Angie McCarthy

Nature Forward is hiring!

We are looking for a Maryland Research & Outreach Intern to work with our Maryland Conservation Advocate and support our data center reform work through research, writing, and community engagement.

Apply by November 19th at 5pm: natureforward.org/wp-content/u...

Never have I wanted to be on a boys’ jv basketball team more

Pinsky steps down from Maryland Energy Administration, ends 39 years in state service - Maryland Matters Maryland Energy Administrator Director Paul Pinsky, who went from ideologically out-of-step back bencher to architect of major legislation, and who now is a key member of Gov. Wes Moore’s administrati...

Diva down (retired, not dead, good for him!)

Stormwater Partners Network - Lunch and Learn: Let's Move Beyond Plastic, December 4, 2025 - RSVP Form The Montgomery County Stormwater Partners Network (SWPN) invites you to join us for a virtual Lunch and Learn on December 4, from 12pm to 1pm. Zoom meeting information will be sent to registrants the ...

Join the Montgomery County Stormwater Partners Network's next Lunch and Learn: Let's Move Beyond Plastic on December 4 from 12-1pm. They will discuss what impacts plastic pollution has on our communities, and what actions we can take to fight this issue.

Sign up here: forms.gle/HyUBrn9ztvAg...

Completing the Buffalo royalty shot-chased by watching the Bills game and then drooling over Mary in Sinners back to back

Here’s How the AI Crash Happens The U.S. is becoming an Nvidia-state.

"Multiplying Ford’s current market cap 94 times over wouldn’t quite get you to Nvidia’s. Yet 20 years ago, Ford was worth nearly triple what Nvidia was. Much like how Saudi Arabia is a petrostate, the U.S. is a burgeoning AI state—and, in particular, an Nvidia-state."

tinyurl.com/3rr28fw6

Food Waste Prevention and Recovery • With Montgomery County's support in 2024, 2.5 million pounds of recovered food from 106 restaurants, food retailers, gardens and farm partners reached 45 community food assistance organizations • The goal of our Food Waste Prevention and Recovery Work Group is to reduce food waste and helps get surplus food to community food assistance providers. • By creating a cooperative space for food recovery efforts, our Food Recovery Collaborative seeks to break down competitive barriers, provide training and technical assistance, and expand sources of recoverable food

We are now talking about food waste prevention and recovery. Craig Rice from Manna pointed out that the tighter margins (as food costs go up) for grocers and restaurants means food recovery groups get fewer additions.

ALSO food recovery is NOT free!

If you or a neighbor need help finding resources, you can find local food banks and other community orgs at www.findhelp.org

Emergency Food Assistance: • 34% of Montgomery County residents are food insecure, rising from 27% in 2023. • MCFC supports 49 Food Assistance Provider OFSR-grantees, and the county's 7 Service Consolidation Hubs, with capacity building resources and technical assistance • Montgomery County is experiencing COVID-era increased levels of need-but with decreasing Federal funds. Providers must consider systems change models to meet the need

Note about these rising rates of food insecurity (from 27% to 34% in Montgomery County) is these numbers do NOT include our furloughed employees.

Organizations are reaching out daily to ask “can you feed another 70-100 families who have lost their SNAP benefits” but there isn’t fed $

Federal Nutrition Benefits • Expansion of SNAP ABAWD definition - need for increased workforce development • Removal of eligibility for refugees and asylees - need for support mechanism for this population • Mixed-status households and fear of applying for SNAP - impact on direct certification/CEP • Protect legislative wins: Senior SNAP supplement. SNAP theft reimbursement • MCFC Food Resource Specialists

At the Montgomery County Food Council’s Legislative Breakfast — notice how many different communities are losing their benefits. Many families are not applying to SNAP because mixed status households are afraid of putting their information on paper.

Massive data centers invaded Virginia — and Maryland wants to be next Virginia’s rapid accumulation of nearly 600 data centers now feels like a warning for some Marylanders, as businesses and local governments look to attract the giant facilities.

A new article from the Baltimore Banner, mentioning our Director of Conservation, Lydia Lawrence, and our Maryland Conservation Advocate, @angie22mccarthy.bsky.social, discusses the impacts of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia: www.thebanner.com/economy/data...

YouTube video by CAG Chat DATA CENTER CONVO PT. 2 -- 08 October 2025

@angie22mccarthy.bsky.social, our Maryland Conservation Advocate, had a great conversation about data centers with Citizens for Accountability in Governance.

Watch the video below to hear from Angie as well as environmental experts, Julie Bolthouse and David Arndt: youtu.be/44DcfArtF7M?...

Prince George's County Deserves Professionals, Not Negligence - Nature Forward Nature Forward inspires residents of the greater Washington, DC, region to appreciate, understand, and protect their natural environment through outdoor experiences, education, and advocacy.

Prince George's County deserves professionals, not public servants who have been fired from their roles due to gross negligence. Let your councilmembers know to vote no to Dr. Moki for PG County's head of Department of the Environment: natureforward.org/prince-georg...

If I played in the NFL, I would hire a PI to compile a dossier on all my opponents. I would be talking shit about their guilty pleasures, the time they didn’t quite make it to the bathroom, when their college roommate sexiled them. All of it. It’s the only good use for that much money.

Unfortunately, I have not stopped loving him

Go Bills Natali!!

Last point on the tour: ~90 properties on Pageland in Prince William County banded together to sell their land to data center developers. Digital Gateway will result in 22 mill sq feet of data center — larger than Data Center Alley currently is. It’s ALL ag, forest, and homes now.

The data center demand is through the roof: DCs generally have a low vacancy rate so companies feel like they can continuing building since companies want their servers before the buildings are even built.

This is a crisis by contract, the grid isn’t overloaded by residential energy usage. Residents are lowering their usage even though our populations are increasing! Without the data center load growth, we wouldn’t be talking about this energy crisis, we would just be transitioning to renewables.

More spookiness: Julie said that whatever energy we start with, we are stuck with the next 25 years.

So if a data center says that they will temporarily use gas, that plant will not hit ROI (for ratepayers) for nearly 3 decades.

Another EJ issue: the areas where gas peaker plants are staying online are NOT the areas where they are getting the financial benefits of data center development. They have no say in the matter!

Someone asked a great question about the demographics of Loudoun. The EJ issue here is not necessarily about building in the backyards of poor residents, but of “who is able to leave when things get bad?”

Welcome to the loneliest Metro stop Loudoun Gateway, the second-to-last station on the Silver Line, was envisioned as a thriving mixed-use stop. Instead, it’s anything but.

Several billion $ was spent to bring 3 metro stops in Loudon. 1/2 a billion was paid for the Loudoun metro — and it has the lowest ridership in all of @wmata.com. This is what happens when we allow by right development!

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

At $400 mill/an acre, only our richest multinational corporations can afford this land, and they only want to build data centers. They don’t need to build light industrial or mixed use areas!

👻👻 Julie has said, somewhat ominously, “this is just the beginning. Look at all those cranes.”

Data Center Alley will need about 15 GW of electricity when it is fully built out…that’s 15 nuclear reactors.

We are now pulling into the old AOL HQ — it used to be a thriving place to work with daycares, walking trails, and community benefits. It employed 1000s.

Now, the AOL campus has turned into 3 data centers, with about 100 employees between the 3 of them.

Don’t bring a speaker or else you’ll drown out the sound of our diesel generators!

Don’t smoke because it’s harmful to our air quality…wait a second??

Julie note: we need to regulate impacts not the technology. We need to ask questions about “how much water will you be using?” Versus asking about closed loop or direct to chip technology because those can be misleading.

This site has 106 diesel generators (each 2.5 MW) for these 4 data centers. You can see a dozen of these generators with stacks — the stacks are actually great because they push the pollutants higher so they are not going straight into this baseball field.