Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Write about the environment for the Guardian. Author of the Insect Crisis. Just about able to play Let it Be on the ukulele. LFC always.
Has a Sopranos like moment returning to New Jersey from London, a place that has not one but two speedy rail links to the airport and vegetables that don’t make you poop your pants
Majority of US' new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land, Guardian analysis finds. Two-thirds of new datacenters, some taking 5m gallons of water a day, are in places in drought over past year. "I think a crunch point is inevitable," one expert said. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
This isn’t a garden shed - it’s the main train station for a metropolitan area of 7 million people, in one of the fastest growing cities in the US. It gets three trains *a week*
Donald Trump has tried to crush US clean energy. But it's not going to plan. Renewables surpassed gas last month, while 93% of grid additions will be clean in 2026. “They can try and delay it," one exec said. "But...renewables and storage have won.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
2026 to be record year for new gas-fired power globally - thanks to AI and the US. In the US, a third of all these new gas plants will be situated on-site at data centers. The lifetime planet-heating emissions of all this new gas will be 12.1bn tonnes of CO2. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Extraordinary scenes at Cop30 this morning as protestors from the Munduruku people blockaded the entrance for several hours, only leaving after being persuaded by do Lago, the Cop president (who held a baby for a while)
Climate disasters in first half of 2025 are the costliest ever on record in US, a resurrected tracker that was axed by the Trump administration has found www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Donald Trump is scrapping a 2001 rule that protects 58m acres of the most prized forests in the US "so we are allowed to take down trees and make a lot of money." I went to the forest where the roadless rule was unveiled to find out what's at stake www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
In Chicago - what a city this is - to see the first organized swim in its cleaned up river in 98 years
imagine going back to 1970 and telling those who formed the Environmental Protection Agency that this is what its administrator will be talking about
Household energy bills are set to soar from Donald Trump's 'big beautiful bill' cutting support for cheap renewables. States that voted for Trump last year will be the hardest hit, with some getting cost rises of more than $600 each year. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
perhaps the most important graph from the Republican 'big, beautiful' spending bill - it will increase US planet-heating emissions by 7 billion tonnes in the next 5 years. That's a lot. www.carbonbrief.org/chart-trumps...
Yesterday - EPA says emissions from power plants, the second largest carbon polluter by sector, aren’t significant and so shouldn’t be restricted. Today - surely emissions from vehicles, the number 1 emitter, are significant? Nope, says EPA
More than a dozen National Weather Service forecast offices in the most hurricane-prone region of the US are understaffed, data seen by the Guardian shows. Hurricane season officially started yesterday amid staff cuts and tumult at NWS and FEMA. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
NOAA expects above-average hurricane season for US - 6-10 storms set to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher) - 3-5 major hurricanes (111mph or stronger) Forecast comes amid major Trump cuts to weather and disaster response agencies. Hurricane season starts in 10 days.
Seems Delta have gone all in on Mt McKinley and most of the way on the Gulf of America
Anyway, national parks really are the best thing America has done. I went to 6 in 12 days. Visit while you can