Luke Barratt

Leak reveals Amazon’s hidden data centres' impact on emissions Soaring electricity demand in Mumbai, where Amazon has 16 data centres, has led to crumbling coal power stations being kept open.

Finally published a major story I've been working on for some time, with my colleague @atikarehman.bsky.social and @sushmitaw.bsky.social.

Leaked documents have revealed Amazon's "dirty energy empire", as families in Mumbai suffer.

www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Amazon has twice as many data centres worldwide as previously reported Amazon uses far more data centres across the globe—and has a bigger impact on the environment—than previously reported, leaked data reveals.

Amazon, the biggest data centre provider in the world, is actually *even bigger* than we thought.

New investigation based on leaked documents by my colleague @lukewbarratt.bsky.social. www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Amazon has twice as many data centres worldwide as previously reported Amazon uses far more data centres across the globe—and has a bigger impact on the environment—than previously reported, leaked data reveals.

New from me: I've seen more internal Amazon documents revealing the company's data centre footprint—and environmental impact—is even more massive than people already realised.

In 2023, it used 924 data centres in 50 countries, and has built many more since.

www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

‘There is no money’: As carbon markets collapse, what happens to the forests they promised to protect? After it was found most offsets did not represent real carbon reductions, the money dried up. But successful schemes such as Kasigau in Kenya now face a stark future

Good piece by @pgreenfielduk.bsky.social on the current state of the carbon markets.

Almost 3 years on from our investigation, the market is reforming, but has the Trump White House killed corporate interest in protecting forests?

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

North Sea Storm – SourceMaterial Poised to take control of ‘the backbone of the UK’s energy production’, Franceso Mazzagatti is defending allegations bribery, forgery and fraud

Can't recommend today's SourceMaterial offering enough, by @marcusleroux.bsky.social.

It's the story of the son of a lorry driver from Calabria who has often struggled to distance himself from the Italian mafia and is now poised to buy 11 North Sea gasfields

www.source-material.org/mazzagatti-v...

Instead, the most recent year we have, Rahman's second in office, saw work started on by far the most social rent homes of any year in recent times.

Labour are going around the borough lying to people.

Starts are probably a better measure of the change Rahman has managed to achieve in Tower Hamlets.

If completions had been high in his first year, Labour could fairly have claimed that those were homes started while they were in power.

It *is* true, however, that Labour built 0 homes for social rent in their last two years in power.

It's also true that starts (i.e. homes that have been started but not completed) have increased significantly since Rahman was elected.

Here are the govt figures on social rent housebuilding in the borough.

It's not quite true that 0 homes have been built for social rent during Rahman's tenure, although the numbers are very low (6 in the two years for which we have data).

Got doorknocked by Tower Hamlets Labour, who are trying to win back the Tower Hamlets mayoralty from the socialist Lutfur Rahman.

The two councillor candidates on my doorstep made the eye-opening claim that Rahman has failed to build any social housing, so I thought I'd look into it 🧵

Just tried to sign up for Substack, didn't select any interests, and two of the first recommendations are Matt Goodwin and Nick Griffin. What on earth.

I don't support Huddersfield either but I'm less worried about impressionable people being groomed into following League One.

Yes, this was definitely my favourite part of the story.

Amazon strategised about keeping its datacentres’ full water use secret, leaked document shows Executives at world’s biggest datacentre owner grappled with disclosing information about water used to help power facilities

We published this in partnership with @theguardian.com, whose version you can read here:

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Leak reveals Amazon plan to keep water use of data centres secret Amazon strategised about ways to keep the public in the dark over the true extent of its data centres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.

New from me: I've seen an internal memo from Amazon Web Services. It reveals, for the first time, figures on water consumption by Amazon's data centres.

It is also enlightening about their approach to transparency, which they warn is "a one-way door" www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-...

Leak reveals Amazon plan to keep water use of data centres secret Amazon strategised about ways to keep the public in the dark over the true extent of its data centres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.

'Amazon hides its water consumption' was one hypothetical headline the memo warned of

always amusing when someone writes down the thing they don't want to happen

nice work from @lukewbarratt.bsky.social @rosafurneaux.bsky.social @source-material.org

www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-...

I'm extremely proud of all my SourceMaterial colleagues today for their work over the last year

Nigel Farage to Headline Tufton Street Climate Denial Event Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is set to speak at an event today organised by a pro-Trump think tank and held in the home of the UK’s main climate science denial group, DeSmog can reveal. Farage, whose...

🔴 NEW 🔴

Nigel Farage will this afternoon headline an anti-climate event at 55 Tufton Street convened by a lobby group with close ties to Trump.

📝 @desmog.com scoop with @adambarnett.bsky.social

Israel’s Crimes of the Century How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.

“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy—knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”

—Ex-Israeli PM

nymag.com/intelligence...

The Onion has suddenly become the Western world's most necessary news outlet

Great story here, with powerful details on the local environmental injustices and settler colonial dynamics related to data centers.

No one has ever LinkedIn this hard.

I am CRINE.

One thing that tells you a particular social, cultural or political viewpoint is widespread, common sense, normal and uncontroversial is when a corporate representative of a household name global brand feels the need to come out and publicly distance their brand and products from said viewpoint.

The west’s shameful silence on Gaza The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu

Feels significant: the FT has published an editorial calling out "the West's shameful silence on Gaza".

It writes: "Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that [Netanyahu aims] to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land."

www.ft.com/content/f5fd...

Does Isabel Oakeshott still believe Arron Banks was “used by the Russians”? Oakeshott is a Reform cheerleader but in 2018 she said the Kremlin “struck gold” with the party’s West of England mayoral candidate. The article is still online.

Isobel Oakeshott is a Reform cheerleader - but in 2018 she said the Kremlin “struck gold” with Arron Banks, who Reform’s West of England mayoral candidate. The article is still online.

New from @marcusleroux.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/does-isabe...

Not the most important thing about 'White Potus' but SNL's sketches are always *way* too long. They have one idea and try to string it out for five whole minutes.

The EU AI Continent Action Plan: Hype, Burn, Rinse, and Repeat | TechPolicy.Press The Commission's plan is not just to have more data centres and more data approaches, but also to repeat past announcements, writes Kris Shrishak.

"The European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan is closer to fiction than reality. Steeped in hype, the EU will burn more fossil fuels, rinse and repeat the past, all in the name of leadership."

My piece on @techpolicypress.bsky.social

www.techpolicy.press/the-eu-ai-co...

Energy demands from AI datacentres to quadruple by 2030, says report The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

No it is not "in the cloud", but very much down to Earth.

And #ClimateEmergency not the only threat - what about water and other resource use?

So we can have such #AI slop as "shrimp Jesus"?
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Big Tech's data centres will take water from world's driest areas Amazon, Microsoft and Google's data centres use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and they are building more.

New from me: I've spent the last 6 months compiling a map of data centres, whose locations are generally secret, operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Cross-referencing that map with areas of water scarcity shows many are in the world's driest areas.

www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas

A really clever data story from @source-material.org and the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Big Tech's data centres will take water from world's driest areas Amazon, Microsoft and Google's data centres use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and they are building more.

New from me: I've spent the last 6 months compiling a map of data centres, whose locations are generally secret, operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

Cross-referencing that map with areas of water scarcity shows many are in the world's driest areas.

www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...