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Artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and remote work – all of these buzzy trends depend on processing power delivered by a sprawling worldwide network of data centers. As demand surges for the power-intensive complexes, which typically span 100,000 square feet, the increased energy usage could jeopardize the fight to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change, experts told ABC News. "The growth trend is super-fast," Fengqi You, an energy engineering professor at Cornell University, told ABC News. "This is something I'm concerned about." In 2022, roughly 2,700 data centers in the U.S. accounted for over 4% of the nation's electricity use, according...

In battleground states across the country, environmental activists like Dr. Emily Church are canvassing on behalf of an organization called the Environmental Voter Project in an effort to turn out people who care the most about climate change -- but who haven't shown up for past elections. During a recent effort in Pittsburgh, Church, a biology professor who leads local canvasses for the project, recalled to ABC News how she used to lobby lawmakers directly to take action on climate change, but they told her voters don't care about the issue. She said she's now trying to prove them wrong....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The most significant case in decades on homelessness has reached the Supreme Court as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live. The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from...

The Scottish government has rescinded its 2030 target of a 75% emissions cut to greenhouse gas emissions, relative to 1990. The target was statutory, meaning it had been set in law in the Emissions Reduction Targets Act of 2019. Scotland is still subject to the 2030 carbon target for the UK as a whole. This was set in law by the UK parliament in 2016. Still, Scotland's move raises questions about the credibility of national (or in this case subnational) carbon targets and the usefulness of putting them into law. Climate policy experts have maintained that a crucial way to...

CNN — In a sweeping win for climate and environmental advocates, the Biden administration on Friday finalized a rule to ban fossil fuel drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, alongside other major conservation actions. The Interior Department will block oil drilling on over 13 million acres in the Western Arctic, including about 40% of the land of the NPR-A – a remote area that is home to protected animal species including polar bears and caribou. The reserve is more than 23 million acres of public land and an underground emergency oil supply for the US...

Europe’s plunging electric vehicle sales are painful proof the market isn’t ready to stand on its own, putting governments on notice for more support until affordable EVs become a reality. The glut is clogging up ports and factories are cutting production — a red flag for the region’s climate goals and risk of job cuts after Tesla’s mass layoffs this week. Without subsidies, the cost of EV ownership no longer makes sense for many drivers. Insurance and repairs are more expensive than for combustion-engine cars, and many would-be customers still bristle at limited charging infrastructure. At the same time, rapid...

BISBEE, Ariz. — Boots dusty, lungs heaving, Dr. John Wiens searched the boulders of a desolate Arizona mountaintop for the last survivors of a 3-million-year-old lizard population — then said the words that both confirmed his life's work and broke his heart. "They're not there," he said. "It seems like the species is now extinct." The loss of plant and animal species on Earth is happening at a speed never seen in human history, according to the United Nations. That includes the likely extinction of the lizards Wiens has studied for 10 years — the population of Yarrow's spiny lizards...

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas says the local labor market would benefit from an influx of workers seeking asylum in the United States legally but who are now stuck in crowded shelters in big cities like New York as they await work permits. “ All are welcome in Kansas City,” Lucas said Tuesday in a social media post in which he shared a Bloomberg.com article that quoted him saying the Kansas City area could use more workers for its burgeoning economy. “Proud to work with my fellow mayors like @MikeJohnstonCO and @NYCMayor,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, referring to...

This is a breathtaking betrayal of Israel by Biden, who clearly cares more about his poll numbers in Michigan and Minnesota than the fate of the Jewish state. For someone who has declared himself to be a Zionist, US President Joe Biden sure has a funny way of showing it. On April 4, in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden reportedly harangued Israel, all but threatening to cut off military aid to the Jewish state unless it capitulated to his demands. As Reuters succinctly noted, “US President Joe Biden effectively gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an...

State insurance regulators are taking the first steps on what will be long and difficult effort to mitigate climate impacts. Foremost it will require cooperation and buy in. To that end, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners took the rare step of holding a media briefing Friday to again spotlight its landmark National Climate Resilience Strategy. Adopted March 18, the strategy is a desperately needed first step, said Andrew Mais, Connecticut insurance commissioner and 2024 president of the NAIC. “The goal of a strategy is to drive faster and more effective risk reduction by state insurance regulators to ensure that...

One of nature’s most important keystone species is working itself to death. Colonies of honey bees — crucial pollinators for a wide variety of plants and cash crops — are at risk of collapse because of climate change, a recent study by scientists at Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found. Long and warmer fall months across the Pacific Northwest encourage bees to emerge from their colonies when they should be resting, said Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, a research leader at the USDA’s Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Arizona. “When it’s warm out, they fly and when they...

President Biden has done more to address climate change than any of his predecessors. So far, voters don’t seem to care. The Biden campaign and a collection of progressive groups are trying to change that. They believe the president’s record on climate change can boost his popularity with young voters. The strategy is risky because climate has never been a priority with voters. A Journal poll, which surveyed voters in seven swing states in March, found that just 3% of 18-to-34-year-old voters named climate change as their top issue, with most citing the economy, inflation or immigration. That is roughly...

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Lawyers advancing an effort to charge oil companies with homicide over climate-related deaths are ramping up their campaign to hold fossil fuel producers criminally accountable for contributing to climate change. The authors of “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil for Climate Death” embarked on a road trip of college campuses this spring, making the case for bringingcriminal charges against oil and gas companies. The push by David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s climate program, and Donald Braman, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School, aims to bolster support for the theory through presentations at law schools....

April 9 (UPI) -- The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said Tuesday that at 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter than the "pre-industrial" era, March was the warmest March on record and the tenth straight temperature record-breaking month. The new March high was calculated from an estimate of the average March temperature during the "pre-industrial" reference period, designated as 1850-1900 which also shows a year-round global average temperature from April 2023 to March 2024 period that is 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average. The climate group's top scientist called for urgent cuts in the volume of greenhouse gasses being...

STRASBOURG, France, April 9 (Reuters) - Europe's top human rights court ruled on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change. The European Court of Human Rights's (ECtHR) decision on the case brought by more than 2,000 elderly Swiss women set a precedent that will resonate across Europe and beyond for how courts deal with a growing trend of climate litigation. The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen, argued their government's climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. In her ruling, Court President Siofra...

The American Library Association, a nonprofit organization that tracks efforts to ban books nationwide, released a list Monday detailing the 10 most challenged titles of 2023 — seven of which deal with LGBTQ themes, according to the group. Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer,” a graphic memoir that chronicles the author coming out as nonbinary, topped the list for the third year in a row. The other LGBTQ-themed titles on the list include George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” Juno Dawson’s “This Book Is Gay” and Mike Curato’s “Flamer.” In recent years, school districts and state legislatures across the U.S. have...

A new study led by Jarmo Kikstra, a research scholar in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, explores whether reducing production and consumption growth could make a significant contribution to resolving the climate crisis. As the effects of climate change become more severe and the scale of environmental damage gains magnitude, some researchers disagree about the desirability and feasibility of further economic growth in high-income countries. More recently, the case has been made for exploring a "degrowth" (or post-growth) strategy. Such a strategy would entail reducing less necessary forms of production and consumption (rather than growing them) with the...

The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza. Although a top IDF official said that this change had nothing to do with US pressure, the timing was unmistakable in coming right after the IDF’s disastrous mistaken killing of seven humanitarian aid workers last week. Critically, this means that Palestinians can, on one hand, move freely within southern Gaza and Khan Yunis and that there is a complete vacuum for preventing a return of Hamas...

… Across the country, residents and businesses have been reporting widespread slowdowns in mail and package delivery by the U.S. Postal Service. The delays have become so persistent that members of Congress have gotten involved, urging the Postal Service to drastically correct course and raising concern about what impact the disruptions could have on mail-in ballots in the upcoming election. The delays appear to largely stem from a new system the Postal Service began rolling out last fall that will eventually funnel all the nation’s letters and packages through a consolidated network of 60 regional distribution centers — similar to...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The solar eclipse of 2024 brings with it some hidden threats that are being laid out in a new special bulletin from Illinois State Police. According to the alert, the total eclipse of the sun on Monday will draw unchecked crowds in public places that should be considered terror targets. Local authorities also need to be prepared for drug overdoses as eclipse viewers try to enhance their experience. According to the bulletin "Special Event Impact Analysis" dated next Monday and obtained by the I-Team, STIC authorities will track 21 special events considered "soft targets" for violent extremists....