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Atlanta’s New Ordinance Raises the Bar on Cool Roofs

Law Columbia

Photo by Steve Matthews on Unsplash Earlier this month, on June 2, 2025, Atlanta’s City Council unanimously passed a state-of-the-art ordinance to require cool roofs throughout the whole city, immediately propelling Atlanta to the forefront of local climate adaptation measures. Local control of building codes varies significantly.

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Chicago’s “Quantum Prairie” Promises New Era of Great Lakes Technology and Water Use

Circle of Blue

Photo © Christiana Freitag How to Cool Quantum Quantum can take many forms, from computing and sensing to communications networks. Whereas traditional data centers present a water consumption dilemma as they drain water resources to cool the bits for classic computers, developers of IQMP’s quantum computer hope to avoid that problem. “We

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Field Notes from India: Climate Adaptation from the Ground Up

Legal Planet

Climate educators from SEWA explaining solar power for salt gathering (L) and skylights that cool the interior of a house (R). Content was also developed to share innovative solutions like precision irrigation, like biogas digesters, like cooling roof paints or cooling shelters. The Climate School trains Climate Educators.

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 Are Data Centers a Threat to the Great Lakes?

Circle of Blue

This is because the facilities have been designed with a closed-loop cooling system that employs a combination of chillers and recycled water, a Microsoft spokesperson told Great Lakes Now. Once the system and pipes are filled, the water will remain in the closed loop system to be reused for cooling.

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What are the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence? 

Union of Concerned Scientists

They require far more powerful processors called GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), consume dramatically more electricity, and need significantly more water for cooling. That’s where part of the water consumption comes in, to keep those servers cool. To cool the servers and data center facilities, there are multiple methods.

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Artificial cooling 'urgent' for Great Barrier Reef after warming spike

New Scientist

A drop in shipping emissions has caused a surge in warming at the Great Barrier Reef, fuelling calls for drastic actions such as marine cloud brightening to lower the risk of coral bleaching

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Florida and California Have This Need in Common: Clean Backup Power

Union of Concerned Scientists

Instead we made do by putting our perishable food on ice, making coffee with the JetBoil propane burner we have for camping (in an outdoor stairwell), and keeping the blinds closed to keep the apartment as cool as possible.