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Nathan Taft

@nathantaft.bsky.social
202 followers 115 following 89 posts

he/him | Senior Campaigner at Stand.earth | Words in The Guardian, Grist, Voice of OC, and Medium | Formerly social media for Katie Porter | Tikkun Olam ✡️

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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 17/09/2026
NVIDIA is the largest company in the world, and has an ever increasing pollution footprint to match. In fact, since 2020, its indirect emissions have risen 725%, enough to match the product use emission of state-owned Russian coal. And they still claim to be a sustainability leader. #GreenSky 🧵
Background photo of a microchip. REPORT icon in top left corner. “NVIDIA’s AI climate hoax: Analysis on NVIDIA’s rising emissions and greenwashing” “NVIDIA’s indirect emissions have risen 725% since 2020, despite claiming AI will be a ‘net benefit’ for climate.” Arrow icon in bottom right corner.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Why even call it the Environmental Protection Agency anymore? How about just the "Whatever the Fossil Fuel Companies Want Agency" instead?
wtae.com
EPA set to eliminate rule that limits pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants
The EPA under the Trump administration says it is eliminating a rule that limits planet-warming pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
"Located roughly a mile from two schools, the tractor-trailer-size generators emit substantial amounts of health-harming air pollution linked to asthma, heart attacks and even premature death." Seems like xAI and Elon Musk started a trend. Just unconscionable behavior from @microsoft.com
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 27/08/2026
BREAKING: A @microsoft.com-backed AI data center in New Jersey was just caught violating federal law, running dozens of dangerous and polluting gas-generators without any permits. 🧵 #GreenSky
floodlightnews.org
One of East Coast’s largest data centers accused of ‘violating federal law’
Thermal drone footage shows DataOne — the Microsoft-backed AI data center in Vineland — is powering its operations with dozens of unpermitted generators
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 15/07/2026
Even @microsoft.com admits its data centers are massively increasing its pollution footprint, with the company now consuming as much power as Denmark. #GreenSky 🧵 @ketanjoshi.co
fastcompany.com
Microsoft's emissions rose 25% last year. Experts say they'll surge even more dramatically in the years ahead
Tech giants have been polluting more heavily as they ramp up their aggressive AI data center build-outs.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 19/06/2026
“If companies like @Microsoft.com and Amazon want the social license to keep building these projects that overhaul entire landscapes, they need to significantly ramp up investment in renewable energy and do right by local communities,” Taft said.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 19/06/2026
“No matter where you look or who you talk to, it’s clear that the way Big Tech operates its AI data centers is extremely unpopular,” said @nathantaft.bsky.social, the Senior Campaigner on Stand.earth’s Fossil-Free Computing Campaign. #GreenSky
augustafreepress.com
We don't like data center tax breaks: But there's more to it than that
The state budget is being held up because Gov. Abigail Spanberger and HouseSpeaker Don Scott want to preserve tax breaks for data center developers.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 02/06/2026
We’re here at the Microsoft Build conference to send a clear message: @microsoft.com's AI data centers harm communities. Enough is enough. Head to MicrosoftLies.com to tell the tech giant to stop shoving AI data centers down our throats and to respect communities and the climate. #GreenSky
NEWS icon in top left corner. “Tech Giant Microsoft Called Out at Build Conference for Harming Communities with Polluting AI Data Centers” Background photos of an action at the Microsoft Build Conference at the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture in San Francisco, with artists creating protest artwork and protesters holding banners that read AI DATA CENTERS HARM COMMUNITIES MicrosoftLIES.com” “Microsoft’s Data Centers HARM Communities”. Arrow icon in bottom right corner. 
“We're at the Microsoft Build conference to send a clear message: Microsoft's AI data centers harm communities.” Background photo of an art piece by @Vogue_TDK on Instagram, depicting Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on a bulldozer with Microsoft’s logo, bulldozing through communities with fossil-fueled data centers, showing communities trying to block the bulldozer with signs that read “STOP AI Data Centers” and “Data Centers Harm Communities”. Photo credit in bottom left corner is “Photo by Brooke Anderson | @movementphotographer”. Arrow icon in bottom right corner.  White background. “While Microsoft executives are touting the supposed benefits of AI, communities across the globe are facing real consequences as a result of the company's data center build out.” Photo of art piece by @Apexer on Instagram, with the words MICROSOFT DATA CENTERS HARM COMMUNITIES” with different colors highlighting each world. Photo credit in bottom left corner is “Photo by Brooke Anderson | @movementphotographer”. Arrow icon in bottom right corner. 
Black background. “Microsoft pledged to build "community first" AI data centers. In reality, the company is: [oil barrel emoji] Partnering with Big Oil giant Chevron for gas plants in Texas
[non-potable water emoji] Draining water supplies in communities in Mexico [person with face mask] Planning a fossil fuel-powered mega-site in North Carolina that would put a gas plant next to an elementary school. Not very "community first" of you, Microsoft.” Arrow icon in bottom right corner.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 02/06/2026
Awesome! We hope one of the updates is how @microsoft.com is going to honor its commitments to communities and the climate by ending the practice of running its AI data centers on fossil fuels 🤞 Make sure to let the company know that's what the people want by replying to its post 😁
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Microsoft can't have it both ways. If it wants to be called a climate leader, it's data centers need to run on 24/7, local and additional renewable energy – or not at all.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 25/02/2026
UPDATE: After years of secrecy, @microsoft.com finally admitted it's building a data center at the 1,350 acre site it purchased in Person County, NC. This data center is part of the justification for building a new gas plant near an elementary school. 🧵
White background. “To meet demand from Microsoft and other big tech companies, the local utility is building gas plants next to a local elementary school in Person County, NC.” Photo with arrows pointing to the neighboring elementary school, area for the proposed gas plants, and current coal plant.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
molly taft @mollytaft.com · 18/02/2026
when big tech companies say that AI will save the planet, what kinds of AI are they actually talking about — and what's their proof? i took a look at some great new research from @ketanjoshi.co and talked to other experts about how a lot of this talk is probably bullshit:
wired.com
Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much Proof
A new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
AI data centers are throwing the fossil fuel industry a lifeline. "But AI will solve climate change, right?" Wrong. @stand.earth's new report authored by independent researcher @ketanjoshi.co clearly lays out Big Tech's AI climate hoax. See for yourself here: stand.earth/resources/ai...
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 17/02/2026
Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
theguardian.com
Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing
Industry using ‘diversionary’ tactics, says analyst, as energy-hungry complex functions such as video generation and deep research proliferate Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report. Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found. Continue reading...
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
James Temple @jtemple.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Much of the talk of powering AI data centers with next-gen nuclear & fusion is misdirection. The sector will be past its hype scaling phase by the time any of those are operating. In the meanwhile, they're largely being powered by new gas plants, which can easily continue operating well past 2050.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 15/01/2026
@microsoft.com’s new plan to convince communities to welcome data centers includes groundbreaking new ideas like *checks notes* paying its taxes and electric bills. 🥴 🧵
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
[sad trombone noises] www.windowscentral.com/artificial-i...
windowscentral.com
Microsoft has a problem: nobody wants its poor AI products
A new report details how Microsoft has cut some internal goals for AI sales, why? Nobody wants to use its weak products.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Not content with just using up precious water resources, some data centers are now poisoning the water that remains. Even if AI was this amazing, useful, life-changing technology (which, big tech propaganda non-withstanding, it's not) this isn't worth it. thefern.org/2025/11/the-...
thefern.org
‘The precedent is Flint’: How Oregon’s data center boom is supercharging a water crisis | Food and Environment Reporting Network
In the spring of 2022, Jim Doherty kept having the same conversation with folks at the only grocery store in Boardman, his eastern Oregon hometown, or at the grain depot where he picked up food for…
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Say it louder for the people in the back (and also remind them of the massive environmental impacts big tech's obsession with AI is having) www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/...
pcgamer.com
Microsoft's head of AI doesn't understand why people don't like AI, and I don't understand why he doesn't understand because it's pretty obvious
Is it really "mindblowing" that people are skeptical of software that consistently doesn't do the things we're told it can do?
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
In Toronto? Know folks there? If so, there's an important climate action there that could use your support!
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
So let me get this straight: Old growth trees in Canada are chopped down, shipped to the UK, and burned for electricity. And the company responsible, Drax, receives millions in green energy subsidies? Make it make sense. Brilliant research from @stand.earth www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Drax still burning 250-year-old trees sourced from forests in Canada, experts say
Exclusive: report by Stand.earth says subsidiary of power plant received truckloads of whole logs at biomass pellet sites
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
💩💩💩
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 04/11/2025
As I am one of the climate scientists he is referring to here - and I am a scientist who decided to dedicate her life to working on climate precisely because of how unjustly it disproportionately impacts the poor and vulnerable - let me clarify my rationale and thoughts below. 🧵
axios.com
Bill Gates defends contentious climate shift
"I'm glad people are listening," he said, before adding that it was hard to convey "nuanced positions nowadays."
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Why is AI suddenly everywhere? The answer may (not) shock you.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Having hyperscalers pay for people's home energy efficiency upgrades sounds like a fantasy – but actually makes a lot of sense. It would free up energy on the grid significantly faster than building new power plants, lower people's energy bills, and reduce climate pollution. That's a win-win-win.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Is your bank on the list? 👀
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
The turnout was huge. The vibes were immaculate. Orange County, California says #NoKings
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 23/09/2025
1 / Members of Stand's Big Tech campaign kicked off #ClimateWeekNYC over the weekend by rallying as part of a coalition of local and national organizations speaking out against data center pollution as harm. 🧵 Photos c/o Jun-Ting Zhou.
Photo of climate protesters marching at New York City Climate Week, with Nathan Taft, Senior Digital Campaigner at Stand.earth, visible in the foreground holding a banner that reads “Microsoft’s AI Pollutes” with Microsoft’s logo and Stand.earth’s logo and the text “stand.earth/Microsoft”. Photo credit reads “Photo: Jun-Ting Zhou” in bottom left corner of image.Photo of climate protesters marching at New York City Climate week, with Rachel Kitchin, Corporate Campaigner and Nathan Taft, Senior Digital Campaigner of Stand.earth chatting with a fellow protester as they hold a red banner that reads “NO DATA CENTERS FOR BILLIONAIRES”. Photo credit reads “Photo: Jun-Ting Zhou” in bottom left corner of image.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
I'm a co-author on this report – please check it out 🙏
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
He's right. What started as a war of self defense in the wake of the atrocities of Oct 7th has turned into a genocide. It must stop. www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/it-is...
sanders.senate.gov
It Is Genocide » Senator Bernie Sanders
Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this war with its brutal attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Israel, as any other country, had a right to defend...
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
What an image (J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
😬😬😬
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
The situation in Gaza is horrific and untenable. Allow in humanitarian aid. End the war. Release the hostages. And while you're at replace the leadership of both peoples with folks who believe in a future where Palestinians and Israels can live side by side in peace.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
That big tech companies aren't prioritizing solar+storage for data center buildout is such a big miss on future-proofing that it borders on malpractice
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 08/07/2025
🚨🚨BREAKING: A new Morning Consult poll finds an overwhelming 80% of Prime members want Amazon to take stronger action to cut emissions from its delivery and transportation operations. 🧵
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Animal Flix @animalflix.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
The most majestic thing you will see on #bluesky today. 😇
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Several hundred people have turned out (in the heat on the middle of a Tuesday!) at Rep. Young Kim's office in Anaheim to urge her to vote no on this dangerous budget bill.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
There's lots to be concerned about with AI and how it's going to impact our society and lots of schools of thought on how to address those problem. One issue that where there's a straightforward solution though? Making sure AI data centers run on renewable energy.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Stand.earth @stand.earth · 30/06/2025
Tech giants set ambitious climate goals. The growth of the AI industry is making those pledges look less and less achievable. Something has to change. www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2025/06/29/2003839409
taipeitimes.com
Tech giants’ net zero goals verging on fantasy: researchers - Taipei Times
Bringing Taiwan to the World and the World to Taiwan
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Nothing to see here, just the world's richest man adding dozens of unregulated fossil fuel generators to a Black community that already suffers extreme rates of pollution in order to power an AI supercomputer that spreads white supremacist conspiracy theories 🙃
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Amidst the firestorm of terrible news flying around, something deeply nefarious is slipping under the radar. Specifically, a provision in the #BigBeautifulBill 🙄 that would *prohibit states from regulating AI.* It's hard to overstate how dangerous this is.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
They were supposed to be deporting “gang members” and “criminals.” So far, they have kidnapped people working their day jobs and folks lawfully showing up for their immigration court appearances… It was always a lie.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Just unconscionable that anyone, let alone a sitting Senator, would make jokes and spread misinformation about a cold-blooded murder
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
There were more people at the No Kings protest in Boise, Idaho
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Great turnout at the #NoKings rally in South Orange County today. People are pissed, but also full of hope and joy. Our community won't tolerate attacks on immigrants or democracy.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
One aspect of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" that isn't getting enough attention?  It would give ICE tens of billions in additional funding to conduct more violent raids and abductions across the country. A big, ugly, authoritarian nightmare.
rollingstone.com
Trump's Big Bill Would Let Him Expand His L.A. Immigration Crackdown 'Everywhere'
The “Big Beautiful Bill” would give $75 billion to ICE, and allow Trump to carry out militarized immigration raids in “d
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
If you know folks in the immigrant community reach out. If you can do so safely, publicly speak out. We CANNOT abandon our immigrant brothers and sisters right now while they are being harassed and kidnapped by masked, extrajudicial thugs.
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
She wants to "liberate" a US city from its duly elected officials. Let's be clear how dangerous this rhetoric and the actions being taken are
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Nathan Taft @nathantaft.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
And how many of them are hiding behind masks? ICE agents know what they're doing is wrong. They understand the harm they're causing. They just don't care.
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Reposted by Nathan Taft
Nikki McCann Ramírez @nikkimcr.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Padilla: If this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.
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