All Posts (Since 2018)

Electricity transmission towers

It may be almost impossible to make data centers pay their ‘fair share’ of electricity costs

Intersections

Theodore J. Kury, University of Florida (from The Conversation) Many major tech companies have pledged to pay their fair share of the costs associated with generating and transmitting more electricity to serve large data centers. But ratepayers across the United States are worried about the potential costs they might have to bear. That’s because it’s not immediately clear how the cost of data centers’ energy…

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Area Broken by Perpendiculars (ca.1934) painting by Joseph Schillinger

Breaking bad habits

Intersections

Background: “Studies suggest that relying on willpower is hopeless. Instead, we must find strategies that don’t require us to be strong. In the modern era, habits have become a significant area of scientific inquiry. Psychologists have explored the genesis of habitual behavior and its impact on health and happiness. William James, echoing Aristotle, wrote, ‘All our life, so far as it has definite form, is…

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Graph showing global estimated deaths by major risk factor or cause; from 2019 study.

Pollution, contamination, and disease, mental health, and death: problems getting worse

Intersections

Background: “Pollution— ie, unwanted waste of human origin released to air, land, water, and the ocean without regard for cost or consequence—is an existential threat to human health and planetary health, and jeopardises the sustainability of modern societies. Pollution includes contamination of air by fine particulate matter (PM2·5); ozone; oxides of sulphur and nitrogen; freshwater pollution; contamination of the ocean by mercury, nitrogen, phosphorus, plastic,…

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5 ways data centers endanger their local communities and the country as a whole

Intersections

Neha Gour, George Mason University; Ed Maibach, George Mason University, and Luis Ortiz, George Mason University (from The Conversation) Every internet search, streamed video and AI-generated response depends on a data center somewhere. Driven by rapid growth in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cryptocurrency, data centers have become the backbone of the modern digital economy. But though their key role is in enabling virtual and…

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The US is seeing stronger storms, so why are droughts getting worse?

Understanding Science

David Boutt, UMass Amherst (from The Conversation) About two-thirds of the U.S. is in some stage of drought in late spring 2026, yet at the same time the country has been seeing more intense downpours. It might seem contradictory, but both are symptoms of rising global temperatures. The reason has to do with the water cycle. Water influences every aspect of our lives through a…

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“Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly”

Featured Article

Featured article: *Foster, G., & Rahmstorf, S. (2026). Global warming has accelerated significantly. Geophysical Research Letters, 53(5), e2025GL118804. [PDF] [Cited by] “Recent record-hot years have caused discussion over whether global warming has accelerated. Previous analysis found acceleration (i.e., increase in warming rate) has not yet reached a 95% confidence level, given natural temperature variability. We remove the estimated influence of three main natural variability factors:…

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Solar and wind: a much better deal than oil and gas (renewables beat fossil fuels hands down)

Intersections

Background: “Critics have long claimed that variable renewables are too unreliable: The wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine. But evidence shows that intermittency concerns are now generally unfounded. Ten proven carbon-free balancing methods already make high-renewable grids reliable and economic in many countries. One of those methods, batteries, costs 96% less today than it did in 2010. BloombergNEF finds that battery-firmed solar and…

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The Internet to AI: a series — Message #1: A story

Intersections

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important issues of our time … and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. Whether for good or for ill, it will likely impact virtually every facet of our society (technology, culture, jobs, wealth, poverty, politics, environment, democracy, education, psychology, and more) … Message #1: A story — I began my career as a librarian and…

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Drinking water quality is a chronic problem; what can phytoremediation do about nitrate and other pollutants? How does it work?

Intersections

Background: “Phytoremediation uses plants to clean up environmental contamination in soil, air, and water, offering a potentially cost-effective and less environmentally disruptive alternative to traditional methods of remediation. Phytoremediation methods include phytoextraction for inorganic pollutants, phytodegradation for organic contaminants, phytovolatilization for releasing volatile substances, phytostabilization for immobilizing pollutants, and phytostimulation for enhancing microbial activity in the rhizosphere.” From: Klein, M.A., Papoyan, A., & Kochian, L.V….

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Water conservation works, but climate change is outpacing it: Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas offer a glimpse of the future

Intersections

Renee Obringer, Penn State and Dave White, Arizona State University (from The Conversation) When a drought turns into an urban water crisis, a city’s first step is often to limit lawn watering and launch a campaign to encourage everyone to conserve. It might raise water-use rates or offer incentives for installing low-flow devices. While demand management techniques like these have had a lot of success…

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