Datacentres force US tech into renewables.
Grid delays of up to 12 years are pushing American technology companies to finance their own renewable power. Unable to secure prompt connections for new datacentres, firms including Google and Microsoft are building utility‑scale batteries, solar arrays and wind farms to meet electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence. The shift has lifted clean‑energy stocks; the IShares Global Clean Energy ETF climbed 52% over the past year after falling 80% between late 2021 and early 2025.
The paradox is stark. Utilities across Michigan, Wisconsin and other states are simultaneously holding ageing coal and gas plants online, cancelling planned retirements and building new fossil‑fuel capacity to serve datacentre loads. In Minnesota, Google deployed the world’s largest grid‑scale battery for a single facility, while in Texas the company is developing an off‑grid site combining wind, solar, batteries and gas. In Michigan, DTE Energy will install a 330‑megawatt battery system—paid for by Oracle—because only storage can meet the timeline for a 1.4‑gigawatt datacentre. Lucas Davis, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that companies are desperate for electricity and will take whatever arrives quickest, whether fuel cells, gas turbines or solar with batteries.
Source: The Guardian.
Four scientists warn geoengineering risks termination shock.
Raymond Pierrehumbert, Julia Slingo, Michael Mann and Valerie Masson‑Delmotte—collectively holding more than a century of climate research experience—have issued a joint warning that solar geoengineering would trap future generations in unstoppable intervention. Carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for millennia, they write, while proposed stratospheric aerosol injections decay within years; any forced halt would unleash catastrophically rapid warming in a “termination shock.” Infrastructure would take two decades to build, leaving no room for safe experimentation.
The scientists caution that climate models disagree wildly on the cooling effect of the same aerosol injection—ranging from under one degree Celsius to three degrees over ten years—and that small‑scale trials cannot reveal real‑world consequences because natural climate variability will swamp any signal. A 2023 intercomparison of three Earth system models found cooling per unit of aerosol optical depth varied from 4.7 kelvin in one model to 16.7 in another, underscoring profound uncertainty. Any deployment, they argue, would commit humanity to maintain the system without fail across centuries, through conflict and political instability, or face abrupt climatic collapse.
Source: The Guardian.
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Bradford targets 17% tree cover across district.
Bradford Council has committed to lifting canopy cover from 9.14%—well below the 16.5% national benchmark—to 17% as part of an Enhanced Biodiversity Report published on 20 June. Two‑thirds of the metropolitan district is rural, with 17% of its area designated as protected sites and priority habitats covering another 19%. The authority planted more than 60,000 trees between 2020 and 2023 and in May 2025 launched the Bradford Pennine Gateway, the district’s first National Nature Reserve, encompassing Ilkley Moor, Shipley Glen and St Ives Estate. Eight new Local Nature Reserves followed in June 2025.
Strategic Director for Growth David Shepherd acknowledged progress but said access to green space remained uneven. The Pennine Gateway site earned a place on Condé Nast Traveller’s 2026 Seven Wonders of the World list. The council credited partner organisations and community “Friends of” groups for restoration work across moorland, woodland and wetland priority habitats.
Source: Bradford Council.
Renewable infrastructure grows in the shadow of old dependence; Bradford plants, the climate debate turns to risk measured across centuries, and technology chases kilowatts wherever they surface first.
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