Ketan Joshi

Looking forward to speaking at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design today, about technosolutionist wish-casting within the climate movement and how that disconnects us from our goals 🥰 (with heavy reference to AI / data centres, of course) https://www.aho.no/english/

I wonder if I maybe don't say this enough: the gas-fired data centre boom is *planned* but not *inevitable*. In fact, the plans are fragile, and this petrotech dream only works if everything lands with perfect timing and poise. https://stand.earth/insights/west-virginia-microsoft-monarch-data-center/

'We missed the 1.5c target so that means it's too late to stop climate change' Ah, we missed the 'zero road deaths' target this year. What a shame. Time to take the hummer out, squeeze my eyes shut and smash the accelerator in a pedestrian zone. Come on people, let's make some sense here

I'm just going to keep yelling this louder and louder until it clicks: weird overpaid AI nerds hand-wringing about human extinction are trying to distract you from the extremely deadly and serious harms they are causing yesterday, today and tomorrow https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-14/us-data-centers-set-to-burn-more-natural-gas-than-most-nations

Google has been ordered to temporarily stop work on two datacentres in Finland after failing to do the necessary environmental impact assessments on its construction sites. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/06/google-datacentres-finland-temporary-halt-environmental-impact-assessment

Remember the random dude who got 49020939 articles of uncritical media coverage in the space of two days because he quit anthropic based on his fears of existential AI risk? Yeah..........he's a climate denier. So is the whole AI industry. https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/09/22/anthropic-openai-artificial-intelligence-data-centres-climate-change-jacob-coxon/

If you put ten children in a room with a single large red button that launches all nukes, it would be a genuine threat to humanity. But it doesn't mean children are a human extinction risk. It means the person who puts them near the nuke button is a human extinction risk. Little bit concerning to see how much big tech PR is working on people who should know better right now.

In the space of one year, the number of Americans who think AI will do more to hurt rather than help the environment rose 14 percentage points. We have been focusing on critiquing the tech industry's claims of a 'net benefit' for a while now, and it's really nice to see a strong shift in public opinion as the real risks become very clear indeed https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/big-tech-greenwashing-report/https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/09/16/nvidias-ai-climate-hoax-report/https://apnorc.org/projects/americans-are-increasingly-concerned-about-the-environmental-consequences-of-ai/?doing_wp_cron=1790455054.0054540634155273437500

I hope everybody realises just how openly the fossil fuel companies are talking about how much the data centre boom directly benefits them https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/videos/dcd-talks-natural-gas-as-a-bridge-to-ai-scale-with-stiven-smith-cummins/

I often talk about how the narrative of an "AI race" is actually just a bunch of people aimlessly running without a plan for direction or destination, so thank you to China's robotics industry for this visual metaphor

It takes 0.0001 seconds to realise the AI-bros are lying about "extinction risk" as a marketing trick, given how none of them seem bothered about the deadly fossil fuels they've become obsessed with using to power their data centres.

I still think there is not a good awareness out there of just how much the AI industry plans to run off fossil fuels. This is a *conservative* estimate that excludes many planned projects. These are weak plans and they can be stopped. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-data-centers-more-natural-151409988.html

I have been thinking a lot about the ongoing debate in the climate space (personal vs systemic action) and how it relates to usage of generative AI, and I cannot get past how different GenAI is to anything else we've talked about. It feels like there's a huge amount of post-hoc rationalisation going on (this is before we even get into the faux-social-justice lines.....)

"Our data centre is offset by 100% renewable energy" "AI will solve climate change" "CCS will capture the emissions from this gas plant" "Demand response helps the grid" "Advanced nuclear reactors will meet the demand" "We can put the data centres in space"

A Norwegian media outlet tested 53 toilets at ONS, our massive oil and gas conference. The results show that the fossil fuel industry is having a great time, even if the rest of us aren't 😍 https://www.aftenbladet.no/magasin/i/7pvOW8/aftenbladet-testet-53-toaletter-under-ons-i-stavanger-onsdag-ble-det-funnet-kokainspor-paa-rundt-hvert-femte-av-de-testede-toalettene

Will be presenting a guest lecture at the University of Oslo today - the first public appearance of my effort to build an over-arching framework of big tech's pro-fossil greenwashing tactics :)

Really really lovely to speak to the nice people at 4ZZZ. These local radio stations are so great. We go through a huge variety of greenwashing issues, including AI and data centres!!! https://paradigmshifton4zzz.com/2026/08/19/s5e20-greenwashing-and-the-climate-cost-of-ai-data-centres/

2 gigawatts of fossil gas power for data centres in the US. Every day there are just a whole bunch of announcements like this https://www.enerdata.net/publications/daily-energy-news/ab-energy-secures-2-gw-power-projects-data-centres-us.html

This is marketing material, but it's a good indicator of how hungry the fossil fuel power generation industry is to seize on this moment and get huge numbers of gigawatts installed ASAP before the hype subsidies

NVIDIA plans to sell *twice* as many chips next year - that means the climate destruction it's helping to enable will double (or worse, if they keeps skewing towards the filthiest gas-fired projections. Read the first ever deep-dive into the product-use emissions of the richest company on Earth: https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/09/16/nvidias-ai-climate-hoax-report/

We were raised to treat spelling mistakes and bad grammar as a sign of a lack of intelligence but in 2026 the absolute worst, most thoughtless content is LLM-written posts with perfect grammar and spelling

Nice article detailing the massive, unprecedented and likely fossil-fuelled energy bloat NVIDIA aims to profit from in Australia. Amusing they admit this isn't for useful stuff (like video calls and emails) by calling them "AI factories" https://datacentremagazine.com/news/inside-nvidias-ambitious-plan-for-ai-factories-in-australia

I don't know if anyone cares, but Victoria's proposed rules do not "force datacentres to use renewable energy", and falsely stating that they do is actively helping the data centre industry do the pretend-fainting shock performance they're doing to try and kill even the weakest of regulations https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/27/victoria-was-ruthless-in-its-quest-to-become-the-datacentre-capital-of-australia-why-has-it-hit-the-brakes

I am pretty sure that if data centres were going to drive a massive global surge in renewable energy, we would've seen it in the data by now https://www.irena.org/Publications/2026/Sep/UAE-Consensus-2030-tripling-renewables-doubling-efficiency

OpenAI won't even consider renewable investments in Australia until the country agrees to kill its copyright laws so they can freely train on creative work. When Albanese caves and agrees to this, OpenAI will just run on fossil fuels anyway: guaranteed. https://archive.ph/mzSVj

Funny coincidence: this estimate of China's cleantech exports avoided emissions is about the same as the potential *added* emissions if all planned data centre gas plants go ahead https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/chinas-clean-tech-exports-avoided-more-co2-than-uk-emitted-2026-09-23/https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/09/16/nvidias-ai-climate-hoax-report/

Just so it's clear: projected data centre demand growth stems from GenAI specifically. "OH BUT YOUR COMMENT CAME THROUGH A DATA CENTRE" is industry PR nonsense. The problem lies specifically with the extreme digital bloat of mass slop production. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33m6w3x0

Seeking reassurances from the Leopard's Eating People's Faces Party that they'll only eat the faces of my specific ethnic sub-group enemies https://archive.ph/wip/eq1g4

*Operational* gas power plants dedicated to data centres are 1% of total operational gas w/ dedicated industrial purpose. *PLANNED* gas power plants dedicated to data centres are 66% of total planned. Planned data centre gas plants are twice the total capacity of all other applications combined. Whole bloody big heap of new planned ultra-filthy fossil infrastructure we need to stop from ever coming close to existing. https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-oil-gas-plant-tracker

Not sure how anyone can read this new report from the UN and conclude that it says there's nothing more to be done and that fossil fuels are now inevitable.

FYI

This is why tech companies only want voluntary and partial standards for clean energy. They keep talking about how they're "powering clean energy" and "driving the energy transition", but look what happens when you hold them to that claim https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/st-louis-data-center-lawsuit-b3052142.html

SUGGESTIONS:

• Stop making the same mistake repeatedly
• Please

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/king-charles-host-ai-executives-threat-fears-mount-2026-09-14/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop30

It's not just the general public - asset owners are increasingly concerned about the climate impacts of data centres, with AI-related environmental concerns doubling in just one year https://newsroom.morningstar.com/news/news-details/2026/Morningstar-Survey-Asset-Owners-Increase-U-S--and-Private-Market-Exposure-as-AI-Risks-Rise/default.aspx

HAPPY DISAPPOINTMENT WEEK EVERYONE

As we detail in our latest, first-ever analysis of NVIDIA's climate claims, data centre 'demand flex' has been framed as a climate solution, even though their net effect on grids is probably still a worsening of emissions. But in the past week, we're seeing it used to justify *EVEN MORE DATA CENTRES* - meaning it goes from being an overstated solution to being something that *actively assists* worsening greenhouse gas emissions. This is new. It's also pretty damn worrying.

Very much looking forward to chatting with the lovely people at Stop Dirty Data Centres this Friday about my recent investigation in Google's greenwashing narratives!! These folks are fighting an absurdly huge collection of projects in India, go support them pls https://stopdirtydatacenters.org/events/https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/googles-exponential-path-to-climate-wrecking-digital-bloat/

"yes, we are going to need gas for some time" This sounds reasonable and level-headed but it is a genuinely bonkers thing to say about a toxic product we need to eliminate ASAP to protect our own health and safety. No other 'useful' but dangerous product has been talked about in this way. "yes, we are going to need asbestos for some time" "yes, we are going to need seatbelt-free cars for some time" "yes, we are going to need leaded petrol for some time"

Least surprising plot twist in the history of pretend-climate-tech. We're deep into the era of every "climate tech" person and company who was insincere in their climate concern whipping the mask off and showing their real selves. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-23/climate-startup-shifts-focus-from-carbon-removal-to-oil-recovery

I don't think there's a better illustration of the incredible danger of people credulously and irresponsibly over-adopting generative AI than the use of it by DOCTORS to note vital information. This should be as illegal as fabricating notes by hand. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/ai-medical-scribe-error-leaves-patient-devastated/107031672

‘Starwashing’: The new space race has an environmental problem https://grist.org/technology/starwashing-space-race-environment-spacex/

Global data centre investment has already surpassed solar PV, and will soon surpass all renewable investment combined https://sf-asset-manager.s3.amazonaws.com/97637/1139/8197.pdf

I thought this fossil fuel plant was wearing a lil christmas hat

The amount of oil use avoided by EVs in China in the first half of 2026 is the same as the amount of oil USED BY THE ENTIRE UK https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fall-in-q2-2026-due-to-plummeting-oil-use

lol

Pretty fascinating to see the number of new legislative restrictions on renewables *falling* in the past two years (there are still new restrictions, just fewer new ones) https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1281&context=sabin_climate_change

This post from SemiAnalysis is well worth reading, to get a direct insight into how the AI industry is completely disconnected from the climate consequences of what they're doing. Just a wild celebration of an unprecedented fossil fuel infrastructure explosion for data centres. Climate does not exist for these people. 75 gigawatts of gas, and nothing but wide grins all around. https://archive.ph/6H3OZ

Amazing read here about the data centres being granted a windfall of dodgy carbon offsets because they're......burning fossil fuels https://www.ftm.eu/articles/ai-data-centre-firm-criticised-for-dubious-carbon-claim

Happy Sunday! Here's a remote presentation I gave to the 2026 Victorian Greenhouse Alliances conference, on why generative AI so fundamentally and inherently tends to boost fossil fuels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hc8o8znZ2w

Sending thoughts and prayers to everyone pumping out workslop with Claude who was temporarily delayed yesterday because the 100% fossil-fuelled ultra-polluting data centre in a black community in the US that powers them had a lil boo boo