One adaptation being explored, solar panels to shade pastures and animals. Sheep famously are taking advantage of this, Cattle are harder because they’re larger, but a project in Tennessee is exploring different approaches.
This small solar farm in Christiana, Tennessee, looks like many others from a distance – but beneath its black panels lies lush pasture instead of gravel.
The 40-acre facility, owned by Silicon Ranch, allows a small herd of cattle to spend their days munching grass and resting in the shade.
The ranch is testing whether cattle can coexist with power generation without removing farmland from active use, with a setup that introduces a variation of agrivoltaics, which extends beyond crops and sheep into larger livestock systems.
If you are reading this post, you are using a Data Center somewhere. If you are asking people to join your Facebook page, sign up for your Zoom, and contribute to your GoFundMe to oppose Data Centers, you may be unclear on the concept.
If you block a data center in one town, another will be built in another town nearby, or in the next state, or in Tierra del Fuego, or under the Ocean, or in Outer space – because you and billions of people like you, as well as, increasingly, any business that wants to stay competitive, are using and demanding them.
Everyone should be deeply concerned about the uses and misuse of AI technology, and every industrial facility should be held to rigorous economic and environmental standards. But I am disgusted by politicians on all sides who seek to enflame people’s often misinformed and untethered anger toward billionaire oligarchs, and legit fears about the technology, without actually educating them and leading a way forward. There are bad faith actors out there who seek to equate Data Centers with Clean energy, and are looking for ways to mobilize justified concerns about AI as a cudgel for the fossil fuel industry. I’ll be pushing back.
I empathize with the environmental opposition to data center construction, but the arguments are shakier than they seem. The battle over where A.I. data centers are being built is really a battle over what role A.I. should play in our lives. And that’s a battle that critics can win.
Many people feel that A.I. is being foisted on them by a handful of tech billionaires, in ways that are incorporeal and difficult to resist. Data centers, on the other hand, are physical structures that are subject to zoning regulations. So it makes sense that anger toward and anxiety about A.I. are manifesting as opposition to the buildings that house it. Regular people can’t tell Sam Altman what to do, but they can kick him out of their towns.
Data centers should be held to the same environmental standards as any other project. However, according to the researcher Andy Masley, giving up a lifetime of interacting with large language models would make a negligible difference in emissions compared with avoiding one trans-Atlantic flight or switching to a hybrid car. By his estimates, sending a prompt to ChatGPT is about as carbon-intensive as running a clothes dryer for a single second.
Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is facing a possible historic shutdown as record-low water levels on the Danube threaten its cooling system. Prime Minister Peter Magyar said the facility, which supplies nearly half of Hungary’s electricity, could be forced offline if river levels continue to decline. The plant has already reduced output to less than half capacity amid a severe summer heatwave and drought. Magyar also warned of wider energy supply pressures, including fuel disruptions and logistical problems, while accusing former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government of failing to prepare for climate-related challenges. The crisis has intensified debate over Hungary’s energy security, climate resilience and reliance on Russian-linked energy infrastructure.
Hungary will power down its Paks nuclear power plant for the first time in nearly half a century on Sunday, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Saturday, as water levels on the Danube River the plant uses as a coolant have plumbed record lows.
The shutdown comes as large parts of Europe have been hit by prolonged heat and drought, driving river levels lower and raising concerns about water supplies, shipping and power generation.
Falls in water levels amid a lack of rain have also disrupted shipping and tourism in Hungary and triggered water-use restrictions in more than 100 cities and villages, including on the outskirts of Budapest, based on government records.
The energy crisis could also hit the wider economy, which grew less than forecast in the second quarter following a three-year stretch of stagnation.
“Due to a further decline in the Danube’s water level, the second-to-last generating unit at the Paks nuclear power plant will be shut down at 1:30 a.m. (2330 GMT),” Magyar said in a Facebook post.
Tragedy unfolding quickly in Spokane, Washington area. National Weather Service has declared a “Particularly Dangerous Situation.”
Follow Daniel Swain to get the most informed analysis.
A dangerous wind shift (visible on radar imagery) has just occurred in #Spokane, WA, where major wildfire disaster is currently unfolding. Three separate major fires (circled) near or within city limits have already caused major structure loss & chaotic, expanding evacs. #WAwxpic.twitter.com/QwNB40qvth
There are three larger and fast-moving fires in and around the city, with the biggest threat coming from the Old Trails Fire. That fire started on Saturday afternoon local time and had burned over 3,500 acres by early Sunday morning, according to the Watch Duty app. Swaths of Spokane are under Level 3 evacuation orders, which read: “Leave NOW! This may be your only notice.”
Late Saturday night, the Washington National Guard was mobilized to assist local first responders. “The Washington National Guard is making 30 members available tonight to Spokane authorities for any emerging needs,” it said in a Facebook post.Late Saturday night, the Washington National Guard was mobilized to assist local first responders. “The Washington National Guard is making 30 members available tonight to Spokane authorities for any emerging needs,” it said in a Facebook post.
Volleyball friends on the way out of the evacuation zone in Spokane on W Strong, after evacuating from Spike and Dig but then being trapped at the Indian Trail Safeway #OldTrailsFire#WAWildfirepic.twitter.com/fBGmRbktYD
Everyone knows the frustration of bad sleep on a hot night, tossing and turning in the sheets as the hours slip away.
That experience is becoming more common thanks to climate change, according to a new study from the research organization Climate Central. The analysis finds that on average, people around the world lose about 56 hours, or seven full nights of sleep each year to uncomfortably warm temperatures. About 10% of that lost sleep—roughly 5 hours—can be pinned to human-driven climate change.
“Summertime is hot. It’s always been,” says Kristina Dahl, the lead scientist at Climate Central. “But climate change is making them hotter, and making nights hotter. So it’s really amplifying the sleep loss that would happen naturally.”
Temperatures soared in the Western U.S. on July 12, 2026, as shown in this map of modeled air temperatures from the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System). Numerous weather stations in Montana, Utah, and Wyoming recorded their highest temperatures since record-keeping began. NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison
The combination of ambient temperatures nearing the upper 90s and high relative humidity creates a dangerous threshold for farm animals. Unlike humans, cattle and pigs cannot sweat efficiently to dissipate heat, relying instead on heavy respiration and panting.
When the Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) reaches extreme levels, animals cross into a state of acute heat stress. For beef and dairy producers, the consequences are immediate and long-lasting:
Production Drops: Overheating forces cattle to reduce their feed intake to limit internal metabolic heat production, resulting in immediate drops in milk yields for dairy operations and slower weight gain for feedlot beef cattle.
Fertility Risks: Prolonged multi-day heatwaves drastically reduce conception rates in breeding herds, often causing early embryonic death that goes unnoticed until autumn pregnancy checks.
Mortality Hazards: Heavy cattle nearing market weight and young calves are particularly vulnerable.Without continuous airflow from industrial fans and access to clean, cooled water, body temperatures can easily exceed a cow’s normal threshold of 102 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to respiratory failure.
Veterinary extensions are urging producers to suspend all non-essential herd handling, sorting, or livestock transportation until the heat dome shows signs of fracturing.
Really great, sober, much needed, fact based explainer on Canadian wildfires, focusing on data, and addressing the most common “wake up, sheeple” internet memes.
The creator has a good background and experience for the task.
Kyle Brittain is an Alberta-based weather specialist with a passion for forecasting, documenting, and reporting on severe weather events.
Having worked as a weather professional for many years in both the private and public sector, his work as a video journalist has appeared on various networks in North America and beyond, including CBC, The Weather Network, Global, CTV, APTN, NFB, CNN, NHK, Sky News, the Tonight Show, and more.
Kyle has also spent several summers working as a wildland firefighter on a rapattack crew in northern Alberta, and has braved the elements working in high-angle rope access in Calgary and as a glacier guide in New Zealand.
Why the Fauci hearing? To distract from 1. An illegal war? 2.Medicade Benefits being lost? 3. Inflation? 4. Nearly 1 million children losing food assistance (SNAP), 5. Gas prices? 6. Epstein files? If you think Fauci is a relevant talking point you’re not paying attention.
What the ongoing show trial of Fauci — which motivated this post — has really driven home, however, is that what Trump and his supporters hate most of all is reality. They know what they want to believe. They fly into paroxysms of rage whenever someone points out that the world isn’t what they want it to be. And they always want to shoot the messenger.
But what we’re seeing now isn’t run-of-the-mill motivated reasoning. It’s something far more extreme.
If believing something suits MAGA’s prejudices and interests, they don’t hesitate: they simply insist that it’s true. They routinely dismiss scientific and statistical evidence, but they don’t stop there.
They’re perfectly willing to deny reality even if the truth is staring them in the face.Thus, Trump urged Americans to remember that 2024 TV blackout, which nobody remembers because it didn’t happen. He insists that California has “blackouts and brownouts every weekend,” when the state’s 39 million residents can tell you it doesn’t. He says that you must show ID to buy groceries, which everyone who buys their own food knows isn’t so.
Do Trump and his followers actually believe these things?
As I see it, that’s a category error, starting from the presumption that they even accept that objective facts exist. All the evidence (Hah! “Evidence!”) says that they don’t.
George Orwell, whose work seems more relevant by the day, knew all about this mindset. In his essay “Looking back on the Spanish war” he wrote about how the rise of totalitarianism had changed the rules:
In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that ‘the facts’ existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone.
Totalitarians, however, denied that objective facts existed. Furthermore, reality is mutable, changing with the leader’s whims:
If the Leader says of such and such an event, ‘It never happened’ – well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five – well, two and two are five.
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Which brings me to this yo-yo. What a surprise that one of the internet’s primary “influencers” against clean energy is a MAGA nut job! Writing on Heated, Alex Hannaford did a nice dissection of Alexandra Fasulo, who does viral videos posing as a defender of the land from Upstate New York, but turns out to be just another climate-denying, J-6er defending, anti-vax conspiracist quack.
Before becoming an anti-solar influencer, Fasulo was a self-identified MAGA Republican who expressed fierce loyalty to Donald Trump, and conspiratorial views on everything from the COVID vaccine to the 2020 election.
On a since-deleted Twitter account, Fasulo cheered the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol. She referenced Q, the anonymous figurehead of the QAnon conspiracy theory. She posted about The Great Reset, a conspiracy that claims the coronavirus was an excuse to dismantle capitalism. She falsely claimed that the most violent insurrectionists were secretly members of antifa, and that the COVID-19 vaccine used nanoparticles to alter human DNA.
When HEATED asked Fasulo about those posts, she dismissed the relevance.
“I just think that has nothing to do with this current solar battle,” she said. “It’s like if we brought up your diary from when you were 18.”
These posts matter, however, because they show a longstanding conspiratorial way of interpreting the world. That same logic now runs through Fasulo’s solar campaign.
“My belief is when some people very, very pompously hold their science above other people’s science, I say to them, there’s actually no way of knowing if yours is the right science,” she told me.
When I said that I had spoken with a scientist who disputed her claim that solar panels could poison the environment with lead, Fasulo suggested that he must be paid by the renewable energy industry. (There is no evidence that he is; Mulvaney’s disclosed research funding comes primarily from government and institutional sources. He is also known for helping create the Solar Scorecard, which scrutinizes photovoltaic manufacturers’ sustainability practices).
“Every single scientist is bought in this country,” she said. “Every single scientist has an agenda.”
This creates a self-sealing argument. No scientific evidence can disprove Fasulo’s claims, because any scientist who disagrees can simply be declared corrupt.
Fasulo recently liked a comment on her Substack portraying climate change as a lie and a conspiracy. She told HEATED that she is not a climate denier.
She does not necessarily need to be one. Climate change can remain nominally real in Fasulo’s worldview, so long as the scientists studying it cannot be trusted, the environmental groups responding to it are compromised, and the technologies proposed to address it are more dangerous than fossil fuels. In a Facebook Reel last October, Fasulo denounced ORES and Boralex while displaying the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of employees.
“I refuse to allow these people to live in the dark and do what they do anymore,” she said.
When Fasulo posted a photograph of former ORES executive director Zeryai Hagos, one person wrote, “Where’s our Luigi?”—an apparent reference to Luigi Mangione, the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. On TikTok, another commenter wrote, “Sounds like a case for Luigi 💯.”
A former ORES employee told HEATED that a staff member had been threatened with hanging. Nathan Stone, an independent media consultant who until recently worked in communications for ORES, said the threats became severe enough that state police had to be involved.
The pattern is not limited to ORES. In July 2025, Outdoor Life documented a clash between Fasulo and Alabama-based conservationist Kyle Lybarger, who had publicly challenged misinformation in her posts. A surge of harassment from Fasulo’s audience, including credible death threats, eventually forced Lybarger to scrub all mention of her from his digital platforms.
Asked about the threats, Fasulo denied responsibility. “I can’t possibly see what all two million people are doing on the Internet,” she told HEATED. “I have never once posted anything that calls for physical violent interactions.”
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Common thread here, from Upstate New York to my home state of Michigan, and across the country, is that propensity of anti-clean energy types to make death threats to anyone that contradicts them. See my interviews with local officials here.
