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Here's some lovely artwork from the no desert data center (www.instagram.com/no_desert_da...) coalition that captures our feelings ⛈️ It would be great if a national news outlet picked up this story - its a type case for something that is increasingly an issue in the West. /fin

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AI data centers are just the latest put your junk in the desert thing. But we as desert dwellers don't need to stand for it. Why would we repeat the past's mistakes? All for an AI response for a search (that sometimes you didn't ask for and don't really need!).

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Dugway Proving Ground - Wikipedia

There is a long history in the American West of putting our country's junk in the desert. c.f. a large portion of the State of Nevada (incl. the nuclear test range) and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, where chemical and biological weapons were tested en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_...

en.wikipedia.org

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It seems to me that data centers in the desert is the new "growing alfalfa in the desert." It makes more sense to put these in places with more water...but land is cheap in the desert and local cities might be more amenable to the deal...

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Emotions run high in public meeting held by City of Tucson over Project Blue

Economically the boost of the data center would be the construction jobs, and there is no denying that, hence for trade unions this is a really good thing. But in the long-term, there are almost no people working at places like this. www.kold.com/2025/07/24/e...

kold.com

The project has drawn a lot of attention around Pima County

ProjectBlue_SantaCruzImpacts_11Jul2025.pdf

The city claims the River won't be affected, but it's hard to imagine how, since water diverted to the data center means less outflow on the river at one of the flow stations no matter where it occurs. Prof. Michael Bogan at @uarizona.bsky.social crunched the math drive.google.com/file/d/1sSAp...

drive.google.com

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Proposed data center raises concerns about drying up this Arizona river

Reclaimed water is used to restore the Santa Cruz River, which was in the early 20th century an actual flowing river but due to ground water pumping no longer flows on its own. But thanks to reclaimed water we now have these beautiful riparian areas coming back www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

azcentral.com

The Santa Cruz River, dried up and polluted, came back to life recently, sustained by highly treated wastewater from two water reclamation facilities.

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The water would rely on extending Tucson's reclaimed water system to the build to supply an estimated 0.8 million gallons per day (data centers in Phoenix use more than this). The problem is, reclaimed water demand is already very high in the city, and...

As far as power goes, the project is estimated to require 400-600 MW at full build. It's not clear yet how TEP our power supplier will meet that. Current peak energy demand is 2400 MW so this is non-trivial. It could involve keeping coal-fired plants up and running past their expiration date.

"Project Blue" is some (read: greenwashing) name for a data center that would be roughly the size of downtown Tucson, eat power and water, and provide only 180 jobs. For perspective, my department alone at the @uarizona.bsky.social employs about 130 people within 3-4 floors of a single building.

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Amazon Web Services is company behind Tucson’s Project Blue, according to 2023 county memo - AZ Luminaria

This summer Tucsonians started to hear about something called "Project Blue", a proposal to build data centers on our outskirts. The city officials signed a NDA to not disclose the company❗but thanks to @azluminaria.org the company was outed this week as Amazon 🤡 azluminaria.org/2025/07/21/a...

azluminaria.org

Amazon Web Services is revealed to be the company behind the Project Blue data center proposed for Tucson.

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This @wired.com article is extremely timely for those of us in Tucson, Arizona, as we face the possibility of Amazon Web Services building a huge data center at our outskirts. Energy and water use for AI data centers are non-trivial. Read my thread below if you want to hear about our local story ⬇️

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Several Fellows I talked to have decided to leave the US and seek science positions in Europe, citing the lack of positions here and negative attitude towards science 😞 Brain drain is a real thing that will have lasting impacts on US scientific strength.

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Also, while temporary, the furlough caused a lot of stress for the Fellows, who scrambled to file for unemployment or get temporary positions since no one knew when it would end.

Jessica Tierney @leafwax.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Update on the NOAA Fellows situation: as of late last week the furlough has been lifted (phew!). However, there are no new Fellows this year, and we still don't know the future of this program.

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✨Paper #2 has just been published @weareagc.bsky.social ✨ And it is about hopanoids!! Thank you @climategordon.bsky.social for trusting a brand new journal with your research. AGC is 💎 open access: free to publish and free to read 🙌 Geochemists, come publish with us! journals.uu.se/AGC/article/...

journals.uu.se

Hopanoid distributions differ in mineral soils and peat: a re-evaluation of hopane-based pH proxies | Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry

Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, ISSN 2977-1994 | CC BY 4.0

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Reposted by Jessica Tierney

Becca Dzombak @rdzombak.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

The Trump administration's proposed budget would slash NOAA's climate research funds. It still has to pass Congress, but it's already affecting scientists. A program supporting promising new climate scientists furloughed its current cohort and canceled 2025 awards. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/c...

nytimes.com

Recipients of a U.S. Climate Science Fellowship Are Put on Unpaid Leave

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Jessica Tierney @leafwax.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

So bummed you are leaving - but it's probably a good choice

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Unsure who to contact or pressure (ideas?), but pls spread the word on this issue.

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One of the things that makes this Fellowship special is that unlike NSF fellowships it is open to non-citizens, with the aim of retaining climate science talent in the US. The furlough creates significant problems for non-US postdocs in how it complicates visa status 😳

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The CGC Fellow program is small but has supported a large number of climate scientists over the years (including me)... it's not surprising that the current admin won't support it... but watching it being destroyed is heartbreaking.

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