happening while Trump still has the majority in both houses. For a president we keep hearing has his “grip” on the party, he does not appear inclined to even get his domestic allies to do very much.

Trump’s temper tantrums undoubtedly will multiply if he loses control of either house. Without doormats in Congress, Trump will not have much to do after the midterms other than rail at the media, his opponents, judges, and ungrateful voters.  As frustrated, huffy, and aggrieved as he is already, he may soon look back upon this time as his regime’s glory days. No more rubber stamps for vanity projects, tax cuts for the rich, or lavish spending on Immigration and Customs Enforcement shock troops and concentration camps.

Moreover, Trump would have more than gridlock to fear if Democrats wind up in power in either house. Trump and his underlings will face investigations, whistleblower complaints, subpoenas, and possible impeachment proceedings. Nominees who lied to Congress may face criminal referrals. Pentagon brass may be called to testify, lose Senate approval for promotions, and face potential military discipline over alleged war crimes. We should expect that if the midterms go poorly for Republicans, Trump suppliants in the Cabinet who beclowned themselves with fawning and oversized shoes may stampede out the door trying to avoid subpoenas.

Democrats should make certain Trump and his regime flunkies know exactly what to expect. Democratic leadership should announce they will appropriate no funds for vanity projects (and charge him for demolishing the East Wing), put a moratorium on Trump-named public structures, pass stringent rules barring stock trades for all three branches, claw back illegal emoluments, and set up a joint investigative committee to probe corruption and lawlessness both by the regime and those who curried favor. (We might even hear legal scholars’ testimony that his alleged insider trading could not possibly be considered a core executive function for which the Supreme Court has extended criminal immunity.)

It’s a good thing Trump is getting practice now in the art of taking his ball and going home. It is about to get more excruciating. In a gusher of political karma, the pathological narcissist in chief will be looking at repeated defeats (followed by humiliating U-turns), public snubs, and growing irrelevance — in other words, a two-year “hopeless journey into NEVER NEVER LAND.”

---

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is community-supported. Help fund bold journalism and critical lawsuits to stop Trump’s corruption by becoming a paid subscriber. Join the fight now.

 

Scott Pelley

 

In a statement responding to his firing from 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley condemned the politicization of the program, pressure to include bias and unverified claims, and the removal of senior leadership and fellow correspondents.

"There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.
 
"'60' has been the number one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
 
"The waste is heartbreaking. Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.
 
"For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
 
"At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to 'keep up the good fight.' Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.
 
"I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return."

"We offer this model for you to make your own and pass along"

As I take a breath this summer, I have been thinking a lot about Ayana Elizabeth’s Johnson’s What If We Get It Right? I am sliding right into the next book project asking a similar question, propelled by the abundant riches of all the interviews I did for Poisoning Our Children. There is more to say than could fit in any one book. One of the most striking parts of Johnson’s book is the Climate Oath, which she appends towards the end of her rich and delightful miscellany. Do No Harm is a motto I have often quoted, particularly in conversations with healthcare providers, and it centers her oath. To the splendid idea of pledging fealty to people and planet, I have added my own thoughts about conscientious objection – something that sprung from a public debate on the aids and ills of AI with a colleague at Benedictine this Spring. The original Hippocratic Oath starts with swearing to the healing gods: we instead choose elements of life on Earth we hold particularly dear. Substitute in those that reverberate deeply with you, those you would be mortified to let down and elated to make proud. We offer this model for you to make your own and pass along: On the majesty of turquoise seas, and fireflies, and aspen trees, On the honor of our parents, our ancestors, and humans-to-come, On the wonders of laughter and sunshine, I make these devotions to climate solutions for my community and for our magnificent planet: First, move from “I” to “we.” We will expand our sense of interdependence. We will rein in our sense of individualism. We will ask, “What should we do, together?” Survival is collective, our fates are intertwined. Second, do no harm. We will restore and heal, not pollute and deplete. We will regenerate ecosystems and our own resolve. We will live lightly, as part of the Earth. Accountability, generosity, and sweetness. Third, less is more. We will expand our creativity and contract our consumerism. We will conserve and distinguish between needing and wanting. We will be gentle with our own imperfections and others’. There is such a thing as enough. Basta. Possibility exists. This is a world of our making. We can remake it, remix it, restore it, rebalance it. The path of least resistance is only one of many paths. I will be part of getting it right. We will be part of getting it right. (Johnson 2024) I will add the following: I am a conscientious objector to · War · Fossil Fuels · Pesticides · Plastics · PFAS · Tobacco · Fast Fashion · Ultra-processed food · AI · Gross Inequality · All industries that seek to mine the Earth, to extract the shared resources of our common home, ecosystem health, and human attention to the detriment of all, just to make more money for the already wealthy. I am a conscientious affirmer of · Truth and Justice · Equality · Thriving Ecosystems · Simple Living · Learning and Wisdom · Human Community and Connection · All those many people who are willing to work for the common good, serve others, and protect the living planet on whom we all depend. All flourishing is mutual. I pledge to try every day to choose the obvious good and leave the obvious bad, in adherence to these values. Reference: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, What If We Get It Right? New York: One World, 2024. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Jean-Marie Kauth is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Jean-Marie Kauth that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. Pledge your support

Jean-Marie Kauth