Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Great events planning by Better Path PA, whom you should be following.

@betterpathpa.bsky.social

Pennsylvania friends! Two webinars tomorrow 12/3 on data centers vs communities. The one at noon features Sen. Katie Muth and Rep. Jamie Walsh. (Register: bit.ly/BPBDataCenters) The one at 7 pm focuses what’s going on in communities where data centers are proposed. (Register: bit.ly/BPPDataCenters)

I’m just a biologist but yeah, that’s how it looks to me as well.

Old enough to know what this means…

The major AI companies are just a series of Enrons stacked in trench coats.

PS All of us researchers at @sehnetwork.bsky.social get way more SOS queries from communities facing toxic proposals [pipelines, fracking wells, data centers, compressor stations, LNG plants] than we can partner with. Exactly none of them are in rich zip codes. More help from you=more help from us.

All true

Yep

The Emperor Has No Clothes — The Science and Environmental Health Network Dear Friends, If truth be told… the emperor has no clothes. There have been many times over my environmental career when the work felt impossible because of the forces arrayed against the health of ...

Non-profits like SEHN need to redouble our efforts as a bastion of truth-seeking and action to protect our communities, land, water, and future generations. We are seeking your help!

#GivingTuesday #PublicHealth

From our executive director, @carolynraff.bsky.social:

www.sehn.org/sehn/2025/th...

The Emperor Has No Clothes — The Science and Environmental Health Network Dear Friends, If truth be told… the emperor has no clothes. There have been many times over my environmental career when the work felt impossible because of the forces arrayed against the health of ...

Friends, today’s the day I ask for your support for my amazing little organization of scientists and lawyers, Science and Environmental Health Network. We provide communities fighting toxic threats with good science and legal resources.

Here’s our pitch to you:

www.sehn.org/sehn/2025/th...

Also of note: Storing liquid CO2 under the lake means dredging up heavy metals from the lakebed sediments and destroying hundreds of acres of cypress and tupelo swamps in a nearby wildlife area.

People who are mad about it: fishermen, crabbers, residents, legislators, parish council members. 5/5

Of note: “Louisiana has paused new permit applications in the face of residents' opposition and criticism has grown louder over lucrative federal tax credits for the projects.” 4/5

Air Products now says it needs to “de-risk" the $4.5 billion plant and is planning to sell the proposed ammonia plant and CO2 capture pieces—and maybe its rights to state-owned underground storage areas.

Critics say: “It's all about making it a more valuable property for them to sell off.” 3/5

This is the highly contested plan to store CO2 from a nearby proposed ammonia plant deep under Lake Maurepas.

The new proposal “raises the possibility that significantly less will be sequestered” and indeed may allow the plant to become one of the state’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters. 2/5

Louisiana plant's carbon capture project aims to limit emissions. Will it emit more than planned? A controversial plan to store CO2 deep under Lake Maurepas was intended to greatly limit greenhouse gas emissions, but a new proposal raises questions.

🧵 Carbon capture bait and switch in Louisiana:

Defying 4 yrs of public opposition and promising a 95% CO2 capture rate, the controversial Air Products plant finally got its permit…and promptly submitted a new proposal that would allow it to capture less. 1/5

www.nola.com/news/busines...

Dr Carlson, the Saint Bernards are on the way, wearing full barrels of whiskey around their necks. Hang in there, bro.

Checking in on the planetary epidemiologists:

bsky.app/profile/sste...

Please stop the giant data centers from infiltrating Michigan, ruining our water resources and sucking up mass amounts of energy.

AG Nessel Pushes Back On Potential State AI Law Ban Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and a bi-partisan coalition of 36 attorneys general wrote to Congress to oppose efforts to ban state laws that address artificial intelligence (AI).

As AI continues to grow and evolve, states must have the ability to act and protect their residents.

www.whmi.com/news/article...

Exxon halts massive Texas low-carbon hydrogen facility The sector has faced setbacks under the Trump administration, which pulled funding for Exxon’s “blue” hydrogen project earlier this year.

👀

“Low-carbon hydrogen” = blue hydrogen = fuel made from fracked gas + publicly funded carbon capture and storage machinery = Orwellian war-is-peace nonsense

But it’s giving “we can stop pretending we care about the climate and just drill”

www.canarymedia.com/articles/hyd...

Not if the spreading of N-concentrated wastewater is spread over fields and percolates through sandy soils, exceeding its ability to bind the nitrates. In which case the data centers are serving as an accelerant to a pre existing public health crisis. A rational hypothesis that needs testing.

Data centers in Oregon might be helping to drive an increase in cancer and miscarriages Amazon data centers might be adding to a public health crisis in Morrow County, Oregon.

Nitrates come from synthetic fertilizers. When data centers suck up groundwater contaminated with nitrates and use it for evaporative cooling the nitrates in the wastewater are concentrated, which can then percolate back through the soil and into the aquifer.

www.theverge.com/news/834151/...

'The Precedent Is Flint': How Oregon's Data Center Boom Is Supercharging a Water Crisis Amazon data centers constructed in eastern Oregon's farmland have worsened a water pollution problem that’s been linked to cancer and miscarriages.

NEW TWIST: data centers in farm country may accelerate nitrate contamination from agricultural sources with big implications for public health.

Studies are needed to confirm or refute this finding. Lack of transparency, monitoring, regulations makes it tough.

www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Never thought about fecal incontinence in the context of late-stage capitalism before but here we are. From an email in my inbox today from a PT practice:

“Hey there! BLACK FRIDAY is here—and don’t our biggest offer of the year for our course Colorectal: Manual Assessment & Treatment Techniques”

Screenshot of world map showing number of data centers in each country.

Good mapping resource for data center watchdogs.

There are now 11,226 data centers around the world. 4257 of them are in the United States.

www.datacentermap.com/datacenters/

Yeah, it’s news to me but not new.

"The pattern echoes across Appalachia and the South, where Black communities and low-wealth rural towns are being targeted for industrial development that requires huge amounts of power, water, and land."

Food crops in question are oranges, tangerines, limes, grapefruit.

Antibiotic resistance is a huge huge risk, of course. But also there are risks for eaters of the sprayed food—like harm to gut microbiome—and for insect pollinators, drinking water, and farmworkers.

EPA urged to ban spraying of antibiotics on US food crops amid resistance fears Use of 8m pounds of antibiotics and antifungals a year leads to superbugs and damages human health, lawsuit claims

Today I, a PhD ecologist who researches public health, learned by reading the foreign press that my country sprays streptomycin* on food crops. 😳

* used to treat TB, the plague, and severe bacterial infections where other antibiotics fail 🧪 #MedSky

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"Dr. Wilson urges:

- Vote at every level—local, state, federal
- Know your public utility commissioners
- Join boards and commissions
- Run for precinct seats
- Demand accountability from mayors, councils, and agencies

Organize around data center regulation before it’s too late."