"Carbon Majors" Are Wringing Out the West to Dry

Through their business activities, those companies have accounted for nearly 70 percent of global industrial carbon dioxide emissions since 1854, with 97 percent of those emissions occurring after 1950.  Since 1950, the researchers say human-caused climate change has reduced April snowpack by roughly 36 percent and streamflow by approximately 13 percent and driven up agricultural demand by 4.3 percent. Emissions from these companies can also be traced to one-tenth of the observed groundwater loss in California’s Central Valley. 

The authors found that between 2014 and 2024, emissions from just 122 fossil fuel companies and cement producers accounted for roughly half (~40–64 percent) of the climate impacts, wringing more than 28 million acre-feet of water from the West—an amount that could fill Lake Mead to capacity. 

CO2 pollution also created seasonal mismatches between supply and demand. In many western river basins, the authors say the midpoint of annual streamflow now happens roughly six days earlier than it would have without the emissions by Carbon Majors. In some mountainous regions, the shift can be up to 30 days earlier, making it challenging for agriculture and driving up groundwater loss. However, the effects of changing water supply and increasing demand extend far beyond agriculture. They create a cascade of impacts including increased wildfires and degraded ecosystems.

Since 1959, some of the fossil fuel companies knew of the climate risks their products posed but instead of working with the public to transition to cleaner energy, they engaged in coordinated disinformation campaigns to deny the science and protect their profits. Given their outsized contributions of carbon to the atmosphere and their decades-long deception, the researchers say that the companies should face accountability for their climate harms.

The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

First, a new study from Ceres, a nonprofit advocacy group for clean energy, warns that data centers are threats to water supplies because of the quantities of water they require to supply them with electricity. The report says that in the seven states with the highest concentration of data centers, they rely on power generated using 3.5 trillion gallons of fresh water every year. That amount, according to the report, is the equivalent of 12 times the annual water usage of Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, DC, combined.

To date, the quantity of water consumed by data centers for cooling servers has received the most attention; however, this study highlights the amount needed to produce the electricity to keep them running. While the amount of water used to produce power varies a lot by state, depending on the type of generation, almost 80 percent used came from plants that use water to operate.

Beyond high water use, data centers can also emit harmful air pollution, like carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and nitrogen oxide, the last of which contributes to ozone. WHYY reports that some data centers are using natural gas turbines and diesel engines to generate power, which can take reliance off the grid, but also spew toxic emissions into local communities. 

In the past, the public, especially those in surrounding communities, had to be notified and can comment on a proposed permit to emit the pollutants, which developers have been required to obtain from the EPA.

Now, the Trump administration is planning to ditch the rule that requires public notice and the right to comment on a permit application—keeping the process in the dark. That review process has been required for about 50 years and covers many types of facilities from landfills to paper mills, power plant expansions, and more recently data centers. 

As the Verge reports, opponents to this change warn that it would allow data center projects, among other air polluting industries, to go forward without warning nearby residents or giving them the chance to object. Recently, environmental groups sued Elon Musk’s xAI data centers in Mississippi and Tennessee that were using unpermitted gas turbines to generate power for violating the Clean Air Act, as reported by Inside Climate News.

In more news about data centers, two chemicals have been approved for use in the manufacture of semiconductors that are critical to AI, despite being identified as posing potential serious health risks like cancer, neurological harm, and even sudden death. Earthjustice, which is suing the government on behalf of the Sierra Club and other groups, alleges that the EPA admitted it did not know the full extent of those risks because it said it lacked the information needed to calculate them.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the EPA under Trump is focused on expanding all the "things it cannot do for the people of the United States."

A few years ago, scientists at Dalhousie University in Canada had community members bury 100-percent cotton underpants to see how fast they decomposed. If after about 60 to 90 days the underwear had decomposed completely, they figured there was good biological activity and the soil was healthy.

Now, a new study from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, using the same method, shows that the way land is used is the most important factor in determining soil health. The team enlisted 1,000 volunteers across Switzerland to bury more than 2,000 pairs of cotton underwear then dig them up two months later and send them along with surrounding soil to the laboratory.

The results showed that, depending on location, the undies decomposed at different rates—the more biologically active soil organisms, the faster the cotton was broken down. The underwear broke down fastest in residential gardens where there were ideal conditions for earthworms, fungi, and bacteria, but lawns were the slowest, with croplands and grassland in between.

The research showed that soil management significantly affects its life and quality, and measures that promote those two include limiting the use of pesticides and mineral fertilizers. Additionally, they said diversifying crop rotations and keeping soil covered are important. They noted that the life of soil depends strongly on temperature and moisture—if conditions are too cold or dry, the soil is barely active.

The Swiss study was published last week in the journal Plants, People, Planet.