Earth Wise

Beavers are large semiaquatic rodents best known for building dams, but new research suggests they may also help in the fight against climate change.

Data centers currently consume nearly 5% of the electricity generated in the United States and estimates are that the amount will more than double over the next five years. They could consume up to 12% of our electricity by 2030.

Over the month of March, renewable energy sources generated more electricity than was produced from natural gas plants for the first time. This is an impressive milestone considering that renewable energy is under attack from the current administration. On an overall basis, emissions-free sources, which include renewables as well as nuclear energy, produced more than half of the country’s electricity. This is only the third time this has happened for an entire month.

The Trump administration has some well-known enemies: wind turbines, electric cars, and climate scientists, among others. Now the iconic American buffalo has joined their ranks.

Plug-in solar systems are small, pre-configured solar panels with microinverters that plug directly into standard household outlets to reduce electricity bills. They are easy to install on balconies, roof decks, or backyard fences and are not permanently attached. They are popular in Europe but not widely available or even legalized in most of the United States. In fact, Utah was the first state to legalize the systems in March 2025.

Mitigating climate change requires reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Not emitting more of it is a key part of the effort but taking some out of the atmosphere will also be important. Direct air capture is the process by which this happens.

Modern data centers have been around since the 1990s, but they were largely unknown to most of us over their first 20 years. From about 2010 until just a few years ago, cloud computing and various mobile and software services became commonplace. The number of data centers grew from hundreds to a couple of thousand. The current third era of data centers, running AI training and inference, has exploded the number of centers and, especially, the amount of power they consume. In 2005, data centers consumed 20 GW of power. Last year, that number exceeded 114 GW with an annual growth rate of over 17%.

As climate change intensifies droughts and disrupts rainfall patterns, freshwater supplies are becoming increasingly strained in many parts of the world. As a result, some farmers are turning to treated wastewater to irrigate their crops. While this approach helps conserve water resources, it also raises some concerns. Even after treatment, wastewater can contain trace amounts of various substances, including psychoactive medications used to treat mental health conditions.

CO2 emissions come from a wide variety of sources. How to reduce them is obvious in some cases – such as by driving electric cars – but very difficult in others, such as the emissions from aircraft. Aviation accounts for 3.5 to 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In the European Union, it is about 4%.

Driverless ride-hailing vehicles – popularly known as robotaxis – are showing up in a growing number of cities. Several of the largest technology companies in the world are leading the charge using their deep pockets both to put vehicles on the streets and influence how they and sometimes their competitors are portrayed in the media.