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After COP30, Indigenous advocates celebrate gains while warning of unfinished work

“They can’t decide for us without us.”

If there is one image that encapsulates COP30, this year’s global climate change conference in Belém, Brazil, it might be this: Indigenous activists, in traditional clothing and regalia, storming past security into a secure zone made for international negotiators and pre-approved delegates. The action occurred on the second day of COP30 and underscored how this conference would be different from others. This COP had been billed as the “Indigenous COP,” given the venue’s proximity to the Amazon and Brazil’s efforts to ensure Indigenous participation. But that presence was still limited by the nature of U.N. negotiations, in which member states have voting rights and Indigenous peoples who haven’t achieved internationally recognized statehood are unable to vote on decisions such as when and how to transition away from fossil fuels. Indigenous activists who didn’t receive official permission to enter the secure zones didn’t wait for permission. On multiple days throughout the conference, they marched in the streets, blocked the doors to the conference, pushed their way in, and made sure the world knew, “they can’t decide for us without us.” To Kaeden Watts, a climate and Indigenous rights policy expert from the Māori tribes of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Maniapoto, and Tūhoe, who watched the conference unfold from Aotearoa New Zealand, it was a stark contrast to previous COPs he’s attended where Indigenous perspectives were often ignored or only heard when they were amplified by non-Indigenous allies like Greta Thunberg. This time, he saw news reporters interview Indigenous demonstrators and leaders who spoke about land rights and climate harms. “This time you were seeing the amplification of Indigenous voices purely from an incredible organizing effort,” Watts said. “That’s an outcome we very rarely see and it’s resulted in tangible change.” Before the end of COP, the government of Brazil took steps to demarcate the lands of 27 Indigenous peoples throughout Brazil, and promised to recognize 59 million additional hectares over the next five years. According to the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, an organization representing Indigenous peoples in Brazil, more Indigenous participants were represented at this COP than in the entire 30-year history of the conference: More than 5,000 Indigenous participants, including about 900 with accredited access to areas where negotiators and pre-approved delegates met. Indigenous advocates went into COP wanting nation-states to agree to a clear roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels and commitments to end deforestation. They had a slew of proposals they hoped to include in the Global Mutirão, a nonbinding international agreement among U.N. members at COP30, that would protect Indigenous rights and their territories. That didn’t happen, but countries did agree to formally recognize the importance of protecting Indigenous rights, including land rights, in the Just Transition Work Programme, a U.N. program to help countries transition off of fossil fuels. That’s a big deal to Emil Gualinga, who is a member of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku and participated in COP30 as a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, an official global caucus created to enable Indigenous peoples to engage in COP negotiations. Gualinga said that this year, Panama helped ensure the Just Transition Work Programme included a reference to Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent to what happens in their territories. This is increasingly important in light of studies that show mineral deposits critical to fossil-fuel free energy production are often found within Indigenous nations’ lands and waters. But while he’s proud of that achievement, Gualinga was among many who were disappointed by the failure of U.N. member states to commit to a specific plan to stop relying upon fossil fuels, allowing the atmosphere to continue its path toward warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists have warned will wreak catastrophic consequences on Earth. The final version of the Global Mutirão was watered down by representatives from oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and countries with growing economies like China and India. “None of our proposals were taken into account for the ‘Global Mutirão’ text,” Gualinga said, noting that ‘Mutirão’ is an Indigenous name. ”But even so none of the proposals were taken into account.” Still, he isn’t discouraged. “The fight for Indigenous peoples is not only at the COP,” he added. International venues like COP are important spaces for environmental justice advocacy on behalf of Indigenous peoples to both defend planetary health and their rights to land and water, but are just one tool among many. This is something Gualinga knows intimately; his community in the Amazon forest of southern Ecuador have spent decades fighting against oil industry efforts to drill on their lands. He was only a child when the oil industry entered their territory. The Sarayaku people responded with organized resistance: The women snuck out in the middle of the night to steal weapons from the security forces and the village stopped fishing, hunting and going to school for six months in order to keep vigil over their land. The Sarayaku filed local and international lawsuits alleging that the oil company’s presence violated their right to free, prior and informed consent to what happens on their territories. In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concluded that Ecuador had violated their rights by allowing the company to enter their territory. “You don’t know in advance which strategies are going to work,” Gualinga reflected on the local advocacy. “I think it’s a matter of being creative and seeing where to focus.” Earlier this year, Pacific island nations, led in part by Indigenous students and lawyers, won a landmark decision from the International Court of Justice that made clear that national governments have a legal obligation to mitigate climate change and compensate those harmed. Many who flew to Belem from the Pacific hoped the court’s ruling would provide needed pressure to compel global action, like transitioning off of fossil fuels. Belyndar Rikimani, a Solomon Islander who attended the COP as a founding member of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change which initiated the ICJ case, was disappointed that the ruling wasn’t acknowledged. “At a moment when science is unequivocal and communities on the frontlines are sounding the alarm, the absence of any reference to a fossil fuel phase-out in the decision text is a devastating failure of political courage,” she said. “We will keep pushing inside courtrooms, negotiation halls, and at the grassroots until states meet their obligations and deliver the future our generation deserves.” Gualinga said he expects to see Indigenous international advocacy continue next summer in Bonn, Germany, where another U.N. conference will discuss national and international guidelines for transitioning off fossil fuels, and at the First International Conference for the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, next April. “For the Indigenous movement in the Amazon Basin, this is an important event, given that Indigenous Peoples’ organizations have called for the Amazon, and especially Indigenous People’s territories, to be decreed as No Go Zones for extractive industries,” he said. Kaeden Watts in Aotearoa New Zealand said that he thinks the visibility of Indigenous resistance at COP30 suggests that the messages of Indigenous peoples are starting to resonate with the public. He expects the movement for Indigenous climate justice to continue to grow, undeterred by the disappointments at COP. “Ever since Indigenous peoples have had to fight for their rights — in whatever form that looked like — their advocacy and their determination for self-determination has never stopped,” he said. “And we’ll never see it stop.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline After COP30, Indigenous advocates celebrate gains while warning of unfinished work on Dec 5, 2025.

Indigenous

Activism

Energy

Why Is That Woodpecker White?

For years, the author has gathered photographs of local leucistic birds: white (or whitish) woodpeckers, hummingbirds, sparrows, turkeys, bald eagles, and more. The post Why Is That Woodpecker White? appeared first on Bay Nature.

For several years in my garden, one of the harbingers of spring would be the arrival of the white-headed girl. This bird was a female house sparrow, normal except for her bright white cap. She stood out: field guides describe these birds’ caps as “drab,” meaning grayish-brown. Not white. So the first time I saw her, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. That became clear about a month later on a trip to the Sierras. As the sun was setting, the trip leader spotted two red-tailed hawks perched on top of a distant barn. At first glance, they didn’t look like a pair—one’s head seemed encircled by a saintly halo. A look through a spotting scope and a word from the trip leader clarified that the bird was leucistic. Now that I knew what I was seeing, I started noticing leucistic birds elsewhere, and I began collecting photographs of them from local Bay Area bird photographers. Photographer Alan Krakauer captured this partially leucistic white-crowned sparrow at his home in Richmond. Like my white-headed girl, he says that this bird returned annually for several years: “This bird was the VIB [very important bird] of our backyard and we always particularly loved finding it in with the other white-crowned and golden-crowned sparrows.”Photographer Marty Lycan took this photo in January 2023 at Shadow Cliffs Regional Park in Pleasanton. This particular bald eagle had been reported at several other hot spots continuing in 2024, and then into the new year.Mark Rauzon describes these photographs: “Bishop Ranch, San Ramon is a steep hill of super sticky mud, pockmarked by cattle hooves, that make for a challenge as you listen for the ‘haha’ laughing acorn woodpecker, hoping to see a white blur fly by. With patience, especially sitting quietly by the acorn granary, soon a normal and a white bird with a vermilion cap will drop by. Pretty much every bird photographer has made the pilgrimage to see them and take their best shot.” These birds were first reported in the summer of 2023. As of October 1, 2026, Mark thinks there might be as many as five. I love this particular photograph for showing both a typical acorn woodpecker and a leucistic one.Leucism is a rare condition in which a bird’s plumage has white feathers that aren’t normally white. Data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Feederwatch Program estimates that one in 30,000 birds has leucistic or albinistic plumage. Among those, most are leucistic, as opposed to albino. The difference is often—but not always—clear-cut: albino birds have no melanin, the pigment responsible for color, turning their plumage pure white, their eyes pink or red, and their legs and bills pale. Leucistic birds, instead, have normal eyes, bills, and legs for their species. And their whiteness comes in varying degrees. Some leucistic birds—like my white-headed girl—have white patches where they shouldn’t have them. Others will have plumage that looks faded—half way between its normal color and white. And in the most extreme cases, the bird’s feathers are completely white. This bird appeared in photographer Alan Bade’s garden for a few weeks in the springtime, but avoided his hummingbird feeders, perhaps avoiding competition with other birds, Alan speculates. He added that it seemed “a little timid and more delicate than our normal hummers. It goes away for a few days and then shows up again, like a ghost.” When Alan sent a picture of the bird—which he thought was leucistic—to expert Sherri Williamson, she replied that its “‘washed-out’ appearance” is “suggestive of one of the less extreme forms of albinism.” Her prognosis for the bird, however, was hopeful: “Though severe pigment abnormalities can make a bird more vulnerable to excessive plumage wear, sunburn, disease, and predation, there are some cases of ‘pigment-challenged’ Anna’s hummingbirds living to adulthood and breeding successfully. Here’s hoping that this will be one of those success stories.” Photographer Keith Malley is part of a regular crew at the Presidio’s Battery Godfrey who watch for seabirds and birds on migration. They observed this bird recently as it rose up behind their position at the ocean’s edge, then coursed along the bluff for about an hour before crossing north into Marin.Photographer Marty Lycan captured this almost completely leucistic white-crowned sparrow in winter several years ago while walking his dogs near a baseball field adjacent to Sycamore Valley Park. Was the location coincidental? The bird is about the size and color of a baseball showing a few scuff marks. It had been reported there the previous year, too, and then reappeared the following two winters. Sparrows seem to do this.Photographer Mark Rauzon found these finches in Panoche Valley, San Benito Co. where large flocks of house finches and various kinds of sparrows congregate in winter. Mark notes, “Obviously one stood out as it perched on the farming equipment.” Most often, a genetic defect causes leucism, by preventing pigment from moving into the feathers during development. Genetic leucism can result in birds that have patches of white (sometimes called piebald) or that are completely white. But various environmental factors can also contribute to leucism. Poor diet can lead to a loss of pigments, producing gray, pale, or white feathers. So can exposure to pollutants or radiation. Birds that lose feathers through injury sometimes replace the lost ones with new ones that lack pigment, regaining normal color only after the next molt’s feathers come in. And, like humans, birds can experience “progressive graying,” in which cells lose pigment as they age. Mark Rauzon seems to attract leucistic birds. He described this yellow-rumped warbler, at the Las Gallinas Sanitation Ponds in San Rafael, as “a butterbutt with mayo” or, alternately, “an Audubon warbler piebald with splotches of white and yellow, gray and gray.” (Audubon is a subspecies of yellow-rumped warbler). Photographer Becky Matsubara took this picture of this bird at Marta’s Marsh in Corte Madera a couple of summers ago; it was among 12 other northern mockingbirds. It had first been reported in April and stayed around until at least August. It reminds me of the mockingbird fledglings that descend on my backyard each summer, eating all of my blueberries. While leucistic birds can be a source of wonder for us humans, the abnormal coloration can cause problems for the birds themselves. A bird’s appearance is often critical in its ability to find a mate, and a bird that looks like a snowball instead of a rainbow might have problems getting a date. A bird’s color can camouflage it from predators, but, again, all of that white can be like a painted target. Melanin not only provides color in feathers but it also provides structural integrity, making feathers more durable. And finally, a lack of melanin can affect a bird’s ability to thermoregulate—lighter feathers may absorb less light and heat, so birds might struggle to stay warm in cold temperatures. I heard about this bird from some friends who had said it had been hanging out with three “normal” turkeys (is there such a thing?) in the grassy center divider of Sacramento Avenue in Berkeley for a few days. When I went to find it, the three turkeys were about four blocks away from the leucistic bird. The leucistic turkey disappeared a few days after I photographed it. The others, six months later, are still hanging around (I had to chase them out of my driveway last month!) (Eric Schroeder)At the Merced National Wildlife Refuge, photographer Rick Lewis remembers: “It was early morning, the sun was rising, no other vehicles in sight; I was driving solo and immediately recognized the silhouette as a phoebe. Very exciting as I focused my binoculars and realized that it was leucistic.” Although there have been no large studies that show leucism is on the rise, human activity leads me to believe there are more odd-colored birds around.Some of that increase is intentional: Hummingbird expert Sherri Williamson points out that humans sometimes selectively breed for rare qualities like albinism, meaning we’ve created “hundreds of fancy varieties of poultry, pigeons, and cage birds.” But other increases in leucistic birds are accidental: One study done in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster revealed that there was a tenfold increase in the number of leucistic barn swallows locally. With habitat loss (and degraded avian diets resulting from this), human influences, and other environmental factors, the numbers of leucistic birds are bound to increase. That might not always be a good thing, as we’ve seen. A bird hotline—in the pre-listserv and eBird days—alerted photographer Bob Lewis to this bird about a decade ago, on a garage roof in a Berkeley neighborhood. It hung around the neighborhood for several days before disappearing. When I asked him what he thought happened to it, he said he suspected “something ate it.”Photographer Torgil Zethson found this western sandpiper on the Newark Slough Trail at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge in the South Bay. Because this almost pure-white bird was so striking, he suspected that it might be the same one photographed a week earlier in Monterey County or even a bird seen in Coos Bay, Oregon ten days before that. (Torgil Zethson)But of course, the other explanation is that perhaps what’s increasing isn’t leucistic bird numbers, but rather the number of people watching and photographing birds. And I’m encouraged—as are the other Bay Area birders who’ve watched them—by those individual birds that keep showing up year after year, like my white-headed girl once did. After four years of backyard visits, she disappeared. Still, eight years later, when spring rolls around, I keep an eye open for her—or perhaps her offspring. Leucistic acorn woodpeckers. (Mark Rauzon)

Nature

The Strange Disappearance of an Anti-AI Activist

Sam Kirchner wants to save the world from artificial superintelligence. He’s been missing for two weeks.

Before Sam Kirchner vanished, before the San Francisco Police Department began to warn that he could be armed and dangerous, before OpenAI locked down its offices over the potential threat, those who encountered him saw him as an ordinary, if ardent, activist.Phoebe Thomas Sorgen met Kirchner a few months ago at Travis Air Force Base, northeast of San Francisco, at a protest against immigration policy and U.S. military aid to Israel. Sorgen, a longtime activist whose first protests were against the Vietnam War, was going to block an entrance to the base with six other older women. Kirchner, 27 years old, was there with a couple of other members of a new group called Stop AI, and they all agreed to go along to record video on their phones in case of a confrontation with the police.“They were mainly there, I believe, to recruit people who might be willing to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience, which they see as the key to stopping super AI,” Sorgen told me, a method she thought was really smart. Afterward, she started going to Stop AI’s weekly meetings in Berkeley and learning about the artificial-intelligence industry, adopting the activist group’s cause as one of her own. She was impressed by Kirchner and the other leaders, who struck her as passionate and well informed. They’d done their research on AI and on protest movements; they knew what they were talking about and what to do. “They were committed to nonviolence on the merits as well as strategically,” she said.They followed a typical activist playbook. They passed out flyers and served pizza and beer at a T-shirt-making party. They organized monthly demonstrations and debated various ideas for publicity stunts. Stop AI, which calls for a permanent global ban on the development of artificial superintelligence, has always been a little more radical—more open to offending, its members clearly willing to get arrested—than some of the other groups protesting the development of artificial general intelligence, but Sorgen told me that leaders were also clear, at every turn, that violence was not morally acceptable or part of a winning strategy. (“That’s the empire’s game, violence,” she noted. “We can’t compete on that level even if we wanted to.”) Organizers who gathered in a Stop AI Signal chat were given only one warning for musing or even joking about violent actions. After that, they would be banned.Kirchner, who moved to San Francisco from Seattle and co-founded Stop AI there last year, publicly expressed his own commitment to nonviolence many times, and friends and allies say they believed him. Yet they also say he could be hotheaded and dogmatic, that he seemed to be suffering under the strain of his belief that the creation of smarter-than-human AI was imminent and that it would almost certainly lead to the end of all human life. He often talked about the possibility that AI could kill his sister, and he seemed to be motivated by this fear.“I did perceive an intensity,” Sorgen said. She sometimes talked with Kirchner about toning it down and taking a breath, for the good of Stop AI, which would need mass support. But she was empathetic, having had her own experience with protesting against nuclear proliferation as a young woman and sinking into a deep depression when she was met with indifference. “It’s very stressful to contemplate the end of our species—to realize that that is quite likely. That can be difficult emotionally.” Whatever the exact reason or the precise triggering event, Kirchner appears to have recently lost faith in the strategy of nonviolence, at least briefly. This alleged moment of crisis led to his expulsion from Stop AI, to a series of 911 calls placed by his compatriots, and, apparently, to his disappearance. His friends say they have been looking for him every day, but nearly two weeks have gone by with no sign of him.Though Kirchner’s true intentions are impossible to know at this point, and his story remains hazy, the rough outline has been enough to inspire worried conversation about the AI-safety movement as a whole. Experts disagree about the existential risk of AI, and some think the idea of superintelligent AI destroying all human life is barely more than a fantasy, whereas to others it is practically inevitable. “He had the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Wynd Kaufmyn, one of Stop AI’s core organizers, told me of Kirchner. What might you do if you truly felt that way?“I am no longer part of Stop AI,” Kirchner posted to X just before 4 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, November 21. Later that day, OpenAI put its San Francisco offices on lockdown, as reported by Wired, telling employees that it had received information indicating that Kirchner had “expressed interest in causing physical harm to OpenAI employees.”The problem started the previous Sunday, according to both Kaufmyn and Matthew Hall, Stop AI’s recently elected leader, who goes by Yakko. At a planning meeting, Kirchner got into a disagreement with the others about the wording of some messaging for an upcoming demonstration—he was so upset, Kaufmyn and Hall told me, that the meeting totally devolved and Kirchner left, saying that he would proceed with his idea on his own. Later that evening, he allegedly confronted Yakko and demanded access to Stop AI funds. “I was concerned, given his demeanor, what he might use that money on,” Yakko told me. When he refused to give Kirchner the money, he said, Kirchner punched him several times in the head. Kaufmyn was not present during the alleged assault, but she went to the hospital with Yakko, who was examined for a concussion, according to both of them. (Yakko also shared his emergency-room-discharge form with me. I was unable to reach Kirchner for comment.)On Monday morning, according to Yakko, Kirchner was apologetic, but seemed conflicted. He expressed that he was exasperated by how slowly the movement was going and that he didn’t think nonviolence was working. “I believe his exact words were ‘the nonviolence ship has sailed for me,’” Yakko said. Yakko and Kaufmyn told me that Stop AI members called the SFPD at this point to express some concern about what Kirchner might do, but that nothing came of the call.After that, for a few days, Stop AI dealt with the issue privately. Kirchner could no longer be part of Stop AI, because of the alleged violent confrontation, but the situation appeared manageable. Members of the group became newly concerned when Kirchner didn’t show at a scheduled court hearing related to his February arrest for blocking doors at an OpenAI office. They went to Kirchner’s apartment in West Oakland and found it unlocked and empty, at which point they felt obligated to notify the police again and to also notify various AI companies that they didn’t know where Kirchner was and that there was some possibility that he could be dangerous.Both Kaufmyn and Sorgen suspect that Kirchner is likely camping somewhere—he took his bicycle with him, but left behind other belongings, including his laptop and phone. They imagine he’s feeling wounded and betrayed, and maybe fearful of the consequences of his alleged meltdown. Yakko told me that he wasn’t sure about Kirchner’s state of mind but that he didn’t believe that Kirchner had access to funds that would enable him to act on his alleged suggestions of violence. Remmelt Ellen, an adviser to Stop AI, told me that he was concerned about Kirchner’s safety, especially if he is experiencing a mental-health crisis.Almost two weeks into his disappearance, Kirchner’s situation has grown worse. The San Francisco Standard recently reported on an internal bulletin circulated within the SFPD on November 21, which cited two callers who warned that Kirchner had specifically threatened to buy high-powered weapons and to kill people at OpenAI. Both Kaufmyn and Yakko told me that they were confused by that report. “As far as I know, Sam made no direct threats to OpenAI or anyone else,” Yakko said. From his perspective, the likelihood that Kirchner was dangerous was low, but the group didn’t want to take any chances. (A representative from the SFPD declined to comment on the bulletin; OpenAI did not return a request for comment.)The reaction from the broader AI-safety movement was fast and consistent. Many disavowed violence. One group, PauseAI, a much larger AI- safety activist group than Stop AI, specifically disavowed Kirchner. PauseAI is notably staid—they include property damage in their definition of violence, for instance, and don’t allow volunteers to do anything illegal or disruptive, like chain themselves to doors, barricade gates, or otherwise trespass or interfere with the operations of AI companies. “The kind of protests we do are people standing at the same place and maybe speaking a message,” the group’s CEO, Maxime Fournes, told me. “But not preventing people from going to work or blocking the streets.”This is one of the reasons that Stop AI was founded in the first place. Kirchner and others, who met in the PauseAI Discord server, thought that genteel approach was insufficient. Instead, Stop AI situated itself in a tradition of more confrontational protest, consulting Gene Sharp’s 1973 classic, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, which includes such tactics as sit-ins, “nonviolent obstruction,” and “seeking imprisonment.”In its early stages, the movement against unaccountable AI development has had to face the same questions as any other burgeoning social movement. How do you win broad support? How can you be palatable and appealing while also being sufficiently pointed, extreme enough to get attention but not so much that you sabotage yourselves? If the stakes are as high as you say they are, how do you act like it?Michaël Trazzi, an activist who went on a hunger strike outside of Google DeepMind’s London headquarters in September, also believes that AI could lead to human extinction. He told me that he believes that people can do things that are extreme enough to “show we are in an emergency” while still being nonviolent and nondisruptive. (PauseAI also discourages its members from doing hunger strikes.)The biggest difference between PauseAI and Stop AI is the one implied in their names. PauseAI advocates for a pause in superintelligent AI development until it can proceed safely, or in “alignment” with democratically decided ideal outcomes. Stop AI’s position is that this kind of alignment is a fantasy, and that AI should never be allowed to progress further toward superhuman intelligence than it already has. For that reason, their rhetoric differs as much as their tactics. “You should not hear official PauseAI channels saying things like ‘we will all die with complete certainty,’” Fournes told me. By contrast, Stop AI has opted for very blunt messaging. Announcing plans to barricade the doors of an OpenAI office in San Francisco last October, organizers sent out a press release that read, in part, “OpenAI is trying to build something smarter than humans and it is going to kill us all!” More recently, the group promoted another protest with a digital flyer saying “Close OpenAI or We’re All Gonna Die!”Jonathan Kallay, a 47-year-old activist who is not based in San Francisco but who participates in a Stop AI Discord server with just under 400 people in it, told me that Stop AI is a “large and diverse group of people” who are concerned about AI for a variety of reasons—job loss, environmental impact, creative-property rights, and so on. Not all of them fear the imminent end of the world. But they have all signed up for a version of the movement that puts that possibility front and center.Yakko, who joined Stop AI earlier this year, was elected the group’s new leader on October 28. That he and others in Stop AI were not completely on board with the gloomy messaging that Kirchner favored was one of the causes of the falling out, he told me. “I think that made him feel betrayed and scared.”Going forward, Yakko said that Stop AI will be focused on a more hopeful message and will try to emphasize that an alternate future is still possible—“rather than just trying to scare people, even if the truth is scary.” One of his ideas is to help organize a global general strike (and to do so before AI takes a large enough share of human jobs that it’s too late for withholding labor to have any impact).Stop AI is not the only group considering and reconsidering how to talk about the problem. These debates over rhetoric and tactics have been taking place in an insular cultural enclave where forum threads come to vivid life. Sometimes, it can be hard to keep track of who’s on whose side. For instance, Stop AI might seem a natural ally of Eliezer Yudkowsky, a famous AI doomer whose recent book co-authored with Nate Soares, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, predicts human extinction in its title. But they are actually at odds. (Through a representative, Yudkowsky declined to comment for this article.)Émile P. Torres, a philosopher and historian who had been friendly with Kirchner and attended a Stop AI protest this summer, has criticized Yudkowsky for engaging in a thought exercise about about how many people it would be ethical to let die in order to prevent a superintelligent AI from taking over the world. He also tried to persuade Kirchner and other Stop AI leaders to take a more delicate approach to talking about human extinction as a likely outcome of advanced AI development, because he thinks that this kind of rhetoric might provoke violence either by making it seem righteous or by disturbing people to the point of totally irrational behavior. The latter worry is not merely conjecture: One infamous group who feared that AI would end the world turned into a cult and was then connected to several murders (though none of the killings appeared to have anything to do with AI development).“There is this kind of an apocalyptic mindset that people can get into,” Torres told me. “The stakes are enormous and literally couldn’t be higher. That sort of rhetoric is everywhere in Silicon Valley.” He never worried that anybody in Stop AI would resort to violence; he was always more freaked out by the rationalist crowd, who might use “longtermism” as a poor ethical justification for violence in the present (kill a few people now to prevent extinction later). But he did think that committing to an apocalyptic framing could be risky generally. “I have been worried about people in the AI-safety crowd resorting to violence,” he said. “Someone can have that mindset and commit themselves to nonviolence, but the mindset does incline people toward thinking, Well, maybe any measure might be justifiable.”Ellen, the Stop AI adviser, shares Torres’s concern. Though he wasn’t present for what happened with Kirchner in November (Ellen lives in Hong Kong and has never met Kirchner in person, he told me), his sense from speaking frequently with him over the past two years was that Kirchner was under an enormous amount of pressure because of his feeling that the world was about to end. “Sam was panicked,” he said. “I think he felt disempowered and felt like he had to do something.” After Stop AI put out its statement about the alleged assault and the calls to police, Ellen wrote his own post asking people to “stop the ‘AGI may kill us by 2027’ shit please.”Despite that request, he doesn’t think apocalyptic rhetoric is the sole cause of what happened. “I would add that I know a lot of other people who are concerned about a near-term extinction event in single-digit years who would never even consider acting in violent ways,” he told me. And actually, he had other issues with the apocalyptic framing aside from the sort of muddy idea that it can lead people to violence. He worries, too, that it “puts the movement in a position to be ridiculed,” if, for instance, the AI bubble bursts, development slows, and the apocalypse doesn’t arrive when the alarm-ringers said it would. They could be left standing there looking ridiculous, like a failed doomsday cult.His other fear about what did or didn’t (or does or doesn’t) happen with Kirchner is that it will “be used to paint with a broad brush” about the AI-safety movement, depicting its participants as radicals and terrorists. He saw some conversation along those lines earlier in November, when a lawyer representing Stop AI jumped onstage to subpoena Sam Altman during a talk—one widely viewed post referred to the group as “dangerous” and “unhinged” in response to that incident. And in response to the news about Kirchner, there has been renewed chatter about how activists may be extremists in waiting. This is a tactic that powerful people often use in an attempt to discredit their critics: Peter Thiel has taken to arguing that those who speak out against AI are the real danger, rather than the technology itself.In an interview last year, Kirchner said, “We are totally for nonviolence and we never will turn violent.” In the same interview, he said he was willing to die for his cause. Both statements are the kind that sound direct but are hard to set store in—it’s impossible to prove whether he meant them, and, if so, how he meant them. Hearing the latter statement about Kirchner’s willingness to die, some saw a radical on some kind of deranged mission. Others saw a guy clumsily expressing sincere commitment. (Or maybe he was just being dramatic.)Ellen told me that older activists he’d talked with had interpreted it as well meant, but a red flag nonetheless. Generally, when you dedicate yourself to a cause, you don’t expect to die to win. You expect to spend years fighting, feeling like you’re losing, plodding along. The problem is that Kirchner—according to many people who know him—really believes humanity doesn’t have that much time.

Activism

Crisis

Health

Scientific American’s Best Nonfiction of 2025

The 10 best nonfiction books of 2025, from the history of replaceable body parts to our AI future

Discovering nonfiction that reads like a story but keeps the scholarship front and center is the great white whale hunt for bookish adventurers. Countless authors attempt the feat, but it’s rare to find a book that showcases not only a fresh voice but also a new perspective.Scientific American staff read some truly exceptional nonfiction books in 2025 while on the prowl for intriguing stories, robust reporting and exceptional voices. Below is Scientific American’s best nonfiction of 2025, culminating a year of reading and adding new books to the top shelf.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.All books featured here have been independently selected by our editors. If you buy something through links on our site, Scientific American may earn an affiliate commission.Empire of AIby Karen HaoPenguin PressTags: AI, InvestigativeEasily one of the most gripping nonfiction books I’ve ever read, it keeps you hanging with cliff-hangers that envelop its dramatic characters, occasionally brave and often cowardly people hired and fired by artificial intelligence company OpenAI. One of the few journalists ever invited to interview OpenAI staff, Hao’s expertise flies off every page, and her dozens of pages of notes and citations back it up. She doesn’t hold back as she unveils the ivory towers and monied meetings driving AI, as well as the unrecognized workers around the globe sacrificing their mental health to build it safer. —Brianne Kane, Associate Editor/Books & Rights ManagerIs a River Alive?by Robert MacfarlaneW. W. NortonTags: Environment, HistoryDoes nature have inherent rights—to be respected and to be protected and restored from damage? To find answers, nature writer Robert Macfarlane traveled to three very different rivers in Ecuador, India and eastern Canada. His keen observational eye and provocative prose reveal the majesty of the many degraded rivers around the world. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter EditorReplaceable Youby Mary RoachW. W. NortonTags: Medical Science, HumorRoach has knocked it out of the park again. We follow her around the globe as she sniffs out the most curious, novel and extraordinary science happening in the amorphous field of human augmentation. In just the tip of the iceberg of her many adventures in this slim book, she interviews people who have elected to have their limbs removed, meets scientists studying pig organs and spends some time in an iron lung just to see what it feels like. Roach’s writing is on full display on these pages. She’s brilliant but also approachable and funny—a dream dinner guest in your pocket. —Brianne Kane, Associate Editor/Books & Rights ManagerEverything Is Tuberculosisby John GreenCrash Course BooksTags: Medical Science, HistoryEverything Is Tuberculosis shatters the misconception of a disease too easily thought vanquished. In this urgent and compassionate work, John Green shows how this illness is still the world’s deadliest infectious disease, and he does it with sharp reporting and deeply emotional storytelling. His voice resonates with clarity and conviction. The book combines history and science to make the unsettling point that tuberculosis is nothing but a social issue tied to inequality. Eye-opening and unsettling, it’s a call to action against inequality to be remembered in nonfiction. —Isabella Bruni, Digital ProducerThe Feather Detectiveby Chris SweeneyAvid Reader PressTags: True Crime, Bird BooksIn 1960 a commercial flight taking off from Boston Logan International Airport ran into a flock of birds and nosedived into nearby Winthrop Bay, killing 62 of the 72 people on board. Investigators sent bird remains embedded in the wreckage to the Smithsonian Institution in what became the first forensics case for Roxie Laybourne, a then up-and-coming taxidermist at the institute and the wonderful protagonist of this compelling, novel-like account. Journalist Chris Sweeney traces Laybourne’s rise to become a legendary forensic ornithologist, one who in her career would identify the remains of more than 10,000 airplane-struck birds. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter EditorThis Is for Everyoneby Tim Berners-LeeFarrar, Straus and GirouxTags: Technology, HistoryThis might be the first celebrity memoir I’ve ever read, inspired by my former co-worker Hector Coronado’s promise of “Rebecca Solnit–esque optimism” and an introduction to the technology behind the World Wide Web that non–tech nerds could understand. It’s a breezy ride through the life of Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, who peppers the Web’s key technological developments and societal challenges with the occasional encounter with Bono or the Queen of England. Most powerful is Berners-Lee’s dedication to his vision of what the Web, specifically, and the Internet writ large can be—even as the rich and powerful have spent decades manipulating it to their own ends. —Meghan Bartels, Senior ReporterHuman Natureby Kate MarvelEccoTags: Climate Change, HistoryMarvel is a huge figure in the climate science world, and her book offers a compelling introduction to the science of how our planet is changing. But this engaging book does so much more. Each chapter explores one emotion that climate change can inspire in us. And sitting with these emotions isn’t a frivolous distraction from the work that needs to be done, Marvel argues. Instead, feeling deeply about our world and the threats it faces—the anger and fear and grief, of course, but also the wonder and surprise and hope—is a necessary step in healing our planet. —Meghan Bartels, Senior ReporterTake to the Treesby Marguerite HollowayW. W. NortonTags: Memoir, NatureHolloway, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, takes us to a new understanding about the trials and tribulations of ecology, contrasting the planet’s environmental crisis with her own personal stories of survival. She climbs great hemlocks with a women’s climbing group to overcome a fear of heights brought on by motherhood and the loss of her brother and mother. We learn along with her to appreciate the details, described so lovingly and painstakingly, of endangered trees. The spot illustrations of leaves, bark, roots and seeds by Ellen Wiener enliven our enjoyment even more. (Full disclosure: Holloway and I were colleagues at Scientific American for many years, and I was privileged to see her journalism career blossom.) —Maria-Christina Keller, Copy DirectorThey Poisoned the Worldby Mariah BlakeCrownTags: True Crime, HistoryAn epic of science writing, for which Blake conducted more than 600 interviews, They Poisoned the World brings readers to Hoosick Falls, N.Y., where townspeople keep falling ill and dying from a mysterious cause. Meanwhile the local factories producing Teflon pump pollutants into local water supplies. Over decades, the dangers of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, so called forever chemicals, come to light despite the manufacturers’ attempts to keep dodging responsibility. This book will likely leave you horrified and enraged. But reckoning with the truth—no matter how stomach-turning—is the first step toward justice. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter EditorRaising Hareby Chloe DaltonPantheonTags: Memoir, NatureIf the sensation “cozy” were a book, it would be Chloe Dalton’s memoir Raising Hare. She recounts her tale as a workaholic city slicker who starts living in a cottage in the English countryside during the height of the pandemic. Out on a walk one day, she comes across an abandoned newborn hare. After deliberating, she brings it home with her. Determined to maintain a kind of wild existence for the animal, she rearranges her life to care for the sweet creature. Along the way, Dalton discovers a newfound interest in the natural world and draws attention to how commercial agricultural practices harm wild animals. This book may especially appeal to animal lovers, but it will warm all hearts. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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Climate

Meet the weird, wonderful creatures that live in Australia’s desert water holes. They might not be there much longer

From water fleas to seed shrimp, Australia’s desert rock holes shelter unique animals found nowhere else. But as the climate warms, their homes are at risk.

The Conversation , CC BY-NDYou might think of Australia’s arid centre as a dry desert landscape devoid of aquatic life. But it’s actually dotted with thousands of rock holes – natural rainwater reservoirs that act as little oases for tiny freshwater animals and plants when they hold water. They aren’t teeming with fish, but are home to all sorts of weird and wonderful invertebrates, important to both First Nations peoples and desert animals. Predatory damselflies patrol the water in search of prey, while alien-like water fleas and seed shrimp float about feeding on algae. Often overlooked in favour of more photogenic creatures, invertebrates make up more than 97% of all animal species, and are immensely important to the environment. Our new research reveals 60 unique species live in Australia’s arid rock holes. We will need more knowledge to protect them in a warming climate. Arid land rock holes play host to a surprisingly diverse range of invertebrates. Author provided, CC BY-ND Overlooked, but extraordinary Invertebrates are animals without backbones. They include many different and beautiful organisms, such as butterflies, beetles, worms and spiders (though perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder!). These creatures provide many benefits to Australian ecosystems (and people): pollinating plants, recycling nutrients in the soil, and acting as a food source for other animals. Yet despite their significance, invertebrates are usually forgotten in public discussions about climate change. Freshwater invertebrates in arid Australia are rarely the focus of research, let alone media coverage. This is due to a combination of taxonomic bias, where better-known “charismatic” species are over-represented in scientific studies, and the commonly held misconception that dry deserts are less affected by climate change. Invertebrates in desert oases include insects and crustaceans, often smaller than 5 cm in length. Invertebrates in this picture include three seed shrimp, one pea shrimp, a water flea, a water boatman and a non-biting midge larvae. Author provided, CC BY-ND Oases of life Arid rock-holes are small depressions that have been eroded into rock over time. They completely dry out during certain times of year, making them difficult environments to live in. But when rain fills them up, many animals rely on them for water. When it is hot, water presence is brief, sometimes for only a few days. But during cooler months, they can remain wet for a few months. Eggs that have been lying dormant in the sediments hatch. Other invertebrates (particularly those with wings) seek them out, sometimes across very long distances. In the past, this variability has made ecological research extremely difficult. Our new research explored the biodiversity in seven freshwater rock holes in South Australia’s Gawler Ranges. For the first time, we used environmental DNA techniques on water samples from these pools. Similar to forensic DNA, environmental DNA refers to the traces of DNA left behind by animals in the environment. By sweeping an area for eDNA, we minimise disturbance to species, avoid having to collect the animals themselves, and get a clear snapshot of what is – or was – in an ecosystem. We assume that the capture window for eDNA goes back roughly two weeks. These samples showed that not only were these isolated rock holes full of invertebrate life, but each individual rock hole had a unique combination of animals in it. These include tiny animals such as seed shrimp, water fleas, water boatman and midge larvae. Due to how dry the surrounding landscape is, these oases are often the only habitats where creatures like these can be seen. Culturally significant These arid rock holes are of great cultural significance to several Australian First Nations groups, including the Barngarla, Kokatha and Wirangu peoples. These are the three people and language groups in the Gawler Ranges Aboriginal Corporation, who hold native title in the region and actively manage the rock holes using traditional practices. As reliable sources of freshwater in otherwise very dry landscapes, these locations provided valuable drinking water and resting places to many cultural groups. Some of the managed rock holes hold up to 500 litres of water, but elsewhere they are even deeper. Diverse practices were traditionally developed to actively manage rock holes and reliably locate them. Some of these practices — such as regular cleaning and limiting access by animals — are still maintained today. Freshwater granite rock-holes are still managed using traditional practices in the Gawler Ranges region. Author provided, CC BY-ND Threatened by climate change Last year, Earth reached 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Australia has seen the dramatic consequences of global climate change firsthand: increasingly deadly, costly and devastating bushfires, heatwaves, droughts and floods. Climate change means less frequent and more unpredictable rainfall for Australia. There has been considerable discussion of what this means for Australia’s rivers, lakes and people. But smaller water sources, including rock holes in Australia’s deserts, don’t get much attention. Australia is already seeing a shift: winter rainfall is becoming less reliable, and summer storms are more unpredictable. Water dries out quickly in the summer heat, so wildlife adapted to using rock holes will increasingly have to go without. Storm clouds roll in over the South Australian desert. Author provided, CC BY-ND Drying out? Climate change threatens the precious diversity supported by rock holes. Less rainfall and higher temperatures in southern and central Australia mean we expect they will fill less, dry more quickly, and might be empty during months when they were historically full. This compounds the ongoing environmental change throughout arid Australia. Compared with iconic invasive species such as feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, invasive species in arid Australia are overlooked. These include feral goats, camels and agricultural animal species that affect water quality. Foreign plants can invade freshwater systems. Deeper understanding Many gaps in our knowledge remain, despite the clear need to protect these unique invertebrates as their homes get drier. Without a deeper understanding of rock-hole biodiversity, governments and land managers are left without the right information to prevent further species loss. Studies like this one are an important first step because they establish a baseline on freshwater biodiversity in desert rock holes. With a greater understanding of the unique animals that live in these remote habitats, we will be better equipped to conserve them. The freshwater damselfly visit granite rock-holes after rain and lay their eggs directly into the water. Author provided, CC BY-ND Brock A. Hedges received funding from Nature Foundation, The Ecological Society of Australia and the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment. Brock A. Hedges currently receives funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.James B. Dorey receives funding from the University of Wollongong. Perry G. Beasley-Hall receives funding from the Australian Biological Resources Study.

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Climate

Kennedy's Vaccine Advisory Committee Meets to Discuss Hepatitis B Shots for Newborns

A federal vaccine advisory committee is meeting in Atlanta to discuss whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born

A federal vaccine advisory committee convened Thursday in Atlanta to discuss whether newborns should still get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they're born.For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.But U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s committee is considering whether to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, which would mark a return to a public health strategy that was abandoned more than three decades ago. For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate.Committee member Vicky Pebsworth said a work group was tasked in September with evaluating whether a birth dose is necessary when mothers tested negative for hepatitis B.“We need to address stakeholder and parent dissatisfaction" with the current recommendation, she said.The committee makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how already approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, which were widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. But the agency currently has no director, leaving acting director Jim O'Neill to decide.The panel has made several decisions that angered major medical groups.At a June meeting, it recommended that a preservative called thimerosal be removed from doses of flu vaccine even though some members acknowledged there was no proof it was causing harm. In September, it recommended new restrictions on a combination shot that protects against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella. The panel also took the unprecedented step of not recommending COVID-19 vaccinations, even for high-risk populations such as seniors, and instead making it a matter of personal choice.Several doctors groups said the changes were not based on good evidence, and advised doctors and patients to follow guidance that was previously in place.Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that, for most people, lasts less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-lasting problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and scarring called cirrhosis.In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles during injection drug use.But it can also be passed from an infected mother to a baby. As many as 90% of infants who contract hepatitis B go on to have chronic infections, meaning their immune systems don’t completely clear the virus.In 1991, the committee recommended an initial dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Over about 30 years, cases among children fell from about 18,000 per year to about 2,200.But members of Kennedy's committee have voiced discomfort with vaccinating all newborns.Cynthia Nevison, an autism and environmental researcher, presented at the meeting. Nevison has written opinion pieces published by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy organization Kennedy previously led. She also co-authored a 2021 article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders that the publication retracted after concerns were raised about the paper’s methodology and about nondisclosed ties between the authors and anti-vaccine groups.Another presenter was Mark Blaxill, a co-author of the retracted paper, who spoke about vaccine safety.In the past, committee meetings have relied on presentations by the CDC scientists involved in tracking vaccine-preventable diseases and assessing vaccine safety. The agenda for this meeting listed no CDC scientists, but rather featured a prolonged public airing of anti-vaccine theories that most scientists have deemed as discredited. Kennedy is a lawyer by training. Aaron Siri, a lawyer who worked with Kennedy to sue vaccine makers, is listed as a presenter on Friday on the topic of the immunization schedule for U.S. children.The current guidance advises a dose within 24 hours of birth for all medically stable infants who weigh at least 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms), plus follow-up shots to be given at about 1 month and 6 months. The committee is expected to vote on language that says when a family decides not to get a birth dose, then the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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Thirsty work: how the rise of massive datacentres strains Australia’s drinking water supply

The demand for use in cooling in Sydney alone is expected to exceed the volume of Canberra’s total drinking water within the next decadeSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereAs Australia rides the AI boom with dozens of new investments in datacentres in Sydney and Melbourne, experts are warning about the impact these massive projects will have on already strained water resources.Water demand to service datacentres in Sydney alone is forecast to be larger than the volume of Canberra’s total drinking water within the next decade. Continue reading...

As Australia rides the AI boom with dozens of new investments in datacentres in Sydney and Melbourne, experts are warning about the impact these massive projects will have on already strained water resources.Water demand to service datacentres in Sydney alone is forecast to be larger than the volume of Canberra’s total drinking water within the next decade.In Melbourne the Victorian government has announced a “$5.5m investment to become Australia’s datacentre capital”, but the hyperscale datacentre applications on hand already exceed the water demands of nearly all of the state’s top 30 business customers combined.Technology companies, including Open AI and Atlassian, are pushing for Australia to become a hub for data processing and storage. But with 260 datacentres operating and dozens more in the offing, experts are flagging concerns about the impact on the supply of drinking water.Sydney Water has estimated up to 250 megalitres a day would be needed to service the industry by 2035 (a larger volume than Canberra’s total drinking water).Cooling requires ‘huge amount of water’Prof Priya Rajagopalan, director of the Post Carbon Research Centre at RMIT, says water and electricity demands of datacentres depend on the cooling technology used.“If you’re just using evaporative cooling, there is a lot of water loss from the evaporation, but if you are using sealers, there is no water loss but it requires a huge amount of water to cool,” she says.While older datacentres tend to rely on air cooling, demand for more computing power means higher server rack density so the output is warmer, meaning centres have turned to water for cooling .The amount of water used in a datacentre can vary greatly. Some centres, such as NextDC, are moving towards liquid-to-chip cooling, which cools the processor or GPU directly instead of using air or water to cool the whole room.NextDC says it has completed an initial smaller deployment of the cooling technology but it has the capacity to scale up for ultra-high-density environments to allow for greater processing power without an associated rise in power consumption because liquid cooling is more efficient. The company says its modelling suggests power usage effectiveness (PUE, a measure of energy efficiency) could go as low as 1.15. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletterThe datacentre industry accounts for its sustainability with two metrics: water usage effectiveness (WUE) and power usage effectiveness (PUE). These measure the amount of water or power used relative to computing work.WUE is measured by annual water use divided by annual IT energy use (kWh). For example, a 100MW datacentre using 3ML a day would have a WUE of 1.25. The closer the number is to 1, the more efficient it is. Several countries mandate minimum standards. Malaysia has recommended a WUE of 1.8, for example.But even efficient facilities can still use large quantities of water and energy, at scale.NextDC’s PUE in the last financial year was 1.44, up from 1.42 the previous year, which the company says “reflects the dynamic nature of customer activity across our fleet and the scaling up of new facilities”.Calls for ban on use of drinking waterSydney Water says its estimates of datacentre water use are being reviewed regularly. The utility is exploring climate-resilient and alternative water sources such as recycled water and stormwater harvesting to prepare for future demand.“All proposed datacentre connections are individually assessed to confirm there is sufficient local network capacity and operators may be required to fund upgrades if additional servicing is needed,” a Sydney Water spokesperson says.In its submission to the Victorian pricing review for 2026 to 2031, Melbourne Water noted that hyperscale datacentre operators that have put in applications for connections have “projected instantaneous or annual demands exceeding nearly all top 30 non-residential customers in Melbourne”.“We have not accounted for this in our demand forecasts or expenditure planning,” Melbourne Water said.It has sought upfront capital contributions from the companies so the financial burden of works required “does not fall on the broader customer base”.Greater Western Water in Victoria had 19 datacentre applications on hand, according to documents obtained by the ABC, and provided to the Guardian.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe Concerned Waterways Alliance, a network of Victorian community and environment groups, has flagged its concerns about the diversion of large volumes of drinking water to cool servers, when many of the state’s water resources are already stretched.Cameron Steele, a spokesperson for the alliance, says datacentre growth could increase Melbourne’s reliance on desalinated water and reduce water available for environmental flows, with the associated costs borne by the community. The groups have called for a ban on the use of drinking water for cooling, and mandatory public reporting of water use for all centres.“We would strongly advocate for the use of recycled water for datacentres rather than potable drinking water.”Closed-loop coolingIn hotter climates, such as large parts of Australia during the summer months, centres require more energy or water to keep cool.Danielle Francis, manager of customer and policy at the Water Services Association of Australia, says there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach for how much energy and water datacentres use because it will depend on the local constraints such as land, noise restrictions and availability of water.“We’re always balancing all the different customers, and that’s the need for residential areas and also non-residential customers, as well as of course environmental needs,” Francis says.“It is true that there are quite a lot of datacentre applications. And the cumulative impact is what we have to plan for … We have to obviously look at what the community impact of that is going to be.“And sometimes they do like to cluster near each other and be in a similar location.”One centre under construction in Sydney’s Marsden Park is a 504MW datacentre spanning 20 hectares, with six four-storey buildings. The CDC centre will become the largest data campus in the southern hemisphere, the company has boasted.In the last financial year, CDC used 95.8% renewable electricity in its operational datacentres, and the company boasts a PUE of 1.38 and a WUE of 0.01. A spokesperson for the company says it has been able to achieve this through a closed-loop cooling system that eliminates ongoing water draw, rather than relying on the traditional evaporative cooling systems.“The closed-loop systems at CDC are filled once at the beginning of their life and operate without ongoing water draw, evaporation or waste, ensuring we are preserving water while still maintaining thermal performance,” a spokesperson says.“It’s a model designed for Australia, a country shaped by drought and water stress, and built for long-term sustainability and sets an industry standard.”Planning documents for the centre reveal that, despite CDC’s efforts, there remains some community concern over the project.In a June letter, the acting chief executive of the western health district of New South Wales, Peter Rophail, said the development was too close to vulnerable communities, and the unprecedented scale of the development was untested and represented an unsuitable risk to western Sydney communities.“The proposal does not provide any assurance that the operation can sufficiently adjust or mitigate environmental exposures during extreme heat weather events so as not to pose an unreasonable risk to human health,” Rophail said.

Water

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Crisis

Stop treating your pet like a fur baby – you're damaging its health

Pet owners' increasing tendency to see their animals as children rather than dogs or cats can have dire consequences. Owners, and veterinarians, should be wary, warns Eddie Clutton

Where once they lived in our backyards, many pets – for better and for worse – have now transitioned to a pampered life as “fur baby” family members. The American Veterinary Medical Association recently highlighted that pet owners were projected to spend nearly $1 billion on costumes for their pets this year. Many see this as harmless fun, but the increasing tendency to treat pets as surrogate children – or at least small humans – can have severe health and welfare consequences for the animals involved. The forerunners of the modern fur baby belonged to a widely distributed population of small, domesticated carnivores of the genera Canis and Felis. Despite being relatively short-lived, such pets usually brought considerable pleasure, companionship and some health benefits to their human owners, while teaching children a respect for, and the vital requirements of, these animals. Pets have also brought other educational gains, such as the opportunity to experience and grieve non-human death in preparation for the demise of human loved ones. Most pets would be rewarded for this with food, water, shelter, vaccines, flea powders and a name reflecting their service (Fido), colour (Sooty) or behavioural traits (Rover). Importantly, they were usually assured a relatively pleasant death before the inevitable effects of advanced age extinguished any remaining quality of life. The pet-to-fur-baby evolution can be attributed to many things, including undue emphasis on the human-animal bond, increasing affluence, ignorance of animals’ biological needs, irresistible consumerism – and, in propagating ill-advised (though well-intentioned) anthropomorphism, social media. The principal causes, drivers and outcomes of fur babyism have intensified and spread globally. Evidence for this is inescapable and goes beyond the availability of clothes for birthdays, Halloween or Christmas. Strollers, jewellery, fragrances, nappies, nail polish, coat dyes, birthday cakes and shoes are now available for the modern fur baby, as are “gold standard” veterinary treatments. The adverse physical and psychological health effects of fur babyism are well documented. Take strollers for dogs: while potentially useful for injured or arthritic animals, their excessive use in other dogs can lead to muscle wastage, joint damage and obesity. Restricting the fur baby’s movement limits its natural inclination to explore, mark territory and interact with environmental features, such as others of its species, leading to fear and anxiety. Given these potential health and welfare hazards, one would expect the veterinary profession to adopt a universally condemnatory position with respect to the fur baby phenomenon. Oddly, this isn’t the case, with attitudes ranging from censure to capitalisation. The latter position is troubling because in encouraging overtreatment, for example radiotherapy in geriatric animals, it may further compromise animal welfare without necessarily improving animal health. An owner’s profound love for their pet can always be accepted, provided the animal’s interests are prioritised, which includes ensuring them freedom from pain, suffering and distress. What is considerably less defensible is the vet who cashes in on an owner’s misguided love for their pet to conduct unnecessary, invasive, painful, unproven and expensive tests and procedures on an animal that cannot give its consent. All caregivers should reflect on the suffering that may arise when animals are treated inappropriately: that is, as children rather than dogs or cats. And vets pandering to the fur baby trend should know better. Eddie Clutton is co-author of Veterinary Controversies and Ethical Dilemmas (Routledge)

Animals

Health

Food

What’s the best way to expand the US electricity grid?

A study by MIT researchers illuminates choices about reliability, cost, and emissions.

Growing energy demand means the U.S. will almost certainly have to expand its electricity grid in coming years. What’s the best way to do this? A new study by MIT researchers examines legislation introduced in Congress and identifies relative tradeoffs involving reliability, cost, and emissions, depending on the proposed approach.The researchers evaluated two policy approaches to expanding the U.S. electricity grid: One would concentrate on regions with more renewable energy sources, and the other would create more interconnections across the country. For instance, some of the best untapped wind-power resources in the U.S. lie in the center of the country, so one type of grid expansion would situate relatively more grid infrastructure in those regions. Alternatively, the other scenario involves building more infrastructure everywhere in roughly equal measure, which the researchers call the “prescriptive” approach. How does each pencil out?After extensive modeling, the researchers found that a grid expansion could make improvements on all fronts, with each approach offering different advantages. A more geographically unbalanced grid buildout would be 1.13 percent less expensive, and would reduce carbon emissions by 3.65 percent compared to the prescriptive approach. And yet, the prescriptive approach, with more national interconnection, would significantly reduce power outages due to extreme weather, among other things.“There’s a tradeoff between the two things that are most on policymakers’ minds: cost and reliability,” says Christopher Knittel, an economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who helped direct the research. “This study makes it more clear that the more prescriptive approach ends up being better in the face of extreme weather and outages.”The paper, “Implications of Policy-Driven Transmission Expansion on Costs, Emissions and Reliability in the United States,” is published today in Nature Energy.The authors are Juan Ramon L. Senga, a postdoc in the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research; Audun Botterud, a principal research scientist in the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems; John E. Parson, the deputy director for research at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research; Drew Story, the managing director at MIT’s Policy Lab; and Knittel, who is the George P. Schultz Professor at MIT Sloan, and associate dean for climate and sustainability at MIT.The new study is a product of the MIT Climate Policy Center, housed within MIT Sloan and committed to bipartisan research on energy issues. The center is also part of the Climate Project at MIT, founded in 2024 as a high-level Institute effort to develop practical climate solutions.In this case, the project was developed from work the researchers did with federal lawmakers who have introduced legislation aimed at bolstering and expanding the U.S. electric grid. One of these bills, the BIG WIRES Act, co-sponsored by Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Rep. Scott Peters of California, would require each transmission region in the U.S. to be able to send at least 30 percent of its peak load to other regions by 2035.That would represent a substantial change for a national transmission scenario where grids have largely been developed regionally, without an enormous amount of national oversight.“The U.S. grid is aging and it needs an upgrade,” Senga says. “Implementing these kinds of policies is an important step for us to get to that future where we improve the grid, lower costs, lower emissions, and improve reliability. Some progress is better than none, and in this case, it would be important.”To conduct the study, the researchers looked at how policies like the BIG WIRES Act would affect energy distribution. The scholars used a model of energy generation developed at the MIT Energy Initiative — the model is called “Gen X” — and examined the changes proposed by the legislation.With a 30 percent level of interregional connectivity, the study estimates, the number of outages due to extreme cold would drop by 39 percent, for instance, a substantial increase in reliability. That would help avoid scenarios such as the one Texas experienced in 2021, when winter storms damaged distribution capacity.“Reliability is what we find to be most salient to policymakers,” Senga says.On the other hand, as the paper details, a future grid that is “optimized” with more transmission capacity near geographic spots of new energy generation would be less expensive.“On the cost side, this kind of optimized system looks better,” Senga says.A more geographically imbalanced grid would also have a greater impact on reducing emissions. Globally, the levelized cost of wind and solar dropped by 89 percent and 69 percent, respectively, from 2010 to 2022, meaning that incorporating less-expensive renewables into the grid would help with both cost and emissions.“On the emissions side, a priori it’s not clear the optimized system would do better, but it does,” Knittel says. “That’s probably tied to cost, in the sense that it’s building more transmission links to where the good, cheap renewable resources are, because they’re cheap. Emissions fall when you let the optimizing action take place.”To be sure, these two differing approaches to grid expansion are not the only paths forward. The study also examines a hybrid approach, which involves both national interconnectivity requirements and local buildouts based around new power sources on top of that. Still, the model does show that there may be some tradeoffs lawmakers will want to consider when developing and considering future grid legislation.“You can find a balance between these factors, where you’re still going to still have an increase in reliability while also getting the cost and emission reductions,” Senga observes.For his part, Knittel emphasizes that working with legislation as the basis for academic studies, while not generally common, can be productive for everyone involved. Scholars get to apply their research tools and models to real-world scenarios, and policymakers get a sophisticated evaluation of how their proposals would work.“Compared to the typical academic path to publication, this is different, but at the Climate Policy Center, we’re already doing this kind of research,” Knittel says.

Climate

Energy

Nature

Incredible close-up of spider silk wins science photo prize

Duelling prairie chickens, a snake-mimicking moth and a once-a-year sunrise at the South Pole feature in the best images from the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2025

Spider silk threadsMartin J. Ramirez/Royal Society Publishing These twisting threads wrapped in thinner, looping strands are the silk of an Australian net-casting spider (Asianopis subrufa), a consummate ambush predator. Instead of building a web and waiting for prey to fall into it, this spider holds its net in its front four legs and throws it over a hapless insect. As this electron microscope image shows, its silk is specially adapted for this unusual hunting technique: it consists of an elastic core encased in a sheath of harder fibres of varying sizes, making it both strong and exceptionally stretchy. The photo, taken by Martin J. Ramirez at the Argentinian Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences and his colleagues, is the overall winner of the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2025. Jumping prairie-chickensPeter Hudson/Royal Society Publishing The winning photo in the behaviour category shows a fight between two male greater prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus cupido), snapped by Peter Hudson at the Pennsylvania State University. Like many grouse species, males gather at a so-called lek during the breeding season, where they compete for mates by leaping into the air and attempting to strike their opponent. TadpolesFilippo Carugati/Royal Society Publishing Filippo Carugati at the University of Turin, Italy, won in the ecology and environmental science category with this photo of tadpoles, taken during fieldwork in Madagascar. The tadpoles, thought to be the young of a Guibemantis liber frog, are swimming in a gelatinous substance hanging from a tree trunk. Atlas mothIrina Petrova Adamatzky/Royal Society Publishing This image by Irina Petrova Adamatzky, a UK-based photographer, is the runner-up in the behaviour category. It showcases the masterful mimicry of the Atlas moth (Attacus atlas), one of the largest moths in the world, with a wingspan of up to 30 centimetres. The tips of its wings resemble snake heads: a disguise that helps it avoid being eaten by birds. Fog in the Atacama desertFelipe Rios Silva/Royal Society Publishing In Chile’s Atacama desert, stratocumulus clouds drifting in from the coast are a valuable resource. Felipe Ríos Silva at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and his colleagues are exploring techniques for catching the fog and turning it into drinking water for communities living in one of the driest places on Earth. Ríos Silva’s photo was the runner-up in the earth sciences and climatology category. South Pole sunriseDr. Aman Chokshi/Royal Society Publishing The return of the sun after six months of darkness at the South Pole is captured in this image by Aman Chokshi at McGill University in Canada, the runner-up in the astronomy category. Chokshi had to heat up his camera and contend with the icy wind at -70°C (-94°F) for several minutes to take a 360-degree panoramic shot of the horizon as the sun rose. He then turned it into a stereographic image resembling a small planet, fringed by a green and purple aurora with the Milky Way above.

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After COP30, Indigenous advocates celebrate gains while warning of unfinished work

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The Strange Disappearance of an Anti-AI Activist

Scientific American’s Best Nonfiction of 2025

Meet the weird, wonderful creatures that live in Australia’s desert water holes. They might not be there much longer

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Thirsty work: how the rise of massive datacentres strains Australia’s drinking water supply

Stop treating your pet like a fur baby – you're damaging its health

What’s the best way to expand the US electricity grid?

Incredible close-up of spider silk wins science photo prize

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