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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...

Poland’s top climate official said the country is preparing to set a date for a complete phase-out of coal-fired power generation, just months after the nation elected a new government that has pledged to support environmental policies of the European Union (EU). ... Poland, which currently receives about 70% of its electricity from burning coal, and has long been Europe’s largest producer of the fuel, has been slowly increasing its use of solar and wind power. ... Urszula Zielinska, the country’s Secretary of State for Climate, during a meeting in Brussels, Belgium on Jan. 15, said, “Only with an end...

The West must decline. Indeed, the West is evil. The proof is that it is “rich”. Therefore, the West must be punished, by throwing it into a collapse — a “degrowth” — while others not in the West will continue to grow, of course. Let us introduce a “universal basic income” immediately, tomorrow. One can imagine the eagerness of China, Russia, Japan, the U.S. and Cuba to introduce a common universal income — which is of course is probably only conceivable through the establishment of a “universal” world government: a mere formality.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Monday (22 May) criticized the idea of not growing the economy for environmental reasons, joining calls to stop environmental and health-related regulation to prevent overburdening companies. As EU industry transforms towards net-zero emissions, it should not be burdened with additional regulation, De Croo (Open VLD/Renew) told a conference hosted by the Wirtschaftsrat der CDU, a business group with close ties to the German conservative CDU party (EPP affiliated). “Let’s not try to do everything at the same time. Let us focus on what is the most important,” De Croo said, calling for a...

Climate activists imagine a world in which all the burden falls on the rich. On Friday morning, two young women approached Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” on display in the National Gallery in London, and hurled tomato soup across the blooms, before gluing themselves to the gallery wall. The two activists were part of a climate-protest outfit with an illuminating name: Just Stop Oil. Celebrating their vandalism, the group declared that the “disruption is in response to the government’s inaction on both the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis,” and that it was deliberately timed to protest both the...

Aug 8 (Reuters) - Degrowth - the idea that a finite planet cannot sustain ever-increasing consumption - is about the closest you can get to a heresy in economics, where growth is widely held as the best route to prosperity. But, as climate change accelerates and supply chain disruptions offer rich-world consumers an unaccustomed taste of scarcity, the theory is becoming less taboo and some have started to ponder what a degrowth world might look like. After the U.N. climate science agency this year called for cuts in consumer demand - a core degrowth premise - the think tank that...

Degrowth broadly means shrinking rather than growing economies, so we use less of the world’s energy and resources and put wellbeing ahead of profit. The solution is essentially to move away from the assumption that growth is good. One of the things degrowthers would like to see is the end of gross domestic product (GDP) being used as a measure of economic progress, notes The Conversation. GDP measures an economy’s entire output of goods and services. One of the things degrowthers would like to see is the end of gross domestic product (GDP) being used as a measure of economic...

United States agricultural suppliers are sounding the alarm over the rising cost of fertilizers that threatens to lower crop yields and worsen strains on global food supplies. “It’s put a stranglehold on us,” said John Ortiz, sales manager at BigYield.us in Garden City, Missouri, an organization focused on creating strategies that increase the size and quality of crops grown on the farm using liquid nitrogen-based fertilizers. “You’re always going to need seed. You’re always going to need fertilizer” to grow crops on a large scale, Ortiz told The Epoch Times. “People need to eat.” Fertilizers have been in short supply...

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the world needs to change how it makes, eats and wastes food in comments to the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. “The war on our planet must end and food systems can help us build that peace,” Guterres told the UN summit in New York. Noting that food systems create one third of greenhouse gases, he said following UN sustainable goals established in 2015 could end hunger and poverty while creating global health and wealth. Guterres called for reform of agricultural subsidies and said food should not be seen “simply...

You may have noticed that the nation entered a political crisis after election day. However all that turns out, and whomever occupies the White House, a Pandora’s box of pressing problems and quandaries lie beyond this battle, and they will determine how we arrange daily life in this land, especially the question of what our towns and cities will look like, and how they’ll function, which has been the focus of this monthly column the past year. Due to the incessant blathering of economists who only follow the movements of money, most Americans do not understand what supports our techno-industrial...

Once confined to the small scientific community of climate researchers and ecological economists, the idea of degrowth is now blazing into the mainstream. Not surprisingly, people are trying to figure out what to make of it. Is it an inspiring idea that points the way to a better economy? Or is it a mad notion that’s sure to plunge us all into poverty? Degrowth is a planned reduction of total energy and material use to bring the economy in line with planetary boundaries, while improving people’s lives by distributing income and resources more fairly. The scientific case for degrowth is...

The burning of fossil fuels around the world is set to hit a record high in 2017, climate scientists have warned, following three years of flat growth that raised hopes that a peak in global emissions had been reached. The expected jump in the carbon emissions that drive global warming is a “giant leap backwards for humankind”, according to some scientists. However, other experts said they were not alarmed, saying fluctuations in emissions are to be expected and that big polluters such as China are acting to cut emissions. Global emissions need to reach their peak by 2020 and then...

A study that measures the human toll of air pollution from global manufacturing and trade shows how buying goods made far away can lead to premature deaths both there and close to home. More than 750,000 people die prematurely from dirty air every year that is generated by making goods in one location that will be sold elsewhere, about one-fifth of the 3.45 million premature deaths from air pollution. The study says 12 percent of those deaths, about 411,000 people, are a result of air pollution that has blown across national borders. “It’s not a local issue anymore,” said study...

The cost of electricity for Colorado residents skyrocketed 63 percent between 2001 and 2014, far outpacing median income in the state at just 24 percent over the same time period ... Retail residential electricity rates increased from 7.47 cents per kilowatthour in 2001 to 12.18 cents per kilowatthour by 2014, a 63.1 percent hike. Coloradans median income, however, went up just 24.1 percent, from $49,397 to $61,303. Median income in Colorado actually declined between 2008 and 2012. ... Not to mention the state's many business owners, including small business owners, who face the same hikes in energy costs that could...

Andy KierszOctober 2, 2015 The September jobs report was broadly disappointing, with very few points of optimism. Along with non-farm payrolls and wage growth missing expectations, the civilian labor force participation rate — the percentage of the US population that is either working or looking for a job — fell by 0.2 percentage points to 62.4%. This is the lowest reading since October 1977.(snip)

Food banks across the country are seeing a rising demand for free groceries despite the growing economy, leading some charities to reduce the amount of food they offer each family. U.S. food banks are expected to give away about 4 billion pounds of food this year, more than double the amount provided a decade ago, according to Feeding America, the nation's primary food bank network. The group gave away 3.8 billion in 2013.

The federal government raked in a record of approximately $2,672,414,000,000 in tax revenues through the first ten months of fiscal 2015 (Oct. 1, 2014 through the end of July), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today. That equaled approximately $17,955 for every person in the country who had either a full-time or part-time job in July. […] Despite the record tax revenues of $2,672,414,000,000 in the first ten months of this fiscal year, the government spent $3,137,953,000,000 in those ten months, and, thus, ran up a deficit of $465,539,000,000 during the period. …

If our government can't destroy all the private-sector jobs directly, it will do so indirectly by borrowing so much money the system collapses.Conventional economists and pundits are puzzled why jobs growth has been so anemic in this "recovery." Here's one factor they overlook: our government. In theory, our government is supposed to encourage private sector job growth. In reality, all the hundreds of pages of regulations are killing job growth, one small business and one job at a time.Correspondent/entrepreneur Ray Z. was kind enough to share his experience of trying to open a bagel shop and create six jobs: "For...

In a blog posted on Friday on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, the department boasts that food stamp spending at U.S. farmers markets has increased “nearly six-fold” since 2008. “National SNAP redemptions at those outlets totaled $18.8 million during fiscal year 2014 (Oct. 1 to Sept. 30), a nearly six-fold increase since 2008,” the blog states, calling the increase “a win-win for all.” (SNAP is the acronym for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program.) […] Calling food stamp payment at farmers markets a “top priority” for the USDA, the department is providing free wireless equipment to...

Here’s today’s political quiz question: what do these five states — Rhode Island, Vermont, California, Oregon and Maine — have in common. Yes they are blue states ruled by Democrats, but that’s not all. These are the states that use the least amount of coal — less than 2 percent — for electric power. In fact, almost all of the states that are politically liberal and vote unfailingly Democratic are low coal use states. Washington, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are also in the top 10 states least reliant on coal. Only conservative Idaho is a red state with...