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Ohio’s sole national forest could be wiped out as Trump targets land for logging

Over 80% of Wayne national forest classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from localsIn the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction. Continue reading...

In the Appalachian foothills outside Athens, Ohio, more than 20,000 acres of forest land was mined for coal in the early 20th century, destroying miles upon miles of pristine woodlands.By the 1930s, the federal government had to step in, taking it out of private hands and establishing the Wayne national forest in an attempt to prevent further degradation. In the decades since, maple, oak and other hardwood trees have taken over, returning to nature a region previously better known for extraction.Home to important waterways, the eastern hellbender salamander – an amphibian proposed for listing as an endangered species – hundreds of miles of trails and a host of other outdoor recreational activities, the Wayne national forest draws a quarter million visitors every year.“People use the national forest for fishing, hunting, whether they’re trail runners or cyclists or ATV or horseback riders [and] for camping,” says Molly Jo Stanley of the Ohio Environmental Council who lives several miles from its borders.All the while, underneath the forest floor, gob piles – a layer of coal waste material about a foot deep – is kept in place by the roots of millions of trees and plants.But now, with the Trump administration targeting 100m acres of forest across the country for logging, this critical wilderness area – Ohio’s sole national forest – could be wiped out.A man rides his ATV along a trail that runs through the Wayne national forest near Ironton, Ohio, in 2004. Photograph: Howie Mccormick/APTrump’s executive order was followed by a memo in April from the secretary for agriculture, Brooke Rollins, that established an “emergency declaration situation” that specifically identified the Wayne national forest as a site for lumber production. The memo also outlined the government’s intention to remove protections previously established by the National Environmental Policy Act.The US Forest Service manages almost 300,000 sq miles of 154 national forests around the country, of which about one-fourth is suitable for timber management. Tracts of trees are regularly sold to private and other lumber companies often following a bidding process. Staff shortages and a lack of interest from lumber buyers in recent years have resulted in the Forest Service missing its sales targets by around 10% on average over the past decade.But more than 80% of the Wayne national forest is classified as suitable for logging, drawing concern from locals.“This executive order is a sweeping set of rules that does not address the nuances of the forests across the country. [It] stated that it was to prevent forest fires. In Ohio, clear-cutting forests is not the way to prevent forest fires,” says Stanley.“While timbering is not inherently a bad thing, large-scale timbering has a lot of impact on our ecosystems. The roads that have to be built to access the timber cost the taxpayer more money than the revenue generated from these timbering projects.”Unlike the huge forests and wilderness areas of the American west, federal forests where the public can forage and enjoy nature are relatively uncommon in the industrial Midwest.On top of that, the large-scale removal of trees could fuel major leaching of pollutants that have remained in the soil from the mining days but which, without live tree roots keeping it in place, could flow into waterways, poisoning drinking water for local communities.Tens of millions of people depend on drinking water that originates upstream in national forests, say observers. The Ohio River, which has a greater discharge rate than the Colombia and Yukon Rivers, is just miles from one unit of the Wayne national forest.Other major threats resulting from clearcutting logging are increased fire risks and landslides, say experts.“Over and over, we’ve seen in Appalachia and across the country when you log areas, you potentially increase the danger of wildfires because you increase the roads that lead to 90% of wildfires [that occur] within a half-mile. Opening up big areas allows for more wind, leaves behind a lot of slash and tinder – logging companies only take the big trees,” says Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center of Biological Diversity, who has experienced firsthand the destruction of forests around Asheville, North Carolina, from last year’s devastating Hurricane Helene.“We saw here that the landslides after Hurricane Helene in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, many of those occurred where there were logging projects and logging roads.”Building and maintaining roads and culverts in forests has cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the decades.But advocates of harvesting lumber on public lands say it brings significant economic benefits to rural areas of the country that often find themselves with few other resources or opportunities for employment. In 2020, the Forest Service sold $183m worth of lumber from national forests, fueling tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.The most recent sale of Wayne national forest lumber was for over 300,000 cubic feet of hardwood and eastern white pine that took place in August. Logging in Ohio is worth over $1.1bn a year, with much of that concentrated in seven southeastern counties including Athens county.Questions sent by the Guardian to the US Forest Service and the Ohio forestry association querying whether logging could imperil drinking water sources for residents were not responded to.In Athens county, where the poverty rate is 11% above the national level and which ranks as the only county in Ohio facing persistent poverty over a period of decades, access to jobs is among the lowest in the state.In August, the closure of a paper mill that used low-grade locally sourced hardwood lumber and employed 800 people in Chillicothe, a town of 22,000 people two counties west of Athens, has sent the region into a tailspin. The mill had provided a ready processing site for local lumber since it was founded in 1847.All the while, conservationists question the need to log areas such as national forests especially as the US exported $3.5bn worth of lumber in 2021.“Ninety-eight per cent of forests in Ohio are privately-owned. Do we really need to be logging in the 2% that belongs to everyone?” asks Harlan.At the same time, Appalachia is set to be among the hardest-hit regions from long-term climate change due to topographical, funding and other challenges.“In Appalachia, we’ve been seeing historic flooding events,” says Stanley.“Without these intact forests, large-scale logging will absolutely impact and increase the potential for major flooding events. Intact forests are the best control that we have against that.”

Forests
Government
Nature

The EPA is ending greenhouse gas data collection. Who will step up to fill the gap?

With the agency no longer collecting emissions data from polluting companies, attention is turning to whether climate NGOs have the tools—and legal right—to fulfill this EPA function.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it would stop making polluting companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to it, eliminating a crucial tool the US uses to track emissions and form climate policy. Climate NGOs say their work could help plug some of the data gap, but they and other experts fear the EPA’s work can’t be fully matched. “I don’t think this system can be fully replaced,” says Joseph Goffman, the former assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “I think it could be approximated—but it’s going to take time.” The Clean Air Act requires states to collect data on local pollution levels, which states then turn over to the federal government. For the past 15 years, the EPA has also collected data on carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases from sources around the country that emit over a certain threshold of emissions. This program is known as the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) and “is really the backbone of the air quality reporting system in the United States,” says Kevin Gurney, a professor of atmospheric science at Northern Arizona University. Like a myriad of other data-collection processes that have been stalled or halted since the start of this year, the Trump administration has put this program in the crosshairs. In March, the EPA announced it would be reconsidering the GHGRP program entirely. In September, the agency trotted out a proposed rule to eliminate reporting obligations from sources ranging from power plants to oil and gas refineries to chemical facilities—all major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. (The agency claims that rolling back the GHGRP will save $2.4 billion in regulatory costs, and that the program is “nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality.”) Joseph says shutting down this program hamstrings “the government’s basic practical capacity to formulate climate policy.” Understanding how new emissions-reduction technologies are working, or surveying which industries are decarbonizing and which are not, “is extremely hard to do if you don’t have this data.” Read Next Trump administration gives coal plants and chemical facilities a pass Elena Bruess, Capital & Main Data collected by the GHGRP, which is publicly available, underpins much of federal climate policy: understanding which sectors are contributing which kinds of emissions is the first step in forming strategies to draw those emissions down. This data is also the backbone of much of international US climate policy: collection of greenhouse gas emissions data is mandated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which undergirds the Paris Agreement. (While the US exited the Paris Agreement for the second time on the first day of Trump’s second term, it remains—tenuously—a part of the UNFCCC.) Data collected by the GHGRP is also crucial to state and local climate policies, helping policymakers outside the federal government take stock of local pollution, form emissions-reductions goals, and track progress on bringing down emissions. There’s some hope that nongovernmental actors could help. In recent years, various groups have stepped up to the table to help calculate greenhouse gas emissions from sources both in the US and nationwide. These groups use a mix of federal, state, industry, and private data—from oil and gas industry databases to public and private satellites to federal data like what the EPA provides—to create tools that help policymakers and the public understand where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from, and how they impact people in various ways. Technology has also grown leaps and bounds, too, as artificial intelligence models are getting more advanced at both tracking and modeling emissions from different sources. In the days since the EPA’s announcement, groups collecting and modeling emissions data say that they are fielding calls from various stakeholders trying to figure out solutions if the EPA revokes the program. Goffman, who left the EPA at the start of this year, says that there are staff within the agency looking to “connect or become part of university efforts” to continue data collection. One of the most high-profile efforts in nongovernmental emissions modeling is a coalition called Climate TRACE, which was founded in 2019, following a donation from Google, to observe global emissions using satellites. The group, which has since grown to more than 100 collaborating organizations, has developed a host of AI models that they pair with data from various sources to track and model emissions from around the world. Read Next Trump’s EPA is attacking its own power to fight climate change Kate Yoder There’s a dark timing, says cofounder Gavin McCormick, in having the EPA move to end the GHGRP after Climate TRACE has built its models relying so heavily on EPA data. “We started this project on the thesis that America has the world’s best emissions monitoring, and other countries could reduce emissions faster if they got up to the same quality as America,” McCormick says. “We just spent five years building this AI system to try to make it possible for other countries to have an approximation of the same system America has.” It’s not just the climate-conscious who are worried about the future of this data: there’s significant industry interest in continuing to collect national data on greenhouse gas emissions. Just because the US government is no longer invested in tracking climate change doesn’t mean the rest of the world is on board. Oil and gas companies with facilities in the US, for instance, still have a financial interest to keep track of their emissions if they’re selling to other markets—like Europe, which is beginning to impose strict methane requirements on gas imported into the bloc. “Our phones have been blowing up over the last ten days or so, from people saying, ‘Should we start reporting to you now? You’re not an official source, but you’re the closest thing there is,’” says McCormick. “It’s not obvious to me that we are the right vehicle for that. But there are very clear business interests in why companies would want to continue reporting even though they don’t have to.” Private industry data could also be used to help track greenhouse gas emissions—and even covers some emissions that aren’t captured in the EPA data. The Rocky Mountain Institute, for instance, a nonprofit that works on market-based climate solutions, runs an index based on private industry data that tracks emissions from across the oil and gas production cycle. (RMI is part of the Climate TRACE coalition.) This private data enables this index to have insights into emissions from the industry that the GHGRP may have missed or undercalculated—including calculating emissions from sources that don’t meet the cutoff for reporting. Still, all experts WIRED spoke to stressed that ending GHGRP data collection would severely hobble US efforts to measure and combat greenhouse gas emissions, no matter how good the non-federal options are. There’s a myriad of difficulties that face any organization that tries to take on this monumental task. Read Next Trump’s 2-year reprieve gives coal plants ‘a free pass to pollute’ Terry L. Jones, Floodlight “If the EPA stopped requiring this, it’s entirely possible that states will continue to do it,” says Gurney. But, he says, “there is no [other] central warehouse to do the collating. Fifty entities turning in data files, which are massively complex, is just a huge endeavor. The EPA plays such an important role as this kind of data arbiter, ensuring that it’s all complying with standardization. That’s key for the rest of us, frankly, to not have to do that ourselves, which would be pretty much a prohibitive barrier for us to be able to make sense of that amount of data.” There are many different ways to calculate emissions; the techniques used to collect and model data can also differ between different organizations and experts. Gurney, for instance, has been a vocal critic of the way Climate TRACE designs its models. The EPA’s pollution reporting requirements, meanwhile, are also backed by law: “A nongovernmental entity really can’t require that,” Goffman says. There’s also an open question of whether nongovernmental estimates could hold up legally, especially if a policy formed using these estimates is challenged in court. In Louisiana, a law passed last year seriously restricts the ability of communities to use low-cost emissions-monitoring devices to track air quality and bring complaints or lawsuits about emissions violations; air monitoring must now be solely done by EPA-approved tools. (Groups who advocate for communities living near oil and gas facilities filed a lawsuit in May, saying that the tools are prohibitively expensive for local advocates and claiming the law is a “blatant violation of the free speech rights of community members to use their own independent air pollution monitoring to raise alarms about deadly chemicals being released into their own homes and schools.”) That law “really drove home to me that this is only partly a scientific and do-you-have-the-data question, and partly an are-you-legally-allowed-to-use-that-dataset question,” says McCormick. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The EPA is ending greenhouse gas data collection. Who will step up to fill the gap? on Oct 5, 2025.

Climate
Business
CO2

Indigenous Nations Plan Tariff-Free Trade Corridor Across US-Canada border

This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Just west of Fort Qu’Appelle in Saskatchewan, the Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation is working across the US border to revive centuries-old trade routes as part of a new Indigenous-governed trade corridor.  Trucks from the First Nation could soon be […]

This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Just west of Fort Qu’Appelle in Saskatchewan, the Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation is working across the US border to revive centuries-old trade routes as part of a new Indigenous-governed trade corridor.  Trucks from the First Nation could soon be transporting food, furniture and even critical minerals south of the border along ancestral pathways once used to move buffalo hides and pemmican across the plains—without paying taxes or tariffs. For generations, Indigenous peoples freely exchanged goods, knowledge and culture across the land that is now divided by the Canada–US border. Those networks were disrupted by colonial laws that divided families and communities but they are now being reimagined as a modern supply chain grounded in Indigenous law and sovereignty.  “We’re operationalizing our old corridors—taking ancient trade routes our elders told us about and articulating them in a modern context,” said Solomon Cyr, spokesperson for Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation.  The First Nation plans to formalize its partnership with the Fort Peck Sioux Tribes, in Montana, next week by signing a memorandum of understanding to advance the trade corridor and its infrastructure development. The corridor intends to use traditional routes traversing Dakota territories in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and into the United States, reviving the historic Oceti Sakowin trade network, a historic alliance of seven Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Indigenous groups united by kinship, language and spiritual beliefs. The shared trade routes historically facilitated economic and military ties across their territories. “We have a lot of history, and even to this day, ties linking us to our relatives,” said Rodger Redman, chief of the nation. “There was a promise to our people that we would continue to trade and be allowed to trade in our traditional territories.” Redman said this corridor is not symbolic, but rather an economic engine for the countries. Standing Buffalo is located in a region rich with critical minerals vital to global industries including renewable energy and technology. By owning the corridor, Indigenous nations can control the movement of these resources and expand economic opportunities for their communities. The plan includes a $2-billion infrastructure proposal submitted to Canada’s Privy Council aimed at developing core projects such as a cross-border trade portal, renewable energy corridors and smart transportation networks. “We’re not only talking about natural gas or oil pipelines,” Cyr said. “We’re talking about furniture, anything connected to the GDP that moves on trucks, trains or pipelines that can be tax exempt, so long as the products move from point A to point B.”  It is currently the only Indigenous nation actively pursuing a trade corridor of this kind, which could transform commerce between the United States and Canada. “It’s a very distinctive and powerful world-class application of an old Indigenous order of operations,” Cyr said.  Redman said the initiative is part of a centuries-old relationship with the British Crown and Indigenous allies, noting that the nation never ceded its land or jurisdiction.  “There was a promise to our people that we would continue to trade and be allowed to trade in our traditional territories. Today, we are operationalizing those promises made by the Crown that we would continue to trade in our personal territory,” he said.  The promise Redman is referring to is the Jay Treaty, a 1794 agreement between the United States and Great Britain that recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to freely cross the US-Canada border for trade and travel.  Nadir André, a partner at JFK Law with extensive experience in Aboriginal Law, said the Jay Treaty is the only legal source that could facilitate such movement. But while the United States acknowledges and enforces the treaty’s provisions, Canada has never acknowledged the treaty.  In fact, a Supreme Court decision from the early 2000s, known as the Mitchell case, found that the Jay Treaty is not enforceable in Canada.  The court also ruled that there is no clear Aboriginal right under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution allowing Indigenous peoples to bring goods across the border for trade purposes. If a First Nation fuel company wanted to bring fuel from Canada to sell in the United States, under US law this is allowed without paying duty taxes or tariffs. However, the reverse—bringing goods from the US into Canada—is not legally recognized.  “We were called refugees and treated in a discriminatory fashion… Now, with constitutional protections, we’re asserting sovereignty.” “If it’s not bilateral, then it defeats the purpose, because then it would only confer an advantage to Canadian First Nations doing trade in the ‘States and it would not be a counterpart for the American tribes to be able to trade in Canada,” he said.  John Desjarlais, executive director of the Indigenous Resource Network, believes this initiative could serve as another test of the Jay Treaty, which could set a precedent for other First Nations creating trade corridors and opportunities in resources such as timber, oil, and mining, as well as long-term manufacturing. However, many questions remain.  “We’re pushing jurisdictional boundaries and sovereignty within Canada. What does that mean in the broader turmoil of cross‑border trade between Canada and the US? What does protected, tax‑ and tariff‑free trade look like?” André said there’s also concern that without clear verification processes, non-Indigenous companies could misuse the system by falsely claiming Indigenous status.  He said considerations for the corridor extend beyond customs lines, involving strict environmental, health and safety regulations, as well. Many products, such as lumber and drinking water, require adherence to such standards. “Would you allow drinkable water as a trade? Could you bring water by bulk from Canada to the States through this initiative? Or would it be limited to certain items that are already allowed for trading?”  Governance is another significant challenge. Canada’s trade regulations come under the jurisdiction of multiple layers of government—provinces, territories and federal departments—while the US adds its own complexity with 51 states, each having separate rules. Coordinating among all these authorities will be a daunting task. André recalled that similar efforts have been made before, such as during the renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 2016, but none succeeded.  For the nation, this initiative is a breakthrough.  Until 2024, the Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation was not officially recognized as an Indigenous nation in Canada. That year, the Canadian government apologized for this mistake and formally recognized Standing Buffalo and eight other Dakota and Lakota First Nations as Aboriginal peoples, granting them constitutional protections under Section 35. “We were called refugees and treated in a discriminatory fashion without rights or recognition. Now, with constitutional protections, we’re asserting sovereignty over our lands and trade,” Cyr said.  Redman has been actively advancing the trade corridor through international diplomacy, including high-level meetings in Mexico City with officials from CUSMA (Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement), which replaced the former NAFTA agreement. He said that while the nation continues to wait for Canada to formally recognize its sovereignty and legal framework, officials from Mexico and the US have shown greater openness to work together. The nation has also established its own consultation frameworks and environmental oversight processes to ensure that its voices and rights remain central in developments on their lands. The funding for their initiative is expected to come from multiple sources including the First Nations Finance Authority, the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program, nation’s capital, and other investment partnerships. “We’re not begging for crumbs anymore. We’re demanding what’s rightly ours and share our responsibility to Mother Earth,” Redman said. “We’re asserting our sovereignty. We’re here to give them notice that we have our trade corridor and we’re implementing that.”

Indigenous
Climate
Energy

From bombs to glass: Hanford site can now transform nuclear waste

The long-awaited development is a key step in cleaning up the nation’s most polluted nuclear waste site. Construction on the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant began in 2002.

SEATTLE — 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. 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.The long-awaited development is a key step in cleaning up the nation’s most polluted nuclear waste site. Construction on the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant began in 2002.“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 ProjectThe roughly 600-square-mile 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.FILE - Caution signs are shown at a gate on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, Thursday, June 2, 2022, in Richland, Wash.AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, FileToday, Hanford is focused on clean-upSeven 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 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.Now Hanford is focused on cleanup, with an annual budget of around $3 billion.Turning nuclear waste into glass is effective — but expensiveEncasing 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.The first waste to be mixed with glass will include pretreated radioactive cesium and strontium, according to a statement from the Department of Energy.Washington state Democrats question Trump administration’s commitmentThe 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.”--By Cedar Attansio/The Associated PressIf you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Waste
Chemicals
Food

Uprooted review – the female fightback against the exploitation of Latin America

New Diorama theatre, LondonEphemeral Ensemble’s atmospheric but unfocused follow-up to Rewind depicts the west’s ecologically ruinous colonisation of Latin America from a feminist perspectiveThe previous show devised by the international theatre company Ephemeral Ensemble was subtle, horrifying and exhilarating: Rewind, about Latin America’s “disappeared”, landed a punch straight to the gut and was, for me, one of last year’s most memorable plays. Director Ramon Ayres employs a similarly striking blend of sound, visual effects and physicality in Uprooted, but the story does not quite cohere, despite some individually superlative scenes.The drama is once again set in Latin America, and this time depicts the advent of western imperialism and its ruinous effects on ecology, indigenous life and the climate. Deviser-performers Eyglo Belafonte, Josephine Tremelling, Louise Wilcox and Vanessa Guevara Flores give spirited performances, and there is an overarching eco-feminist message that connects gendered violence to the rape and exploitation of the land. Continue reading...

The previous show devised by the international theatre company Ephemeral Ensemble was subtle, horrifying and exhilarating: Rewind, about Latin America’s “disappeared”, landed a punch straight to the gut and was, for me, one of last year’s most memorable plays. Director Ramon Ayres employs a similarly striking blend of sound, visual effects and physicality in Uprooted, but the story does not quite cohere, despite some individually superlative scenes.The drama is once again set in Latin America, and this time depicts the advent of western imperialism and its ruinous effects on ecology, indigenous life and the climate. Deviser-performers Eyglo Belafonte, Josephine Tremelling, Louise Wilcox and Vanessa Guevara Flores give spirited performances, and there is an overarching eco-feminist message that connects gendered violence to the rape and exploitation of the land.Musical compositions by Alex Paton, who sits on a raised platform on one side of the stage, certainly carry great levels of drama. Marco Curcio’s magnificent sound design adds ambience, embroidering bird-sounds with the babble of streams, the sound of chainsaws and earth-rattling rumbles. Tremelling’s lighting design is wondrous too, using miniature models of houses lit up from the inside to depict displacement, and shadow-play from within a recycling bin, as well as imaginatively using of wind-machine and muslin to depict rippling water and, at one point, a thunderous landslide.Martian-like occupiers … Louise Wilcox and Ephemeral Ensemble. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The GuardianBut despite this stagecraft and immersive atmosphere, there is little specificity to the story and minimal character building. Characters fight against the colonial destruction of their land and are angry, but they are almost as faceless as the occupiers, who wear martian-like metal facemasks.Uprooted touches on more issues that it can possibly do justice to within its hour-long duration, from female activism against colonialism and climate disaster to child labour, economic disruption to local communities, violence against women and more.It is frustrating that the script seems so generic in its messages and didactic in its delivery. Indigenous people fought and resisted western occupiers, we hear, and one defender of the land is still killed every other day. A quiz delivers more facts and figures. Strident statements are made about the centrality of the earth, progress versus plunder, and hopelessness being a luxury we cannot afford in the fight against environmental catastrophe. But they sound generalising and familiar. Where Rewind led with specificity to evoke intense emotion, this is a disjointed screed that leaves you impressed yet oddly unmoved.

Climate
Indigenous
Water

Chevron's El Segundo refinery has a history of safety and environmental violations

Over the last five years, Chevron's El Segundo refinery has 46 violations of environmental safety rules; over the last decade, it was also issued 17 OSHA violations.

The explosion and hours-long fire at Chevron’s refinery Thursday night in El Segundo deeply unnerved communities in the South Bay. The blast sent shock waves throughout the refinery grounds, allegedly injuring at least one worker, and jolting residents as far as a mile away. A 100-foot-tall pillar of fire cast an orange glow over the night sky. And towering plumes of smoke and acrid odors drifted eastward with the onshore winds.While local regulators are investigating the fire, environmental advocates lament that federal safety agencies likely won’t be joining in the effort to find the cause of Thursday’s explosion — perhaps preventing similar hazardous chemical releases in the future. The incident was one of the most perilous events in the refinery’s 114-year history, adding to a long list of environmental and safety violations, according to public records reviewed by The Times. Most staff at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency tasked with investigating workplace safety, is not working because of the ongoing federal shutdown. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Mitigation Board, which determines root causes from dangerous chemical releases, is also furloughed and could lose its funding because of proposed budget cuts by the Trump administration. “The Trump administration has defunded the Chemical Safety board, and the federal government is shut down right now,” said Joe Lyou, a resident of nearby Hawthorne and president of the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide nonprofit. “So there is a very good possibility we are never going to know what really caused this, because the experts in figuring this stuff out are no longer there to do that.”Without clear answers, labor unions are fearful that a similar disaster could endanger thousands of workers at California’s 15 refineries, which are mostly clustered in Southern California and the Bay Area. “Companies are making billions in profits and still are making it nearly impossible to make sure we’re safe from terrible disasters,” said Joe Uehlein, board president of the Labor Network for Sustainability. “In California, we’ve seen horrific injuries to workers and tens of thousands of residents have had to seek medical attention in refinery accidents. This time, we got lucky.”The Chemical Safety Board has identified causes of scores of refinery incidents over its history, including the 2015 explosion at the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance that injured at least two workers.In that incident, the board’s investigation found multiple safety failures, including a severely eroded safety valve that allowed flammable gases to dangerously seep into unwanted areas. The board also discovered that a large piece of debris almost struck a tank of hydrofluoric acid, which could have resulted in a deadly release of the highly toxic chemical, leading to pressure to cease using the chemical.But, for the Chevron refinery explosion, there is no guarantee such an investigation will take place. The Trump administration proposed eliminating the budget for the Chemical Safety Board this fiscal year, starting Oct. 1, sunsetting the 27-year-old federal agency. Environmental advocates say that is a mistake. “They’re undermining our ability to prevent these accidents by taking away the accountability mechanisms in the federal government,” said Lyou. “That’s a huge concern. It’s not politics. Democrats and Republicans live around the Chevron refinery, and they both want to make sure that the refinery is operating safely.”In the absence of federal regulators, the South Coast Air Quality Management District is investigating potential violations of air quality rules and permit conditions. The refinery will also be required to submit a report analyzing potential causes and equipment breakdowns within 30 days.So far, the air district has said the fire originated in the refinery’s ISOMAX hydocracking unit, which uses hydrogen to refine oil into jet fuel and diesel. The refinery’s air monitors detected a spike in airborne chemicals after the fire broke out, but air district officials say conditions returned to normal levels after a few hours. Environmental advocates say the extent of the fallout may not be known until there is a larger examination of air quality monitors. “I was very surprised that the air district reported they weren’t seeing terribly high levels of pollution,” said Julia May, senior scientist for California-based nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment. “Sometimes in a big refinery fire like this, it goes straight up. But then the smoke comes down in other areas. And that’s a lot of pollution that’s going someplace.”The Chevron facility had been cited numerous times for environmental and safety violations, according to local and federal records. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued 13 notices of violations over the last 12 months, and 46 in the last five years. Most recently, on Sept. 22, the air district cited the facility for a large chemical leak and failing to keep its equipment in proper working condition. In August, Chevron representatives had also asked the air district for leniency in assessing compliance with air quality rules while it was working to remove unwanted buildup inside its furnace tubes — conditions that they said risked equipment overheating and potentially failing. OSHA records show the agency conducted at least 15 inspections at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo over the last decade, identifying 17 violations.In September 2023, OSHA issued citations related to heat illness prevention requirements, ladderway guardrails and a failure to conduct a thorough hazard analysis — an internal assessment intended to control fires, explosions and chemical releases.In October 2022, after conducting a planned inspection of the Chevron refinery, OSHA records show the agency identified a “serious” violation of an agency standard requiring employers to “develop, implement and maintain safe work practices to prevent or control hazards,” such as leaks, spills, releases and discharges; and control over entry into hazardous work areas.” During the government shutdown, it’s unclear if OSHA’s pared-down staff will be investigating Thursday’s refinery fire. An OSHA media office phone number went straight to a recorded message stating that the line is not being monitored and “due to a loss of funding, certain government activities have been suspended and I’m unable to respond to your message at this time.”For some environmentalists, the Chevron refinery fire has underscored why it’s necessary to transition away from fossil fuels altogether.“They [the refineries] have great workers and great fire departments to respond, but this is an inherently dangerous operation that handles hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of flammable explosive materials under high temperature and high pressure,” said May, the senior scientist for Communities for a Better Environment. “When something goes wrong, you can have a runaway fire. They did a great job at getting it under control. But do we really want antiquated dirty energy in our communities?”

Chemicals
Energy
Government

William will travel to Brazil for Earthshot awards ceremony

Fifteen projects are shortlisted for a chance of winning the top £1m prizes at next month's environmental awards ceremony in Rio de Janeiro.

William will travel to Brazil for Earthshot awards ceremonyDaniela RelphSenior royal correspondentPA MediaThe Prince of Wales will travel to Rio de Janeiro next month for the Earthshot Prize ceremony – the first time the awards have been hosted in Latin America.Earthshot, created by Prince William five years ago, awards £1m every year to five projects for their environmental innovations.There have been almost 2,500 nominees this year from 72 countries - this year's winners will be chosen by Prince William and his Earthshot Prize Council which includes the actor, Cate Blanchett and Jordan's Queen Rania.This year's list of finalists range from a Caribbean country to small start-up businesses.The Earthshot Prize is a 10-year project with past ceremonies held in London, Boston, Singapore and Cape Town.Kensington Palace confirmed earlier this year that the main awards ceremony will be held at Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Tomorrow on 5 November.Barbados has been nominated for its global leadership on climate with the island on track to become fossil-free by 2030.The Chinese city of Guangzhou is shortlisted in the "Clean our Air" category for electrification of its public transport system. Prince William previously said he would like to take the Earthshot Prize to China.Finally, what has been billed as the world's first fully "upcycled skyscraper" makes the final list too.Sydney's Quay Quarter Tower was one of thousands of 20th century towers now reaching the end of their lifespans.Instead of demolition, which releases vast amounts of carbon and waste, a coalition of architects, engineers, building contractors and developers has effectively "upcycled" the original structure."Matter" is the only British finalist in the line-up. Based in Bristol, the business has developed a filter for washing machines removing the greatest cause of microplastics in our oceans."I feel like winning an Earthshot prize for me would be like winning an Olympic gold medal," said Adam Root, the founder of Matter.ReutersIn 2024, Actor Billy Porter and Earthshot ambassadors Robert Irwin and Nomzamo Mbatha joined the Prince of Wales on stage at the awardsIn a video message released to mark the announcement of this year's finalists, he reflected on the past five years."Back then, a decade felt a long time. George was seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis two; the thought of them in 2030 felt a lifetime away," said Prince William."But today, as we stand halfway through this critical decade, 2030 feels very real."2030 is a threshold by which future generations will judge us; it is the point at which our actions, or lack of them, will have shaped forever the trajectory of our planet."The Earthshot Prize is now one the key pieces of Prince William's public work."He has been able to build an unprecedented network of organisations," Jason Knauf, the new CEO of the Earthshot Prize, said."The philanthropists working together, the corporates that come together as part of the Earthshot prize community, the leaders who get involved. "There's never been a group of people working together on a single environment project in the way they have with the Earthshot Prize. Prince William has been completely relentless in building that network."This year, the Earthshot Prize events in Rio are in the run-up to the COP Climate Conference which is being held in Belem on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest.

Business
Climate
Forests

From Composting to Solar Panels, NFL Stadiums Are Working to Be More Sustainable

Several NFL stadiums in the U.S. are among the most sustainable sports venues in the world because of their solar panels, rainwater collection systems and on-site composting and recycling programs

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A wall of solar panels towered above a sea of green football jerseys as people filed into Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia for a recent Eagles home game. Inside, some fans snapped photos with an oversized Lombardi Trophy made out of recycled plastic collected from the stadium while others strolled to their seats carrying beverages in recyclable aluminum cups. “These are real nice cups,” said Tre Simon, a fan who was impressed at how cold the aluminum cup kept his drink. “Keep this going ... I think it’s perfect.” Stadium staff manually sort recyclables, and an on-site compactor crushes aluminum so the metal can be sold for recycling. The Linc recycled 18 tons of aluminum in 2024 and reinvested the money into the stadium’s sustainability program.The venue is among several NFL stadiums, also including those in Atlanta and Santa Clara, that have made strides in lowering their carbon footprints by installing solar panels and creating composting and recycling programs. Powering jumbotrons, bright lights and air conditioning requires huge amounts of energy, which can take its toll on the environment. Experts said the moves are a step in the right direction and encourage fans of the most-watched sport in the United States to try similar approaches at home. “You always want to root for a team that’s doing good by the environment and the community,” said Brendan Gee, an Eagles fan at another home game. “Why not recycle when you can, and solar panels are pretty cool I guess,” said Jakub Dzafic, another Eagles fan, who added: “Any NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB team should try and do that when they can." Solar panels and energy credits Lincoln Financial Field is considered a leader in venue sustainability. The solar panels produce about 40% of the stadium's energy annually and renewable energy credits are purchased to offset the rest, said Norman Vossschulte, the Eagles' vice president of fan experience and sustainability. “Our hope is that our efforts will inspire our fans to do the same and take some of their own actions. If we all did something, I think it’d make a big difference,” Vossschulte said.Large sporting events can produce a lot of waste and consume massive amounts of energy. Asked whether a stadium can ever be truly sustainable, Tony Lamanna, construction management professor at Arizona State University, said “every bit counts. " "I don’t think you necessarily have to be net zero to be making an impact,” he said. Lamanna said stadium sustainability encompasses both how the venue reduces its own footprint and how it influences fans' habits. “If you can model the right actions to the 80,000 fans or however many you have in your stadium, think of the impact," he said. Keeping waste out of landfills Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Falcons in Atlanta, became the first professional sports stadium internationally to achieve a Total Resource Use and Efficiency Platinum certification for diverting 90% or more of its waste from landfills. “I’d say 98% of what you get out of a concession or point of sale is compostable,” said Adam Fullerton, the stadium's vice president of operations. The stadium has a garden that grows fruits and vegetables used by the culinary team, a 680,000-gallon (2,574,080 liter) cistern that collects rainwater that is used for irrigation and 4,000 solar panels. At games, fans who are spotted recycling can be featured on the stadium video board and win a signed jersey. Fullerton said fans seek out the sustainability team in hopes of being spotted.“Start small and at least start doing something,” is Fullerton’s advice for venues that are interested in becoming more sustainable. He said it costs about 10 cents per fan who attend events to run the zero waste program. “In the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty cheap,” he said.Waste created by tailgating outside the stadium remains a challenge because the parking lots can be outside the scope of the stadium’s waste management program. “It’s really difficult to control what a fan brings with them” to a tailgate, said Fullerton.Fans can practice sustainability and minimize tailgate waste by packaging food and beverages in reusable containers and placing all waste and recyclables in their corresponding bins, taking public transit and adjusting home thermostats when they leave to save energy and money. How sustainable marketing can lead to behavior changes The visibility of stadium sustainability initiatives leads to a sense of group identity and increases the likelihood that fans will adopt that mindset as their own, said Karen Winterich, professor of sustainability and marketing at the Pennsylvania State University.“One big thing we know about any sort of behavior change, and that includes sustainable behaviors, is that consumers are really motivated by identity, social norms and social pressures,” she said. When everyone puts their can into a stadium recycling bin, it increases the odds they'll do so at home. Climate change and renewable energy, especially solar and wind, are topics that are highly politicized. “I think it’s really strategic by the NFL … they’re talking about it for the benefits, but not in a polarizing way,” said Winterich. She said a strategy that often works to get people on board with sustainability is highlighting the benefits of on-site energy usage and how the local environment benefits from less pollution, composting and recycling. NFL Green, the league’s sustainability program, aims to leave "a green legacy in the communities we visit,” said Anna Isaacson, the league's senior vice president of social responsibility. For major events such as the Super Bowl, NFL Green hosts community feedback sessions that have inspired efforts such as the league financially supporting a coastal wetland project in Louisiana, where the 2025 Super Bowl was held. The next Super Bowl will be held at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Some of the stadium’s sustainable initiatives include 1,162 solar panels, a rooftop garden that yields about 10,000 pounds of crops annually, and recycling and composting 70% of all materials. “The Bay Area is our home and it’s a unique place with tons of natural beauty. So our goal is to keep our community clean, not just for now, but for the future,” said Francine Melendez Hughes, executive vice president and general manager of Levi’s Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers.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

Sustainable
Water
Energy

Ocean Acidification Threshold Pushes Earth Past Another Planetary Boundary

Earth has breached a critical boundary for ocean acidification, with potentially grim effects for ocean ecosystems and human livelihoods

Our planet is sick, and its life-threatening symptoms are getting worse, a new report warns.Earth has been pushed past multiple physical and chemical boundaries crucial for keeping the world a livable place. Beyond already exceeded thresholds set by scientists for rising temperatures, biodiversity loss and chemical pollution, we have now also breached the boundary on ocean acidification. The milestone comes with grim ramifications for marine ecosystems and human livelihoods.“More than three-quarters of the Earth’s support systems are not in the safe zone,” Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, said in a statement announcing the 2025 evaluation of the planetary boundaries. “Humanity is pushing beyond the limits of a safe operating space, increasing the risk of destabilizing the planet.”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.Humans and many other species evolved to thrive in the climate of the Holocene, a period that began around 10,000 years ago. But as societies industrialized and began widely burning fossil fuels in the 19th century, greenhouse gases built up in the atmosphere, trapping heat and transforming Earth and its climate in many ways besides raising global temperatures.Beginning in 2009, PIK flagged and prioritized research on nine geophysical limits that make up a sort of planetary life-support system; staying within these limits, they argue, is the best hope for maintaining the clement climatic conditions we and most of Earth’s other denizens have adapted to. In 2023 researchers published a study that quantified those boundaries and established where we are in relation to them. At the time, six of the boundaries had been surpassed, with many well into what the scientists called a “zone of increasing risk.”“It’s like blood pressure,” said the 2023 study’s lead author Katherine Richardson, an earth systems scientist at the University of Copenhagen, in an interview with Scientific American at the time. “If your blood pressure is over 120 over 80, it’s not a guarantee that you’re going to have a heart attack, but it does raise the risk, and therefore we do what we can to bring it down.”Among the nine boundaries is of course climate change, which is measured in part by the amount of world-warming carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide concentrations reached a record global high of 422.7 parts per million (ppm) last year, compared with 280 ppm prior to the industrial revolution and the 350 ppm that many scientists consider a “safe” limit (which was surpassed in 1987). The burning of fossil fuels is the indisputable culprit.Fossil fuels are also behind the new boundary breaching—the ocean absorbs some of the atmosphere’s excess carbon dioxide, causing waters to become more acidic. Since the industrial revolution, the ocean’s surface pH has dropped by 0.1; this may seem minuscule, but because the pH scale is logarithmic, it reflects roughly a 30 percent increase in acidity.Ocean acidification can have profound impacts on marine ecosystems by depleting seawater of certain carbon compounds that corals and other shell building animals need to construct their protective homes. At low enough pH levels, corals and shells can even begin to dissolve. These effects could destabilize entire ecosystems and devastate many commercially valuable species, such as oysters. A 2020 report by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that ocean acidification would cost the country’s economy billions of dollars.“The movement we’re seeing is absolutely headed in the wrong direction. The ocean is becoming more acidic, oxygen levels are dropping, and marine heatwaves are increasing. This is ramping up pressure on a system vital to stabilize conditions on planet Earth,” Levke Caesar, co-lead of PIK’s Planetary Boundaries Science Lab, said in the new evaluation’s press statement.The not-so-short list of other boundaries we’ve blown past is sobering. Excess phosphorus and nitrogen from the widespread use of fertilizers flows into rivers and seas to spark toxic algal blooms. Artificial chemicals, such as plastics, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and “forever chemical” perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) disruptively accumulate in food chains. Agriculture and other changes in land use strip away forests and diminish available fresh water. And as all these problems grow, more and more of Earth’s biodiversity is disappearing.According to the new report, just two of the nine limits remain intact: ozone depletion and aerosols in the atmosphere. Only the former shows clear progress away from the planetary boundary, as a result of the success of the Montreal Protocol, the international agreement through which countries are phasing out chemicals that erode Earth’s protective ozone layer. Aerosol emissions have declined globally—partly from efforts to reduce pollution from global shipping—but absent any unified policy framework for reductions, levels could easily surge back.The overall prognosis for the planet’s health is poor, given that a number of countries, including the U.S. in particular, are moving away from meaningful action to tackle environmental problems.“We are witnessing widespread decline in the health of our planet. But this is not an inevitable outcome. The drop in aerosol pollution and healing of the ozone layer, shows that it is possible to turn the direction of global development. Even if the diagnosis is dire, the window of cure is still open,” Rockström said in the press statement. “Failure is not inevitable; failure is a choice. A choice that must and can be avoided.”It’s Time to Stand Up for ScienceIf you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can't-miss newsletters, must-watch videos, challenging games, and the science world's best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription.There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you’ll support us in that mission.

Agriculture
Animals
Chemicals

Advocates raise alarm over Pfas pollution from data centers amid AI boom

Tech companies’ use of Pfas gas at facilities may mean data centers’ climate impact is worse than previously thoughtData centers’ electricity demands have been accused of delaying the US’s transition to clean energy and requiring fossil fuel plants to stay online, while their high level of water consumption has also raised alarm. Now public health advocates fear another environmental problem could be linked to them – Pfas “forever chemical” pollution.Big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon often need data centers to store servers and networking equipment that process the world’s digital traffic, and the artificial intelligence boom is driving demand for more facilities. Continue reading...

Data centers’ electricity demands have been accused of delaying the US’s transition to clean energy and requiring fossil fuel plants to stay online, while their high level of water consumption has also raised alarm. Now public health advocates fear another environmental problem could be linked to them – Pfas “forever chemical” pollution.Big tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon often need data centers to store servers and networking equipment that process the world’s digital traffic, and the artificial intelligence boom is driving demand for more facilities.Advocates are particularly concerned over the facilities’ use of Pfas gas, or f-gas, which can be potent greenhouse gases, and may mean data centers’ climate impact is worse than previously thought. Other f-gases turn into a type of dangerous compound that is rapidly accumulating across the globe.No testing for Pfas air or water pollution has yet been done, and companies are not required to report the volume of chemicals they use or discharge. But some environmental groups are starting to push for state legislation that would require more reporting.Advocates’ concern increased in mid-September when the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would fast-track review of new Pfas and other chemicals used by data centers. The data center industry has said the Pfas it uses causes minimal pollution, but advocates disagree.“We know there are Pfas in these centers and all of that has to go somewhere,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the Earthjustice non-profit, which is monitoring Pfas use in data centers. “This issue has been dangerously understudied as we have been building out data centers, and there’s not adequate information on what the long term impacts will be.”Pfas are a class of about 16,000 chemicals most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. The compounds have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down in the environment.Environmental advocates say the data centers increase Pfas pollution directly and indirectly. The chemicals are needed in the centers’ operations – such as its cooling equipment – which almost certainly leads to some on-site pollution. Meanwhile, Pfas used in the equipment housed in the centers must be disposed of, which is difficult because the chemicals cannot be fully destroyed. Meanwhile, a large quantity of Pfas are used to produce the semiconductors housed in data centers, which will increase pollution around supporting manufacturing plants.The revelations come as the US seeks an edge over China as the industry leader in AI, and there has been little political interest in reining in the centers’ pollution.“The US and China are racing to see who can destroy the environment most quickly,” said Lenny Siegel, a member of Chips Communities United, a group working with industry and administration officials to try to implement environmental safeguards. “If we had a sensible approach to these things then someone would have to present some answers before they develop and use these systems.”Two kinds of cooling systems are used to prevent the semiconductors and other electronic equipment stored in data centers from overheating. Water cooling systems require huge volumes of water, and chemicals like nitrates, disinfectants, azoles and other compounds are potentially added and discharged in the environment.Many centers are now switching to a “two phase” system that uses f-gas as a refrigerant coolant that is run through copper tubing. In this scenario, f-gas is not intentionally released during use, though there may be leaks, and it must be disposed of at the end of its life.The data center industry has claimed that f-gas that escapes is not a threat because, once in the air, it turns into a compound called Tfa. Tfa is considered a Pfas in most of the world, but not the US. Recent research has found it is more toxic than previously thought, and may impact reproductive systems similar to other Pfas.Researchers in recent years have been alarmed by the ever-growing level of Tfa in the air, water, human blood and elsewhere in the environment. Meanwhile, some f-gases are potent greenhouse gases that can remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years. But f-gasses are lucrative for industry: about 60% of all Pfas manufactured from 2019 to 2022 were f-gas.Different Pfas are also applied to data centers’ cables, piping and electronic equipment. The chemicals are volatile, meaning they can simply move into the air from the equipment.Meanwhile, any of that equipment or Pfas waste that is intentionally removed from data centers either ends up in landfills, where it can pollute local waters, or is incinerated, according to industry documents. But incineration does not fully destroy Pfas compounds – it breaks them into smaller pieces that are still Pfas, or other byproducts with unknown health risks.Data centers are a “huge generator of electronic waste, with frequent upgrades to new equipment”, said Mike Belliveau, the founder of the Bend the Curve non-profit who has lobbied on toxic chemical legislation.“The processing and disposal of electronic waste is a major source of global harm,” he added.F-gas producer Chemours is using the boom in AI and data centers as justification for increasing production at its Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, plants.Both plants have been accused of polluting their regions’ water, soil and air, and poisoning drinking water. Residents in both regions say they’ve been sickened by Chemours’s pollution. Chemours’s expansion plans have been met with opposition over fears that its pollution will also increase.A new coalition of Minnesota environmental groups is working with state lawmakers to develop legislation that would require companies to report on their use of Pfas and other chemicals in the cooling process.Legislators in state hearings have asked tech companies which chemicals are used in data centers and how they are disposed of, but “the answers are not satisfactory”, said Avonna Starck, Minnesota state director for Clean Water Action, which is spearheading the effort.“There’s so much you just don’t know and we’re at the whim of these big corporations and what they’re willing to tell us,” Starck said. “We think the community has a right to know these things.”

Pollution
Chemicals
Energy

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