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Vicki Batts

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- Climate
Posted on: 2025-05-28
Human-driven climate change largely responsible for last 50 years of worsening fire weather in Western North America, new study shows

Fire weather has been worsened by human-driven climate change in Western North America for 50 years, new study finds. Recent paper suggests that human-driven climate change contributed 81-188% to the observed increase in fire weather in that region.
- Energy
Posted on: 2025-02-25
Training and using ChatGPT uses a lot of energy, but exact numbers are tricky to pin down without data from OpenAI

As the capabilities and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) continue to grow, so are its energy impacts. Training and ongoing use of AI models requires significant energy due to their use of data centers – one of the most energy-intensive building types.
- Energy
Posted on: 2025-01-23
Will solar panels overrun farmland? The two are more likely to coexist

Even if solar capacity continues to grow at unprecedented rates in the next several years, data suggests that the land used for solar panels will account for a small portion of the land used for agriculture.