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TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY
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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS
AI double-dealing against us? Where would it learn that?
“Humans have dominated the planet largely because of our intelligence. Opposable thumbs and upright posture were helpful, but intelligence surpassing all other species, including other hominids, was essential for our proliferation.
“It is hardly surprising then that an ethos of reckless abandon in the service of growth is pervasive in the tech world. This is the home of the astonishing acceleration in machine intelligence. Mark Zuckerberg coined the Silicon Valley motto, ‘Move fast and break things’.
“Advances in AI have suddenly placed humanity on the verge of creating an intelligence that matches and eventually exceeds our own. An arguably more abominable scenario to consider is the process of ‘humachination’ — the vision of Big Tech figures who want to meld humans with robots.
“Alan Turing proposed the ‘Turing test’ in 1950 to establish whether a machine could pass for a human in a verbal interaction. In 2025. at the University of California San Diego, OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.5 convinced judges it was a human 73 percent of the time.
“This AI success arrived suddenly with the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs). LLMs use a neural network structure, advanced chip technology, and ‘training’ on a vast quantity of data (stored across the internet) to learn language patterns.
“Artificial neural networks, which mimic neuronal synapses in the brain, are integral to these advanced AIs. Due to the sheer size and complexity of neural networks, AI designers themselves admit they do not understand the models they’ve created. Because neural networks comprise millions of nodes, the combinatorial possibilities are, in the words of Eliezer Yudkowsky, ‘inscrutable’.
“Whether AI improving itself, and becoming super-intelligent in the process, is years or decades away is hotly contested. When it does occur, it will be inherently difficult for a less intelligent species, humanity, to control the more intelligent entity. With the advent of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), we would find ourselves the second most intelligent — perhaps distantly so — beings on Earth.” [click the link for the full article]
Expanding use of AI — knowingly or not
“As someone who teaches media history, I have been collecting stories about how casually and quickly Kansas, and the world, has been adopting artificial intelligence technology. The research papers we assign ChatGPT to write — the spreadsheet formulas we delegate to Copilot — the internet searches that Gemini wrestles away from old-school Google — the vacations that we allow Claude to plan.
“During the first quarter of 2026, Microsoft measured AI adoption across the country. It found a few striking things in Kansas. Kansas ranked second in the Midwest in AI use, behind Illinois. Nationwide, Kansas was right in the middle at No. 25.
“However, Douglas County, where I work ranked 8th as a county nationwide in its use of artificial intelligence. In the county, which includes the city of Lawrence, Microsoft found a whopping 57.2% user share of AI tools. This percentage puts Douglas County in the top 0.25% of counties nationwide.
“Microsoft’s study reassures us that it’s not all schoolwork (or cheating on it) that drives up AI use in college-town counties. Microsoft has an explanation for this as well. ‘AI usage is significantly concentrated around large metropolitan areas’, the study states.
“As we decide whether AI is either delightfully good or existentially bad for us, we have lost track of the speed of AI’s adoption. That speed, without any practical restrictions from government or the market, has found few limits besides our capacity to construct data centers and build computing power.” [click the link for the full article]
New York issues first state moratorium on data centers
“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order last Tuesday that puts a moratorium on the construction of large-scale data centers. The pause, which will last up to a year, is the nation’s first statewide ban on data centers.
“During the moratorium period, the state Department of Public Service will conduct an environmental analysis on the impacts of data centers, along with a proceeding to ‘require data centers to either pay more for their energy or supply their own’.
“Hochul also directed the state’s economic development agency to develop a framework that local communities can use to negotiate with tech companies on infrastructure, child care, direct financial support, and labor and wage standards.
“She also announced plans for data centers to invest in New York’s grid and clean energy supply. And she called on lawmakers to repeal the state’s sales tax exemptions for large data centers.” [click the link for the full article]
What a bee knows
“On those bittersweet Autumn days, I take solace in New England asters, a tall, purple-blossomed perennial blooming from early autumn until the season’s end. I love them because they ease the passage of bumblebees from this life.
“By mid-Autumn, the workers who foraged so tirelessly all summer have only a few weeks or days left. So too the male bees who are born in late summer to mate before spending their own final days alone on the landscape.
“For them the asters are a last source of pollen and nectar. The bees who consume them have only a few days left, but at least their stomachs will be full, lying on a bed of pollen, their senses and perhaps even their dreams suffused with its smell and taste. I like to think they will be content.
“Research on the minds of bees gives us permission to speculate about what they think and feel as they rest on those asters. Much is known about the brains of bees, whose anatomy and chemistry in many ways resembles our own.
“Bees are able to direct their attention selectively — a hallmark of subjective consciousness. They also have emotions: the capacity to experience not only life’s physicality, but its feelings.” [click the link for the full article]
Complacent about the end-Permian extinction and us?
“Looming Climate/Environmental extinction never quite rises to the immediacy of mass panic due, perhaps, to the way in which we digest the environmental story — in vague fragments, with no crescendo, no context and no imagined conclusion.
“In the US we are a nation of climate illiterates. We absolutely must be aware of the undeniable fact that our climate narratives have been significantly curated by filthy amounts of oil industry cash. Our innate propensity for denial compels us to reach for the false promise offered by natural moments of respite.
“All rational people understand that current levels of greenhouse buildup will wipe us off the face of the earth if we don’t achieve the iconic net-zero. But can greenhouse gasses deliver natural/historical catastrophes in human time scales?
“We have no historical analogies — climate change has no Hiroshima, no Nagasaki — its cautionary tales can only be studied in ‘deep time’. We, however, futilely measure the trajectory of climate with the feeble ruler of our own lifespans. Most scientific climate modeling fails to project beyond the year 2100.
“The Permian/Triassic extinction event provides the most analogous template to understand the present risks and probabilities of catastrophic climate heating. The Permian ‘Great Dying’ is believed to have resulted from two interacting events, the protracted outgassing from the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province coupled with the volcanic ignition of adjacent coal fields.
“Previously we had imagined the Permian Extinction as an event wholly embedded in geological time scales. However, a recent paper out of MIT suggests that the fossil record fails to reinforce the theory of a protracted, incremental slide toward mass extinction. Species exited the fossil record in a geological eye-blink, a sudden, monstrous event.
“This speculative possibility points ominously toward our own era — a time of extinction level pulses that transpire at a velocity exponentially greater than at any time. In the past year, the CO2 atmospheric concentrations have jumped by 5 PPM.
“If the rate of C02 PPM grew statically at 5 PPM per year we would add 1,000 PPM in a mere two hundred years — replete with feedback loops, massive release of frozen methane stores, political turmoil and likely collapse of ocean currents and terrestrial food chains.” [click the link for the full article]
Ecological debt-spending after 30 July
“Earth Overshoot Day 2026 lands on July 30, the date when humanity will have used up nature’s entire annual budget of ecological resources and services, according to Global Footprint Network.
“Currently, humanity is using nature 73% faster than Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate, meaning this overshoot is equivalent to using 1.73 Earths. This level of overuse is possible because one can deplete natural capital. It is the highest level of global overshoot in human history, and compromises long-term resource security.
“Over the past year, the gap between humanity’s Ecological Footprint and the planet’s biocapacity grew wider, bringing Earth Overshoot Day two days earlier.
“Since global ecological overshoot began in the early 1970s, annual deficits have accumulated into a growing ecological debt. If overshoot continues at its current level, this debt will grow by approximately 0.73 planet-years each year. One measurable consequence of this cumulative overshoot is the rise in atmospheric CO₂ levels.” [click the link for the full article]
PLAN puts you in the driver’s seat for public lands issues
“For the last year and a half we’ve shown you what’s being done to your public lands and who’s doing it. Showing you the fight was always only half the job. This is the half that puts your voice into it, at the exact moment the law requires them to listen.
“It’s called PLAN, the Public Lands Action Network. Every morning it reads the entire Federal Register, and it pulls every decision open for public comment. It explains each one and it hands you four fast ways to act. It covers all 50 states.
“As of this writing, it’s tracking 21 open decisions with 107,459 voices already on the record, and new windows open every week.
“If you’ve ever worked with the Federal Register you know what an intentionally convoluted tool it is. We built a pipeline that scans it twice a day and taught it to tell a real public-lands fight from the thousand pieces of procedural noise around it.
“Every action on PLAN gives you the same four moves. Comment: A prefilled starter you can edit, plus a few questions only you can answer. Call your rep: Enter your state and PLAN pulls your two senators and your House member. Tell the media: A letter-to-the-editor draft. And Share: Every action generates its own photo share card.” [click the link for the full article]
Divorce your car – save bikeloads of money
“Cycling vs. driving cost is becoming a bigger consideration for commuters as the price of owning a vehicle continues to rise across North America. While most people think about fuel prices first, the true cost of driving includes insurance, maintenance, parking and depreciation — expenses that can add up to thousands of dollars every year.
“According to AAA, the average cost of owning and operating a new vehicle in the United States is now about US$12,300 per year, or approximately C$16,500 in Canada.
“For longer commutes or hillier cities, an electric bike can make replacing car trips much easier. Even after purchasing an e-bike, annual operating costs are remarkably low compared with a car. Charging an e-bike battery costs very little per charge, while maintenance usually consists of tires, brake pads and routine tune-ups.” [click the link for the full article]
Big Meat dropping any pretense of climate goals
“The world’s largest meat company is backing away from its climate and deforestation commitments after claiming for several years that reducing its greenhouse gas emissions was a key goal. JBS dropped its commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, and omitted its previous goal to eliminate deforestation across its supply chains in Brazil.
“Jason Weller, JBS’s chief sustainability officer said accounting for emissions from its supply chain is uniquely complex. A Net Zero goal spanning hundreds of thousands of independent agricultural producers across tens of millions of hectares is an immense challenge’, Weller said.
“JBS says it plans to focus on addressing emissions from its direct operations, which account for roughly 2 to 3 percent of its emissions, rather than from its supply chain. JBS has a greenhouse gas footprint comparable to Spain’s.” [click the link for the full article]
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