They suck up energy and water, and blast out heat. Just who is better off from all this investment – aside from tech bros?
The two great existential threats of our time – the climate crisis and AI – come hurtling together in the explosion of datacentres across Australia and around the world.
You can hardly avoid hearing about them these days, either with awed reverence of the promised benefits to humankind or with fear and anger given the implications for the climate, inflation, jobs and even housing affordability.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/08/2026 - 10:00
07/08/2026 - 09:08
Meta said it was working with officials to be a ‘good neighbor’ and drinking water supplies were not affected
Officials in Wyoming said a contractor for Mark Zuckerberg’s tech company, Meta, flushed bacteria-contaminated water into public sewers during construction of a controversial new AI datacenter.
The incident prompted water authorities in Cheyenne to implement strict safety regulations on how wastewater from such projects is disposed of, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, which first reported the incident.
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07/08/2026 - 06:00
Climate crisis prompts calls for workplace temperature limits and rights to heat breaks and adjusted working hours
As Europe’s sweltering summer continues, trades unions are mounting a push for new laws to counter deadly heat stress that is linked to an estimated 230 workplace deaths a year.
This year’s toll may be even higher, with 1,300 excess European deaths already connected to the June heatwave by the World Health Organization, and other estimates running as high as 20,000.
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07/08/2026 - 05:44
Regulator found ‘unacceptable’ breaches in water company’s handling of drainage and sewage network
Business live – latest updates
The water company Severn Trent has been spared a fine by the industry regulator despite “serious and unacceptable breaches” in its handling of wastewater and sewage.
The watchdog, Ofwat, which has been investigating how wastewater and sewage networks are managed across the industry, found that the FTSE 100 company had breached its duties by failing to effectively provide drainage and deal with the contents of its sewers.
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07/08/2026 - 05:30
Experts warn that some marine species are at risk of ‘mass mortality events’ in ever-warming oceans
UK waters are being hit with an “extreme” marine heatwave, the Met Office has said, as scientists warn that high ocean temperatures globally could result in “mass-mortality events” for some species.
The forecasters said these elevated temperatures have developed rapidly because of last month’s heat dome, during which most of Europe sweltered in its worst ever heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible without the climate crisis.
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07/08/2026 - 05:00
Estonia, Luxembourg and UK are the top three in biennial Yale University index in tackling pollution and other issues
Much of the world has made encouraging strides in reducing toxic problems such as water and air pollution that have long plagued communities. But there is still a widespread lack of progress among countries in dealing with the climate crisis, according to the latest edition of an influential environmental scorecard.
The biennial Yale University index again ranks Estonia as the best-performing of 177 assessed countries, after strong recent efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and protect its ecosystems. Luxembourg is second, and the UK is third, having moved up from fifth place in the 2024 index.
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07/08/2026 - 04:00
‘Sea cures’ are not new but the idea that exposure to oceans, rivers and lakes can be medicine for the brain is gaining traction
Watching the waves break across the vast, roaring ocean in front of him, Dave Phillips felt out of options standing on the cliff’s edge in Cornwall several years ago. The former British army corporal had lost a number of loved ones in quick succession, and the compounding effects of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his military tours had become all-consuming.
“I’m from a generation where we didn’t talk,” says Phillips, 67. “I tried dealing with it myself and ended up standing on a cliff edge thinking, ‘Yeah, this is the way.’”
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07/08/2026 - 03:10
There are far better ways to tackle climate breakdown, but successive governments have chosen to listen to the fossil fuel companies instead
The new prime minister will be looking for money? Well, here’s £21.7bn lying on the ground. The government could cancel its deranged, disastrous carbon capture and storage (CCS) programme at no cost to public welfare: in fact, it would greatly reduce the harm we will suffer.
Sorry, did I say £21.7bn? That’s the figure the government has been putting in its press releases for spending on this programme between now and 2050. But this covers only the first phase of the project. The climate experts Dr Andrew Boswell and Simon Oldridge worked through the data produced by the government’s Climate Change Committee, which was scattered across different spreadsheets, and discovered that the projected cost of the full CCS programme between now and 2050 is £264bn.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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07/08/2026 - 02:30
Rubbish dumps can expose birds to contaminants, raising questions over whether landfill foraging helps or harms
Storks are gaining weight from a diet of literal junk, according to research that suggests the previously disappearing birds face potential health risks as a result of increasingly eating from rubbish dumps.
Landfill offers what appear to be quick and convenient meals for white stork populations in Europe. But new research suggests they may be gaining a short-term energy boost at the cost of hidden long-term health effects.
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07/08/2026 - 01:00
Shoppers urged to seek quality products or alternatives as data shows demand surpassing last year’s total
Britons are expected to buy nearly 8m mini fans this year as they are “surging on to the market” in the hot weather – but almost half of those are expected to be low-quality products that end up in landfill within a year.
Waste managers and recycling campaigners have raised concerns as the number of online searches for electrically powered handheld fans, which sell for as little as £2, has already surpassed that seen in the whole of 2025 in the first six months of this year.
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