Vampire Planet: This Week in the Anthropocene

Let’s start with the good news. As of 2025, coal is no longer the dominant energy source worldwide. It’s been at the top for over 100 years, but it’s been edged out by renewables, driven mainly by China’s solar boom.

Now, the reality. Despite this surge in renewables, the world saw a record increase in carbon emissions last year. That’s because fossil fuels are still being burned in record numbers across sectors beyond energy, such as transportation, which accounts for nearly 30% of global fossil fuel consumption. Not everyone is keen on large-scale industrial solar projects like China’s, either. A ProPublica report details a brewing battle in Michigan over solar plantations.

Sorry for the bummer news, but here’s more on renewables: we need so much copper for the energy transition that an old, dormant mine in Utah has reopened. A recent study found that, in the worst-case scenario (which is on the path we’re on), we’ll need 373 new copper mines by 2050 to keep up with demand. Oh, and that Utah mine will be supplemented by robot miners.

So much for the promise of jobs, given all the mines that will be needed for lithium, uranium, cobalt, and other critical minerals for batteries and fuel for nuclear plants. AI technophiles are hoping to automate the entire industry. Speaking of uranium, don’t miss Bill Hatch’s excellent piece in these pages this week on uranium-mining speculators haunting the Navajo Nation. In other mining news, environmental groups in Oregon filed a lawsuit to stop lithium exploration on federal lands in the McDermitt Caldera in southeast Oregon. I write about this whole messy and destructive ordeal in Bad Energy, out later this year.

On the topic of AI, spending in the sector set a record last quarter. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft shelled out $130 billion in capital expenditures, largely driven by a surge in data center investments. These tech ghouls plan to spend a combined $700 billion by the end of the year.

There are at least 1,500 data centers in development nationwide, and resistance to these energy suckers is growing quickly. A recent Quinnipiac University poll from late March found that 65% of Americans don’t want Big Tech to build data centers in their communities. As Liza Featherstone writes, this is truly the environmental enemy we can all organize against.

As for enemies, well, Trump’s enemies at least: Iran’s refusal to budge on the Strait of Hormuz continues to push oil prices up, with prices at a four-year high. Will continued expensive gas prices at the pump help the electric car industry? They already are in many markets, including China, the US, and Canada.

Even bigger oil news: the UAE is opting out of OPEC. That could make the global oil market even more volatile.

If this war-driven oil trend continues, expect the new lithium find in Appalachia to be kick-started quickly. The USGS has reported that they located so much accessible lithium that the mine would replace the need for lithium imports for the next 100 years. First, it was coal mining, and now, lithium mining is set to poison the poor folks in Appalachia. The UN even admitted that critical minerals are the “oil of the 21st century” and that their mining is ravaging the health of people and the planet. So much for renewables saving us.

Trump is also continuing his war on offshore wind energy, buying off companies to the tune of $2 billion.

Out here in the West, we’ve had a very, very dry winter. In fact, we’ve just learned that it was the driest March in over 130 years, as Robert Hunziker reports for us this weekend. I just returned from Montana, where the Rockies have seen the lowest snowfall since we started tracking the stuff. That does not bode well for water levels in the Colorado River. The reservoir behind Lake Powell may get so low that by August, the Glen Canyon Dam, which forms Lake Foul as we call it, won’t be able to operate. High Country News also reports that this extremely low snowpack means serious drought, but also flooding.

Want to make sense of all of this climate chaos? It’s about to get more difficult. Last Friday, Trump fired the entire National Science Board. An article in Nature detailed the bloodbath. In just over a year, Trump has axed more than 100 independent advisory panels and terminated 1000s of research grants.

Speaking of science, another study dropped, linking pesticide exposure to rising colon cancer rates in young people. Nate Halverson also has an incredible and disturbing piece over at Mother Jones, revealing how we are poisoning our forests with Roundup. This, while the Supreme Court heard the Monsanto Company v. Durnell case on April 27th, which would force the killer chemical company to label its pesticide as the cancer-causer that it is. Don’t hold your breath that SCOTUS will listen to the science on this one.

Also in Montana, rising progressive star Sam Forstag, a Bernie and AOC-backed candidate for a Montana House seat, wants to log Western Montana and restart old timber mills. WTF?

Down in Colombia, the first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels was held in Santa Marta. The meetings were sponsored by Colombia and the Netherlands. Here are some of the key outcomes.

Lastly, since we started with an (alleged) positive story, let’s end on one worth celebrating. Humpback whales are forming supergroups, which scientists say is a testament to their recovery.

Snack on that, and I’ll see you next week.

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