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A Recipe for Avoiding 15 Million Deaths a Year and Climate Disaster Is Fixing Food, Scientists Say

Scientists are presenting new evidence that the worst effects of climate change can’t be avoided without a major transformation of food systems

Their conclusion: Without substantial changes to the food system, the worst effects of climate change will be unavoidable, even if humans successfully switch to cleaner energy.“If we do not transition away from the unsustainable food path we’re on today, we will fail on the climate agenda. We will fail on the biodiversity agenda. We will fail on food security. We’ll fail on so many pathways,” said study co-author Johan Rockström, who leads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.The commission's first report in 2019 was regarded as a “really monumental landmark study” for its willingness to take food system reform seriously while factoring in human and environmental health, said Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition at the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement. Key points from the latest report: A ‘planetary health diet’ could avert 15 million deaths every year The first EAT-Lancet report proposed a “planetary health diet” centered on grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes. The update maintains that to improve their health while also reducing global warming, it's a good idea for people to eat one serving each of animal protein and dairy per day while limiting red meat to about once a week. This particularly applies to people in developed nations who disproportionately contribute to climate change and have more choices about the foods they eat.The dietary recommendations were based on data about risks of preventable diseases like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, not environmental criteria. Human and planetary health happen to be in alignment, the researchers said.Rockström said it may seem “boring” for an analysis to reach the same conclusion six years later, but he finds this reassuring because food science is a rapidly moving field with many big studies and improving analytics.Food is one of the most deeply personal choices a person can make, and “the health component touches everyone’s heart,” Rockström said. While tackling global challenges is complicated, what individuals can do is relatively straightforward, like reducing meat consumption without eliminating it altogether.“People associate what they eat with identity” and strict diets can scare people off, but even small changes help, said Emily Cassidy, a research associate with climate science nonprofit Project Drawdown. She wasn’t involved with the research. Our food choices could push the planet past a tipping point The researchers looked beyond climate change and greenhouse gas emissions to factors including biodiversity, land use, water quality and agricultural pollution — and concluded that food systems are the biggest culprit in pushing Earth to the brink of thresholds for a livable planet.The report is “super comprehensive” in its scope, said Kathleen Merrigan, a professor of food systems at Arizona State University who also wasn’t involved with the research. It goes deep enough to show how farming and labor practices, consumption habits and other aspects of food production are interconnected — and could be changed, she said. “It’s like we’ve had this slow awakening to the role of food” in discussions about planetary existence, Merrigan said. Changing worldwide diets alone could lead to a 15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, because the production of meat, particularly red meat, requires releasing a lot of planet-warming gases, researchers concluded. Increased crop productivity, reductions in food waste and other improvements could bump that to 20%, the report said.Cassidy said that if the populations of high- and middle-income countries were to limit beef and lamb consumption to about one serving a week, as recommended in this latest EAT-Lancet report, they could reduce emissions equal to Russia's annual emissions total. Incorporating justice in an unequal world Meanwhile, the report concludes that nearly half the world's population is being denied adequate food, a healthy environment or decent work in the food system. Ethnic minorities, Indigenous peoples, women and children and people in conflict zones all face specific risks to their human rights and access to food.With United Nations climate talks around the corner in November, Rockström and other researchers hope leaders in countries around the world will incorporate scientific perspectives about the food system into their national policies. To do otherwise “takes us in a direction that makes us more and more fragile,” he said.“I mean both in terms of supply of food, but also in terms of health and in terms of stability of our environments,” Rockström said. “And this is a recipe to make societies weaker and weaker.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Climate
Food
Animals

Goodall's Influence Spread Far and Wide. Those Who Felt It Are Pledging to Continue Her Work

In the wake of Jane Goodall's death, the many scientists and others influenced by her are promising to do their best to carry on her legacy

In her 91 years, Jane Goodall transformed science and humanity's understanding of our closest living relatives on the planet — chimpanzees and other great apes. Her patient fieldwork and tireless advocacy for conservation inspired generations of future researchers and activists, especially women and young people, around the world.Her death on Wednesday set off a torrent of tributes for the famed primate researcher, with many people sharing stories of how Goodall and her work inspired their own careers. The tributes also included pledges to honor Goodall’s memory by redoubling efforts to safeguard a planet that sorely needs it. Making space in science for animal minds and emotions “Jane Goodall is an icon – because she was the start of so much,” said Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France. She recalled how many years ago Goodall answered a letter from a young aspiring researcher. “I wrote her a letter asking how to become a primatologist. She sent back a handwritten letter and told me it will be hard, but I should try,” Crockford said. “For me, she gave me my career.”Goodall was one of three pioneering young women studying great apes in the 1960s and 1970s who began to revolutionize the way people understood just what was -- and wasn’t -- unique about our own species. Sometimes called the “Tri-mates,” Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas spent years documenting the intimate lives of chimpanzees in Tanzania, mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and orangutans in Indonesia, respectively.The projects they began have produced some of the long-running studies about animal behavior in the world that are crucial to understanding such long-lived species. “These animals are like us, slow to mature and reproduce, and living for decades. We are still learning new things about them,” said Tara Stoinski, a primatologist and president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. “Jane and Dian knew each other and learned from each other, and the scientists who continued their work continue to collaborate today.”Goodall studied chimpanzees — as a species and as individuals. And she named them: David Greybeard, Flo, Fifi, Goliath. That was highly unconventional at the time, but Goodall’s attention to individuals created space for scientists to observe and record differences in individual behaviors, preferences and even emotions.Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at St. Andrews University who was inspired by Goodall, recalled how Goodall carefully combined empathy and objectivity. Goodall liked to use a particular phrase, “If they were human, we would describe them as happy,” or “If they were human, we would describe them as friends –- these two individuals together,” Hobaiter said. Goodall didn’t project precise feelings onto the chimpanzees, but nor did she deny the capacity of animals besides humans to have emotional lives.Goodall and her frequent collaborator, evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, had just finished the text of a forthcoming children's book, called “Every Elephant Has a Name,” which will be published around early 2027. Inspiring scientists and advocates for nature around the world From the late 1980s until her death, Goodall spent less time in the field and more time on the road talking to students, teachers, diplomats, park rangers, presidents and many others around the world. She inspired countless others through her books. Her mission was to inspire action to protect the natural world.In 1991, she founded an organization called Roots & Shoots that grew to include chapters of young people in dozens of countries.Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist and founder of the nonprofit Saving Nature, recalled when he and Goodall were invited to speak to a congressional hearing about deforestation and extinction. Down the marble halls of the government building, “there was a huge line of teenage girls and their mothers just waiting to get inside the room to hear Jane speak,” Pimm said Thursday. “She was mobbed everywhere she went -- she was just this incredible inspiration to people in general, particularly to young women.”Goodall wanted everyone to find their voice, no matter their age or station, said Zanagee Artis, co-founder of the youth climate movement Zero Hour. “I really appreciated how much Jane valued young people being in the room -- she really fostered intergenerational movement building,” said Artis, who now works for the Natural Resources Defense Council.And she did it around the world. Roots & Shoots has a chapter in China, which Goodall visited multiple times.“My sense was that Jane Goodall was highly respected in China and that her organization was successful in China because it focused on topics like environmental and conservation education for youth that had broad appeal without touching on political sensitivities,” said Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles expert on China and the environment, who previously worked in Beijing.What is left now that Goodall is gone is her unending hope, perhaps her greatest legacy.“She believed hope was not simply a feeling, but a tool,” Rhett Butler, founder of the nonprofit conservation-news site Mongabay, wrote in his Substack newsletter. “Hope, she would tell me, creates agency.” Carrying forward her legacy Goodall’s legacy and life’s work will continue through her family, scientists, her institute and legions of young people around the globe who are working to bridge conservation and humanitarian needs in their own communities, her longtime assistant said Thursday.That includes Goodall’s son and three grandchildren, who are an important part of the work of the Jane Goodall Institute and in their own endeavors, said Mary Lewis, a vice president at the institute who began working with the famed primatologist in 1990.Goodall’s son, Hugo van Lawick, works on sustainable housing. He is currently in Rwanda. Grandson Merlin and granddaughter Angelo work with the institute, while grandson Nick is a photographer and filmmaker, Lewis said. “She has her own family legacy as well as the legacy through her institutes around the world,” said Lewis.In addition to her famed research center in Tanzania and chimpanzee sanctuaries in other countries, including the Republic of Congo and South Africa, a new cultural center is expected to open in Tanzania late next year. There also are Jane Goodall Institutes in 26 countries, and communities are leading conservation projects in several countries, including an effort in Senegal to save critically endangered Western chimpanzees.But it is the institute’s youth-led education program called Roots & Shoots that Goodall regarded as her enduring legacy because it is “empowering new generations,” Lewis said.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. AP’s climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Activism
Animals
Climate

How Jane Goodall shaped generations of science and conservation in Africa

The late primatologist and advocate became a global face of and inspiration for field research and environmental protection across the continent.

British primatologist Jane Goodall, who died Wednesday at 91, fostered and wielded vast influence over science and environmental protection across Africa, researchers and conservationists said. She became a global face for issues that would shape the world’s view of the continent for decades.

Conservation
Science

Duke Energy backs off renewables after North Carolina cuts climate goal

When North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature nixed a key decarbonization deadline for Duke Energy in July, critics feared it would upend the state’s transition to clean energy. Now, a proposal Duke just submitted to regulators shows they were right to worry as the utility, North Carolina’s largest, seeks to walk back…

Duke’s proposed blueprint largely aligns with how experts predicted the company would behave without the 2030 deadline to curb greenhouse gas emissions. ​“This is just about what we expected,” said Will Scott, Southeast climate and clean energy director with the Environmental Defense Fund. The plan also reflects the federal government’s increasing hostility to renewable energy — and its unrelenting push to accelerate fossil-fuel use. At the same time, Trump has tried to prop up coal — the nation’s most expensive and polluting source of power — including via a Monday announcement of $625 million for the industry. As Duke notes in its plan, the administration has also relaxed other rules around carbon emissions and toxic ash from coal plants, although a future president could reverse course. Duke is responding accordingly. The company now wants to keep 4.1 gigawatts of its coal fleet running longer than it previously planned, instead of investing in proven clean-energy technology, said Mikaela Curry, manager for Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. ​“It’s just so frustrating,” she said. “It’s clear that national political sentiment is making its way into this plan,” said Brooks. ​“I don’t know what else accounts for prolonging coal, because the economics are certainly not on its side.” Before the rollback of the state climate law, cuts to federal incentives for renewables, and Trump’s particularly vicious attacks on wind energy, Duke had planned to add 13.2 gigawatts of solar and 4.5 gigawatts of onshore and offshore wind by 2035, according to the state’s nonpartisan customer advocate, Public Staff. Now, the utility envisions 9.2 gigawatts of solar — and no wind at all until at least 2040. “That’s clearly a response to political winds and not our resource winds,” Brooks said. ​“In a rational world, we’re going to have wind development in North Carolina.” The Oct. 1 blueprint from Duke is a first draft. Now, clean-energy advocates begin the arduous work of combing through the utility’s modeling assumptions and dozens of portfolios. They and other stakeholders have six months to offer written responses. The state’s Utilities Commission has until the end of next year to approve or amend Duke’s plan. With increased reliance on gas and coal sure to hit customers’ pocketbooks, critics say they’ll put rate impacts front and center. ​“We’re very sensitive to any portfolio that leaves ratepayers exposed to unnecessary fuel volatility and supply risks,” said Brooks.

Energy
Climate
Technology

Constellation Energy to Spend $340M to Improve Water Quality at Maryland's Conowingo Dam

Constellation Energy has agreed to spend more than $340 million to improve water quality from the Conowingo Dam that flows into the Susquehanna River and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Constellation Energy has agreed to spend more than $340 million to improve water quality at Maryland’s Conowingo Dam, which flows into the Susquehanna River and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, officials announced Thursday. The agreement clears the way for the re-licensing and continued operation of the dam’s hydroelectric facility on the Susquehanna, which is the largest source of renewable energy in Maryland. “This agreement will lead to real improvements in water quality in the biggest tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, while securing the future of one of our state’s largest clean energy producers," Gov. Wes Moore said. The agreement marks an end to wrangling over who is responsible for addressing pollution in sediment that gets stuck in the dam and ends up being released downstream and into the bay.The Maryland Department of the Environment issued an initial certification for the Conowingo Dam in 2018, but legal challenges led to a 2019 waiver of that certification and a settlement that required Constellation Energy to invest in improvements valued at $230 million. The terms were dependent on the facility’s receipt of a 50-year federal license, which it got but that was challenged by environmental groups. An appeals court vacated that license in 2022 after siding with the environmental groups who argued that Constellation’s license should require the company to mitigate the dam's water quality impacts. The deal announced Thursday was negotiated in partnership with Waterkeepers Chesapeake and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association to meet enforceable water quality standards, the governor’s office said.The terms include about $88 million for pollution reduction and resiliency initiatives, including shoreline restoration, forest buffers, fish passage projects and planting underwater grasses that produce oxygen, stabilize sediments and provide habitat for countless species. Another $78 million will be spent on trash and debris removal to add to efforts that already clear an average of about 600 tons of debris each year.It also includes funding to improve passages for fish and eels, a new freshwater mussel hatchery, invasive species management, and a study on the scientific and economic viability of dredging the dam to remove trapped sediment.A Revised Water Quality Certification will be filed with the federal government for the dam’s license to be renewed, the governor's office said. “Today’s announcement marks 16 years of tremendous effort and perseverance by our organization to assure Conowingo Dam is relicensed with proper conditions that protect the health of the Lower Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay,” said Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association Executive Director Ted Evgeniadis. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Energy
Water
Government

From Bombs to Glass: Hanford Site Can Now Transform Nuclear Waste

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state produced plutonium for most of America's nuclear arsenal through the end of the Cold War

SEATTLE (AP) — For much of the 20th century, a sprawling complex in the desert of southeastern Washington state turned out most of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, from the first atomic bomb to the arms race that fueled the Cold War.Now, after decades of planning and billions of dollars of investment, the site is turning liquid nuclear and chemical waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation into a much safer substance: glass.State regulators on Wednesday issued the final permit Hanford needed for workers to remove more waste from often-leaky underground tanks, mix it in a crucible with additives, and heat it above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 Celsius). The mixture then cools in stainless steel vats and solidifies into glass — still radioactive, but far more stable to keep in storage, and less likely to seep into the soil or the nearby Columbia River.“We are at the precipice of a really significant moment in Hanford’s history,” said Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington State Department of Ecology, in a video interview. Hanford's secret was a key part of the Manhattan Project The roughly 600-square-mile (1500-square-km) reservation is near the confluence of two of the Pacific Northwest’s most significant rivers, the Snake and the Columbia, in an area important to Native American tribes for millennia.Wartime planners selected the area because it was isolated and had access to cold water and hydroelectric power. In early 1943, the U.S. government seized the land for a secret project, displacing roughly 2,000 residents, including farmers.Tens of thousands of workers then responded to newspaper ads around the country promising good jobs to support the Allied effort to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II, and a new company town arose in the desert. Most of the workers had no idea they were involved in building the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor until the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and President Harry S. Truman announced the existence of the Manhattan Project to the world.Hanford would grow to include nine nuclear reactors churning out plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal. The last of these was shut down in 1987. Two years later, Washington state, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached an agreement to clean up the site. Today, Hanford is focused on clean-up Seven of the nine reactors have been “cocooned” to prevent contamination from escaping until radiation levels drop enough to allow for dismantling, near the end of the century.There are also 177 giant underground tanks that hold some 56 million gallons (212 million liters) of highly radioactive and chemically hazardous waste. Those tanks are well past their projected lifespan of 25 years. More than one-third have leaked in the past, and three are currently leaking.During its years producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, Hanford dumped effluent directly into the Columbia River and into ineffective containment ponds, polluting the surrounding groundwater and contaminating the food chain of wildlife that depends on it, according to a 2013 government assessment. Turning nuclear waste into glass is effective — but expensive Encasing radioactive waste in glass — called “vitrification” — has been recognized since at least the 1980s as an effective method for neutralizing it. There are plans for two facilities at Hanford: the one now approved to process low-level nuclear waste after repeated delays, and an adjacent facility for the high-level waste that remains under construction.More than $30 billion has been spent on the plants so far. The U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees Hanford, has faced an Oct. 15 deadline to have turned some of its stored waste into glass, per a cleanup schedule and consent decree involving the EPA and Washington state. Washington state Democrats question Trump administration's commitment The Energy Department fired Roger Jarrell, its main overseer of the Hanford cleanup, earlier this month, prompting concerns about the Trump administration's commitment. Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said Energy Secretary Chris Wright told her by phone that he was looking to stall the vitrification operations.That prompted outrage from Washington state officials. Gov. Bob Ferguson, joined at a news conference by tribal leaders and labor representatives, threatened legal action.But Wright insisted the department had changed nothing, and on Sept. 17, a deputy signed paperwork allowing vitrification to proceed following approvals by state regulators.“Although there are challenges, we are committed to beginning operations by October 15, 2025," Wright said in a statement last month. "As always, we are prioritizing the health and safety of both the workforce and the community as we work to meet our nation’s need to safely and efficiently dispose of nuclear waste.”On Wednesday, with state approval issued, Ferguson urged the Energy Department to follow through.“Our state has done our part to start up the Waste Treatment Plant,” said Ferguson, in a statement. “Now the federal government needs to live up to its responsibilities and clean up what they left behind.”In a statement ahead of the government shutdown, Department of Energy said it would be able to continue all of its operations for one to five days. After that, the department's work will cease unless operations are “related to the safety of human life and the protection of property.”Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Waste
Chemicals
Food

Swimming Drone Explores Underwater Mountain in Lake Superior

Filmmakers and researchers are using drones to explore an underwater mountain in Lake Superior

Known to some as the “Freshwater Everest,” if you want to explore this mountain, you don’t go up, you go down.In the middle of Lake Superior, near the boundary between Canadian and US waters, sits the Superior Shoal, a mountain that’s completely underwater. The shoal is about 4 square miles of volcanic rock that rises up from the bottom of the lake to a height nearly three times that of the Statue of Liberty. Its peak wrests about 30 feet below the surface. Now, filmmakers and researchers are exploring it with underwater drones. They want to see if it’s a hotbed for aquatic life that could offer a refuge for species facing obstacles elsewhere in the Great Lakes.“This is an area that has very, very rarely been explored on camera,” said Zach Melnick, a cofounder of Inspired Planet Productions, which he runs with his business partner and wife, Yvonne Drebert. It’s not the only underwater incline in the Great Lakes. Others include Stannard Rock, a reef in Lake Superior north of Marquette; a knoll outside Tobermory, Ontario in Lake Huron; and Midlake Reef in Lake Michigan, between Muskegon and Milwaukee. And it’s not the only “Superior Shoal.” There’s another located in the St. Lawrence River off the shore of New York. But Drebert and Melnick believe the Superior Shoal in Lake Michigan is the largest known underwater mountain in fresh water. Documenting aquatic life with a swimming robot The filmmakers had been curious about lake protrusions after exploring one that appeared to be an outlier of aquatic life while filming their series and related documentary, “ All Too Clear: Beneath the Surface of the Great Lakes.” Those works dive deep into how invasive mussels in the Great Lakes are gobbling up essential nutrients and devastating organisms, from plankton to whitefish.When a researcher they’d worked with in the past, Michael Rennie, got a grant to explore the Superior Shoal, they “sort of begged him,” Melnick said, to let them come along.Rennie is an associate professor at Lakehead University and a research fellow at the International Institute for Sustainable Development-Experimental Lakes Area. Now, with the help of the filmmakers’ cameras, he’s looking into whether the Superior Shoal might be a hotspot for life, which he said is often the case for similar seamounts found in the ocean. What they’re essentially studying, Rennie said, is “how the physics of having this giant mountain in a bunch of water that’s swirling around all the time interacts with things like nutrients, and with the growth of algae, to promote the abundance of fish that we seem to be seeing out there.”Melnick and Drebert are operating special cinema-grade cameras to monitor aquatic life like zooplankton, algae and fish. The drone they use is called a Boxfish Luna and it can go around 1,600 feet deep, about the length of five football fields.“Think of aerial drones, take all that cool technology, and put it in a robot that you’re shoving underwater,” Drebert said. “But our drone is a little bit special because it can swim in any direction, just like a fish.”Usually, it takes a little while for fish to get used to the swimming drone, Melnick said, but fish near the Superior Shoal seemed to be curious.“The trout out there were ultra amenable to being on camera,” he said. At one point, while the team was livestreaming video, they tried to measure fish with two laser points. The fish chased the glowing red dots the same way cats do. They also saw hydra, which are kind of like freshwater anemones, attached to rocks, giving the effect of a garden.“They are little tiny aquatic animals that wave in the wind,” said Drebert. “They use their little hairy tentacles to pull food, like little zooplankton and critters, out of the water.”Rennie said the data collected on the recent trip has not been fully analyzed yet. But, if research shows that the Superior Shoal is a magnet for aquatic life, then maybe it and places like it could serve as refuges for near-shore populations dealing with environmental or human-caused problems.“And, if that’s the case, then I think we’ve got really good arguments to be made for maybe we should think about affording these regions a higher conservation status,” Rennie said. Melnick and Drebert are planning to use footage taken from the Superior Shoal in a documentary they’re developing about lakemounts as well as a wildlife docuseries they’re working on. This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Mountains
Water
Business

How the Government Shutdown Could Affect Environmental Agencies

If a shutdown continues, it could interrupt the Environmental Protection Agency’s work and pull workers from maintaining national parks.

If a shutdown continues, it could interrupt the Environmental Protection Agency’s work and pull workers from maintaining national parks.

Government

Study Shows the World Is Far More Ablaze Now With Damaging Fires Than in the 1980s

A new study shows that the world's most damaging wildfires are happening four times more often now compared to the 1980s

WASHINGTON (AP) — Earth’s nastiest and costliest wildfires are blazing four times more often now than they did in the 1980s because of human-caused climate change and people moving closer to wildlands, a new study found.A study in the journal Science looks at global wildfires, not by acres burned which is the most common measuring stick, but by the harder to calculate economic and human damage they cause. The study concluded there has been a “climate-linked escalation of societally disastrous wildfires.”A team of Australian, American and German fire scientists calculated the 200 most damaging fires since 1980 based on the percentage of damage to the country's Gross Domestic Product at the time, taking inflation into account. The frequency of these events has increased about 4.4 times from 1980 to 2023, said study lead author Calum Cunningham, a pyrogeographer at the Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that we do have a major wildfire crisis on our hands,” Cunningham said.About 43% of the 200 most damaging fires occurred in the last 10 years of the study. In the 1980s, the globe averaged two of these catastrophic fires a year and a few times hit four a year. From 2014 to 2023, the world averaged nearly nine a year, including 13 in 2021. It noted that the count of these devastating infernos sharply increased in 2015, which “coincided with increasingly extreme climatic conditions.” Though the study date ended in 2023, the last two years have been even more extreme, Cunningham said.Cunningham said often researchers look at how many acres a fire burns as a measuring stick, but he called that flawed because it really doesn't show the effect on people, with area not mattering as much as economics and lives. Hawaii's Lahaina fire wasn't big, but it burned a lot of buildings and killed a lot of people so it was more meaningful than one in sparsely populated regions, he said.“We need to be targeting the fires that matter. And those are the fires that cause major ecological destruction because they’re burning too intensely,” Cunningham said. But economic data is difficult to get with many countries keeping that information private, preventing global trends and totals from being calculated. So Cunningham and colleagues were able to get more than 40 years of global economic date from insurance giant Munich Re and then combine it with the public database from International Disaster Database, which isn't as complete but is collected by the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.The study looked at “fire weather” which is hot, dry and windy conditions that make extreme fires more likely and more dangerous and found that those conditions are increasing, creating a connection to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.“We’ve firstly got that connection that all the disasters by and large occurred during extreme weather. We’ve also got a strong trend of those conditions becoming more common as a result of climate change. That’s indisputable,” Cunningham said. “So that’s a line of evidence there to say that climate change is having a significant effect on at least creating the conditions that are suitable for a major fire disaster.”If there was no human-caused climate change, the world would still have devastating fires, but not as many, he said: “We’re loading the dice in a sense by increasing temperatures.”There are other factors. People are moving closer to fire-prone areas, called the wildland-urban interface, Cunningham said. And society is not getting a handle on dead foliage that becomes fuel, he said. But those factors are harder to quantify compared to climate change, he said."This is an innovative study in terms of the data sources employed, and it mostly confirms common sense expectations: fires causing major fatalities and economic damage tend to be those in densely populated areas and to occur during the extreme fire weather conditions that are becoming more common due to climate change," said Jacob Bendix, a geography and environment professor at Syracuse University who studies fires, but wasn't part of this research team.Not only does the study makes sense, but it's a bad sign for the future, said Mike Flannigan, a fire researcher at Thompson Rivers University in Canada. Flannigan, who wasn't part of research, said: "As the frequency and intensity of extreme fire weather and drought increases the likelihood of disastrous fires increases so we need to do more to be better prepared."The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Climate
Crisis
Science

Economic boom or environmental disaster? Rural Texas grapples with pros, cons of data centers

Local leaders see data centers, which help power the world’s shift to artificial intelligence, as a way to keep their towns open. Residents worry their way of life — and water — is at stake.

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state. LUBBOCK — Kendra Kay loved growing up in the quiet of West Texas. She enjoyed the peacefulness brought in by the open lands. She appreciated how everyone in her community had a purpose and contributed to their way of life. She never wanted the busy noise that came with living in a bustling big city. “That’s why we live here,” Kay, an Amarillo resident, said. Now, Kay and others who have chosen the simpler life are worried that the emerging data center industry that has set its eyes on towns across the Panhandle and rural Texas might upend that agrarian bliss. “What will we have to give up to make sure these data centers can succeed?” she said. Data centers have been around since the 1940s, housing technology infrastructure that runs computer applications, internet servers, and stores the data that comes from them. More recently, data centers are powering artificial intelligence and other internet juggernauts like Google, Amazon and Meta. Related Story Sept. 11, 2025 These newer sprawling data centers have been sold to communities as a boon to their economic development. Rural Texas has become a prized spot for the businesses rushing into the state. Virginia is the only state with more data centers than Texas, which has 391. While most are concentrated in North Texas and other major metro areas, they are increasingly being planned in rural areas. Affordable property rates, wide open spaces, and welcoming local officials have made remote areas attractive. However, the people who live in those areas have grown worried about what incoming centers — which can sit on thousands of acres of land — mean for their lands, homes, and especially, their limited water supply. From the Panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley, Texas’ water supply is limited. The strain is particularly acute in rural West Texas and other areas of the state that face regular drought. Data centers, especially those used for artificial intelligence, can use an extraordinary amount of water. The state does not yet require most data centers to report their water usage. Related Story Sept. 25, 2025 And with new, bigger data centers coming to the state regularly, there are unanswered questions on where the data centers will get the water they need to stay cool. “These new data centers are enormous,” said Robert Mace, executive director of the Meadows Center. “I don’t know where you get the water to do that in a state that’s already water-stressed, not only from drought, but also rapid population growth in both the population and industry.” The concern already exists in the Texas Panhandle, where droughts are common and groundwater supply is declining. There are four data centers planned for the region, including in Amarillo, Turkey, Pampa and Claude. Outside the Panhandle is no different, as AI campuses are expanding in the Permian Basin and 30 data centers are planned for Sulphur Springs, a small town in East Texas. Those plans have residents just as worried. The Amarillo skyline on April 9. The city is considering selling some of its water to a data center. Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune In Amarillo, the City Council is considering a water deal with Fermi America, a company co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The campus would span 5,800 acres in nearby Carson County and include 18 million square feet for data centers. Perry said in June that the project is part of a national push to stay competitive in the global energy and technology sectors. A group of residents, including Kay, see the deal as a threat. They protested the deal in front of the Potter County courthouse in late September. “We’re ready for more community conversations about the use of this and with Fermi,” Kay said. Trent Sisemore, a former Amarillo mayor who Fermi tapped to lead community engagement, said the data center will offer good jobs. The Panhandle was also chosen, the company said ealier, because of its proximity to natural gas pipelines, high-speed fiber and other infrastructure. “The deployment brings tremendous growth and economic stability to our community,” Sisemore said. Part of Amarillo’s water supply comes from the Ogallala Aquifer, which is also the main water supply for farmers and ranchers in the region, and it is being drained at rates faster than it can be replenished. Agriculture production is the lifeblood of the High Plains, and the success of the region depends on the success of farmers and ranchers. Organizers of the protest at the Potter County courthouse have stressed that incoming data centers are dangerous because of the ripple effect that could happen in a region already under water restrictions. Kay pointed to similar communities, such as Lenoir, North Carolina and Henrico County, Virginia, where there is a constant expansion of data centers pushing into rural areas. The expansions bring the likelihood of noise and water pollution, along with a jump in electricity prices with it. “We would never move somewhere that’s more busy and loud,” Kay said. “We like our quiet streets.” “It’s exciting when it comes to data centers” Economic success in Ector County, which includes Odessa, has long been dependent on oil rigs. For local officials, a 235-acre data center in Penwell is a chance to diversify the economy. The abundance of natural gas, untapped land and untreated water, makes the region ideal, said County Judge Dustin Fawcett. “It’s exciting when it comes to data centers,” said Fawcett. “Not only are we using that produced water, we’re also using the excess natural gas we have, so we get to be more efficient with the products we’re mining.” With one planned near Odessa, where water supply has been a consistent problem for both quantity and quality, some residents aren’t so sure. “We don’t have an abundance of water out here,” said Jeff Russell, an Odessa resident and former vice president of the Odessa Development Corporation. “We have an abundance of bad water, but we don’t have an abundance of good water.” Amarillo business owners and community leaders tour the Edge Data Center at the Region 16 Education Service Center on March 19. The data center is much smaller than some of the new ones planned for other parts of rural Texas. Credit: Angelina Marie for The Texas Tribune Fawcett said as officials look into these agreements with data centers, they don’t want to pull water from the municipal supply — they want to tap into brackish and produced water, which is a byproduct of oil and gas extraction. He hopes that data centers can help them get closer to harnessing produced water on a large scale instead of shooting it back into the earth. Just like the Panhandle, there are a slew of data centers either planned or already in dry West Texas. Sweetwater and El Paso have projects in the works, while small towns like Snyder are actively promoting their land as a good site for interested businesses. Yi Ding, an assistant professor at Purdue University in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said some states have started introducing regulations that prevent data centers from using drinking water. Texas doesn’t, which could become a problem in the near future. “This is a concern in other states,” said Ding, who has researched the environmental impact of data centers. “You don’t want data centers competing for water used in people’s daily lives.” While state planners don’t have a concrete way of tracking how much water data centers are using in Texas or how much will be needed in the future, some centers are already looking to make their systems more efficient. This includes using different cooling methods, such as gels, which would decrease the amount of water they use. However, Ding compared it to a theory that says techniques can be improved over time, but it opens the door for more consumption. “When something becomes more efficient, people use it more,” Ding said. “So total water consumption doesn’t significantly drop, unless there’s a significant paradigm shift in terms of cooling.” Sisemore, who is Fermi’s ambassador to Amarillo, said they want to use water efficiently and protect the resource, and will be using a system that continuously circulates cooling fluid, which uses less water. “If there's better technology, that’s what we’re going to use,” Sisemore said. “Wealth here is the water” Will Masters has spent the last decade working on ways to replenish the Ogallala Aquifer. His efforts focus on conservation and using other methods, such as playa lakes, to restore the groundwater that’s been drained for more than 50 years. The Panhandle area sits on one of the deepest parts of the aquifer, which means it likely has more water than regions further south. Masters, who lives in Amarillo, wants to ensure the Panhandle doesn’t push its geographical luck. “Wealth here is the water,” said Masters, one of the founders for Ogallala Life, a nonprofit in the region. “If the water is not here, this area is impoverished.” When Amarillo residents held their protest last month, it was to both fight against data centers coming to the city and inform others of the potential risks facing their water supply — including the risks to the Ogallala Aquifer. Masters said the idea of accepting the water being drained more in exchange for a limited amount of jobs is a bad deal. Will Masters, the co-founder of Ogallala Life, listens to community members speak during an event on water usage by the Fermi America data center on Sept. 20. Credit: Phoebe Terry for The Texas Tribune “City leaders are trying to find a way to keep their cities alive,” Masters said. “So we have developers coming in with ideas to bring in money and jobs, temporarily, but it’s causing more problems.” Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley said the council’s priority is protecting the city’s water and to get a good deal if they decide to sell any of it to Fermi for its data center, which will sit about 35 miles north of the city’s limits in Carson County. The company has asked for 2.5 million gallons of water a day, and there’s talks it could go up to 10 million gallons. By comparison, Stanley said the city uses 50 million gallons a day. “We’ll charge them more than a regular customer because they’re outside the city and require them to put in their own infrastructure,” Stanley said. “Then we’ll be the beneficiary of the additional jobs that pay well, new residents who build homes and put in additional businesses. It’ll be really good economically for the growth of Amarillo.” Stanley acknowledged there will be challenges. “The cons are how fast do you grow? Can those growing pains be forecasted?” he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “Can we plan strategically so we’re ready for that amount of growth?” Stanley said he has spoken with residents and heard their concerns. At the same time, he said Fermi America will need to lead the conversation since it’s outside city limits. His role comes later, he said, as the business finalizes its plans. “Fermi America is going to need to step up and hold their own forums and engage with those citizens directly,” Stanley said. “Just like any business deal would be handled. It would be very unfair for me to take a lead in any of those conversations, not knowing who the players are or what the full potential is.” Latest in the series: Running Out: Texas’ Water Crisis Loading content … Sisemore, the community lead for the project, said the U.S. is being outpaced by China when it comes to coal, gas and nuclear generation. He said the next war will be won because of AI, and this is an opportunity for the community to help America win it. He said he understands where the trepidation from residents is coming from — comparing it to when people were concerned about Bell Helicopter, a company focused on producing military aircraft, came to Amarillo. Sisemore wants to help inform them by bringing in experts to give them more information. An attendee holds a sign boycotting a proposed data center at a protest in front of the Potter County Courthouse on Sept. 20. Credit: Phoebe Terry for The Texas Tribune “Everybody has a right to their opinion, and we can all learn from each other,” Sisemore said. Town halls are expected to begin in November. Disclosure: Google has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Shape the future of Texas at the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin! We bring together Texas’ most inspiring thinkers, leaders and innovators to discuss the issues that matter to you. Get tickets now and join us this November. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

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