This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on all things at the intersection of environment and technology, follow Justine Calma. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Some stories that I’ve worked […]
FEMA has suspended at least 30 employees after they warned that spending limits, staffing cuts, and gaps in leadership hurt the agency’s ability to respond to disasters. The employees received emails notifying them that they’d been put on administrative leave on Tuesday night, according to The New York Times, which reviewed copies of the email. […]
Nuclear fusion is on the upswing, as more companies pile into the space to achieve what’s often described as the Holy Grail of clean energy, according to an updated map from the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). Nuclear fusion aims to replicate the way the Sun produces light and heat, generating a tremendous amount of […]
The Revolution Wind farm was already 80 percent complete before the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent it a letter Friday to “halt all ongoing activities” to address purported national security concerns and “interference” with other potential uses for the area. The move comes as data centers, domestic manufacturing, and electric vehicles are raising […]
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on deep-sea mining and critical minerals, follow Justine Calma. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started This is not how I thought things would go […]
Amid a fierce debate about the environmental toll of artificial intelligence, Google released a new study that says its Gemini AI assistant only uses a minimal amount of water and energy for each text prompt. But experts say that the tech giant’s claims are misleading. Google estimates that a median Gemini text prompt uses up […]
Google is one step closer to reaching its nuclear ambitions now that it’s working with public power utility Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to purchase electricity from a next-generation reactor. It’s the first power purchase agreement for technology this advanced that a US utility has made, according to the companies. The plan is for TVA to […]
The nations of the world have been on the precipice of reaching a global agreement to curb plastic pollution for a few years now. Delegates from 184 governments met in Geneva this month to try to hammer out a final treaty, but in the end, they walked away without a deal. This is not necessarily […]
Thousands of delegates have descended upon Geneva this week for what’s supposed to be the culmination of years of negotiations that, if successful, are supposed to end in a groundbreaking global plastics treaty. They might be breathing in the very thing they’re trying to clean up as they negotiate. Greenpeace tested the air around the […]
Can deleting old emails and photos help the UK tackle ongoing drought this year? That’s the hope, according to recommendations for the public included in a press release today from the National Drought Group. There are far bigger steps companies and policymakers can take to conserve water of course, but drought has gotten bad enough […]