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  The Insider Newsletter The Dalles Mayor Richard Mays looks at the Columbia River from his hilltop home in The Dalles, Oregon. | Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Andrew Selsky, Files Data Centers' Thirst for Our Water Data centers siphon tremendous amounts of water to cool off constantly running servers. In the Dalles, a small town on the banks of the Columbia River in Oregon, recent reports indicate that Google's hub of data centers accounts for 40 percent of the city's total water usage. Now, a new bill threatens to remove federal public land protections, and local advocates fear that cold water streams in Mt. Hood National Forest might be diverted to feed more data centers. If passed, water would be siphoned from an already fragile watershed that feeds into the Columbia River, threatening Indigenous treaty rights and the health of endangered salmon. Read about the growing fight over data centers and efforts to protect our most important shared resource.   Read More Take Actio...

  In the latest issue of  Sierra  magazine,  renowned climate author & activist Bill McKibben  explains how the long-standing argument that fossil fuels are cheap while renewables are expensive no longer holds true. Read on to learn more about what this shift means for the fight to protect our climate. Photo by StoryWorkz The Renewable Energy Train Has Left the Station  The effort to scale solar and wind and reduce carbon emissions is gaining momentum  By Bill McKibben | March 11, 2026 For most of the climate change era, fossil fuel interests have stymied the transition to renewable energy for two main reasons: Burning oil and gas was cheap and clean energy was relatively expensive. Put another way, the primary thing causing the climate crisis, accounting for around two-thirds of the world's emissions, was also the thing that undergirded the global economy. But now, that calculus has shifted. About five years ago, we crossed an invisible line where...

  ADVERTISEMENT New from  CommonWealth Beacon GROWTH ON ICE:  Massachusetts population growth has slowed to a crawl – a combination of President Trump’s immigration policies and more people leaving the Bay State than coming in. Chris Lisinski reports on the  economic implications  of the slowdown. CLIMATE CLASH:  The Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club is  making the unprecedented move  of calling on House Speaker Ron Mariano to remove Rep. Mark Cusack as chair of the powerful energy committee, citing his legislative efforts to use Gov. Maura Healey’s energy affordability legislation as a vehicle to pull back on the state’s clean energy targets and energy efficiency program. Jordan Wolman has more. OPINION:  With more federal health care spending coming through discretionary funding, states will get priority based on meeting standards for optimal structuring of their health care delivery system. Massachusetts can improve its competitive ...