18 months after a fatal home atop a coal mine, Alabama says it no longer plans to require monitoring of explosive gases under homes. Full story: insideclimatenews.org/news/0310202...

Will Berry opposed the execution of Geoffrey West, the man who took his mother's life. Alabama suffocated him anyway. Read the full story here.

Please watch this

Will Berry is opposed to the execution of the man who took his mother’s life. Here’s what he told Alabama’s governor. www.treadbylee.com/p/justice-de...

Yesterday, I watched as Will Berry, whose mother was murdered during a 1997 robbery, delivered a petition to Gov. Ivey asking that the man who took her life be spared. Alabama plans to suffocate him anyway. Read the full story here.

More about my client’s pending execution and the courageous survivors who are speaking up for restorative justice, not murder, here from @leehedgepeth.bsky.social. It was a holy way to welcome the new year, I suppose. And heartbreaking. www.treadbylee.com/p/where-ther...

The always stop-what-you're-doing-and-read-worthy Lee Hedgepeth drops another that might make my latest a little later-est today.

The state of Alabama is hellbent on killing Geoff West. Will Berry, whose mother Maggie was West's victim, implores the state to call off the execution. via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social www.treadbylee.com/p/justice-de...

Alabama won't allow a victim's son to meet the person who took his mother's life before it suffocates the condemned man to death. But they've saved him a seat at the execution he opposes. Full story: www.treadbylee.com/p/justice-de...

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: Those living and working in and around Remlap, about 20 miles northeast of Birmingham, have rallied in opposition to a proposed medical waste processing facility on Highway 75, a stone’s throw from the Jefferson County line.

In Remlap, Alabama, grandparents, firefighters, nurses, and farmers packed the courthouse to oppose a medical waste facility planned in a flood zone by Gurley Creek. Their message speaks for all of us: We are not a dumping ground. @leehedgepeth.bsky.social insideclimatenews.org/news/0409202...

"I decided that if we die, we’d die together." A harrowing first person account of surviving Hurricane Katrina by @insideclimatenews.org's @leehedgepeth.bsky.social insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...

This is a brilliant and touching remembrance of living through Hurricane Katrina, written by @leehedgepeth.bsky.social.

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: What it was like to be 11 years old and to face the full fury of Hurricane Katrina.

This is a hell of a piece from @leehedgepeth.bsky.social. One of the very best Katrina-related stories I've read.

Terrific/tough personal account of living through Katrina and its legacy...must read @leehedgepeth.bsky.social @insideclimatenews.org insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...

20 years ago, when I was just 11 years old, my family hunkered down for Hurricane Katrina in a trailer in south Mobile County, just a few miles from the Gulf. Read my latest, a #HurricaneKatrina remembrance, in @insideclimatenews.org. insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...

As an 11-year-old, I lived through #HurricaneKatrina in a trailer park a few miles from the coast. Here's a remembrance featuring my story and the story of David Dai, one of my closest friends. Just out from @insideclimatenews.org.

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: Colombian President Gustavo Petro singled out Drummond and Glencore, a Switzerland-based coal producer, for potentially violating the presidential decree, according to a translation of the speech by Radio Nacional de Colombia.

"[Drummond] shouldn’t be shipping coal to the state of Israel in the first place, given Israel’s persistent human rights record,” one protester told @insideclimatenews.org near the company's corporate campus on Friday. Full story: insideclimatenews.org/news/2208202...

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: Bessemer City Council members voted unanimously on Tuesday to send a recommendation to approve rezoning and a development plan for a 4.5 million square foot data center back to its planning and zoning commission for further consideration.

The latest from Bessemer, @insideclimatenews.org's seventh story on the proposed hyperscale data center slated to use more electricity than 90 times the power consumed by every home in the city combined. insideclimatenews.org/news/2108202...

Breaking news: After Turmoil and No-Confidence Votes, Sierra Club Terminates Ben Jealous  insideclimatenews.org/news/1108202...

Breaking from me @insideclimate: Ben Jealous is out at Sierra Club. insideclimatenews.org/news/1108202...

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social, @lanierisom.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: How. Ould a proposed hyperscale data center affect Bessemer?

For my latest in Inside Climate News, I interviewed staff and volunteers at the Sierra Club & reviewed internal docs, e-mails & meeting recordings. Concerned staffers say there's a vacuum in leadership at the nation's oldest environmental organization.

More energy usage than all the residences in Birmingham. 2 million gallons a day of water. More than 100 acres of forest clear cut. Putting the Birmingham darter at risk of extinction. Read about the impacts of a proposed data center in Alabama here: insideclimatenews.org/news/2507202...

Via @dennispillion.bsky.social, @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: About a month into the role, Alabama PSC President Cynthia Almond says she’s learning all she can about utility regulation and trying to hear from all sides about it.

Alabama’s new Public Service Commission President Cynthia Almond says she wants to hear from all sides. That’s a shift from her predecessor, who called environmental advocates “extremists” and tried to shut them out completely. 🧵 #UnmuteAlabama #PSCWatch insideclimatenews.org/news/2107202...

My colleague @dennispillion.bsky.social and I were the first reporters to sit down at length with Cynthia Almond, the new president of the Public Service Commission. The image she projects is much different than that of her predecessor, Twinkle Cavanaugh: insideclimatenews.org/news/2107202...

New Alabama PSC President Cynthia Almond has won praise from both sides of the aisle, and projects a very different image from her predecessor Twinkle Cavanaugh. @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and I sat down with Almond in her first interview in her new post. insideclimatenews.org/news/2107202...

A proposed data center in Bessemer, Alabama, would use millions of gallons of water a day, more energy than all of Birmingham, and require clearcutting of more than 100 acres of forest. Could risks to the endangered watercress darter help slow the project? My latest on @insideclimatenews.org.

“The lack of clarity around how much water this project will use is the product of one thing: the secrecy of this developer, and whatever big tech company is actually behind this,” Miller said...

A local water utility told data center developers in Alabama it could not provide the 2 million gallons of water per day they've requested without "significant upgrades." Full story: insideclimatenews.org/news/1207202...

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social & @insideclimatenews.org: The lawsuit, filed July 1 in federal court, alleges that the flooding in Shiloh continues to worsen as rainwater erodes the land around US-84.

My colleague Arcelia Martin on the climate drivers of the tragic Hill Country floods. @insideclimatenews.org insideclimatenews.org/news/0807202...

Residents of the historically Black Shiloh Community in Alabama have faced repeated flooding following the expansion and elevation of Highway 84. Now they're bringing their fight for environmental justice to federal court. Full story from @insideclimatenews.org: insideclimatenews.org/news/0807202...

On Senate Floor, Tillis Offered Inside Look Into the Lobbying Against Clean Energy: "People that haven’t worked a day in business are setting policy in the White House" insideclimatenews.org/news/0207202...

Bessemer AL leadership is pushing through a massive data center project its residents oppose - but won't disclose who will be the end user will be. This is wrong! @leehedgepeth.bsky.social insideclimatenews.org/news/1806202...

all things "in the cloud" have material impacts on the environment & every fucking stupid "redesign my living room" query we outsource to save individual mental energy & time takes energy & water fr elsewhere. "Efficiency" so often means "displace costs onto vulnerable places, species & communities"

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: A newly identified species of fish in central Alabama is already endangered due to human development, experts say. Now, plans to build a massive hyperscale data center could turn an already dire situation into an extinction event.

"This would nuke this creek," a Yale biologist said of a proposed data center in Alabama. The data center is projected to use more water than every home in the state and 90x the electricity of homes in Bessemer, where it's to be located. Full story: insideclimatenews.org/news/1606202...

On a public street....

It can be hard to get a meeting with a mayor who's signed an NDA. When one man placed a sign outside an Alabama city hall opposing the construction of a massive data center, he was immediately confronted by police. Full story from @insideclimatenews.org: insideclimatenews.org/news/1606202...

Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social and @insideclimatenews.org: A Birmingham nonprofit got a $75,000 grant for air monitoring a Birmingham community that suffered from industrial pollution. The Trump administration has terminated the grant.

Trump's budget would cut funding for state mining regulators by about 16%. Even regulators in deep red states like Alabama are worried about the impacts. Full story from @insideclimatenews.org: insideclimatenews.org/news/1306202...

Will one Alabama city turn off the water to its neighbors homes? They've already threatened to do so. A judge temporarily stopped them, but the issue may soon go to trial. Full story for @insideclimatenews.org: insideclimatenews.org/news/1206202...

Trump's EPA canceled a grant that helped monitor air pollution in North Birmingham, a majority-Black neighborhood still living in the shadow of coke plants. It’s the 3rd environmental rollback in Alabama *this week.* Patterns matter. #EnvironmentalJustice insideclimatenews.org/news/0706202...

Alabama ratepayers deserve better than Twinkle Cavanaugh. Alabama is one of about ten states where utility commissioners are directly elected by the people. Let's hope they get it. Via @leehedgepeth.bsky.social:

— Put 42 more homes at risk of collapse or explosion — Threaten residents’ water wells — Export the coal overseas for foreign steel profits The Trump administration wants to fast-track this project. But the risk is real and local. Public land. Private profit. Public danger.