Deserts, sea water, the AI data centre problem solved. Seriously

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Deserts, sea water, the AI data centre problem solved. Seriously

10 August 2026

Tech bros across the world have been giving everyone a right ear-bashing in the last few years about their AI agents, and the need for data centres to power them. And they’ve been crying foul in response to the environmental concerns many have expressed.

Tech bros worldwide are annoyed we don’t want to share our power and water supplies with them.

They’re unhappy we don’t want their data centres near the places we live, work, and send our kids to school. The tech bros are furious that we cannot seem to grasp the big picture. A prosperous and happy future of one-hundred percent dependence on their AI technologies is worth a few sacrifices.

Is it not?

Can’t we, the little people, cut back on our water and power consumption? Can’t we accept a little bit more climate change precipitated by water and power hungry data centres, is a small price to pay?

Wait up. Did I just say climate chnage? The phenomenon wreaking all sorts of havoc across the world, the driver of rising sea levels, temperatures, and unpredictable weather? Is not that sort of stuff the answer here? Not wild storms, and destructive bush fires.

No, I mean rising sea levels and warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures must be the result of more sunlight getting through, right? That’s logical, isn’t it? Can you see what I’m getting at? You can’t be a much smart tech bro, if you don’t. That extra sunlight can be put to good use.

So people don’t want data centres near where they live. Fair enough. Who wants their golf club to make way for one? Not the tech bros. The solution is obvious. Build the data centres where no one lives. Like a desert. Ok, sure. But what about power? There’s no power infrastructure in the desert.

No problem. Build large solar panel arrays. No one lives in the desert, so no one will be around to complain about the solar panels. Ditto the data centres. But wouldn’t the cost of solar panel arrays be prohibitive? Sure, but again, no problem. Simply increase the price of AI tokens. Just slightly.

That solves the power problem. What about water? There’s gnenerally not much water in a desert. And, depending who you listen to, AI data centres either use enormous quantities of water, or hardly any at all. Either way, people don’t want thirsty data centres guzzling any amount of water.

What to do? The solution is obvious.

Pipe it in. End of story. That’s not really the end of the story, but anyone, even the little people, can surely see the logic. Sea levels are rising. That means there’s plenty of water at hand. But AI data centres in the desert may be hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres, from the ocean.

No problem, pipelines are still the answer. If something like the Guildford West pipehead and water supply canal, in the west of Sydney, Australia, can be brought into being, the tech bros can do something similar out in the desert. Bonus points if gravity feeds alone can somehow be used.

Sure, the Guildford West system is only about sixteen kilometres total length. But if pipes can span sixteen kilometres, simple logic says they can go further. And don’t forget about the East–West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which is about twelve-hundred kilometres long.

But wouldn’t the cost of building massive pipe systems be prohibitive? Sure, but again, no problem. Simply increase the price of AI tokens. Just slightly.

I think we’ve covered off everything.

The tech bros can have their data centres, and the rest of us won’t even know they exist. Plus one or two problems occasioned by global warming will be resolved. Well, maybe one. If you believe the ocean can be drained with a tea cup.

Of course, I expect no one to take any of what I said the least bit seriously. Really I don’t. Particularly the tech bros who want to solve this very problem. Besides, they don’t read my website.

But perhaps I speak too soon. They might ask one of their AI agents about the feasibility of building data centres in the desert, in the manner I’ve prescribed. Then they might learn about this suggestion, since my website’s content is scraped all too often by their AI bots.

Can I then expect the tech bros offer me any recompense? Anything at all. A single lousy AI token even? Yes, I’m quite certain that will happen. When hell freezes over.

Above average Antarctic winter temperatures concern scientists

22 June 2026

Winter temperatures have been well above average, in recent times, on what is supposed to be the world’s coldest landmass.

The unusually high temperatures being experienced in parts of Antarctica seems like it accounts for the so-far mild start to winter in our part of Australia. Here we are two-thirds the way through June, the first month of winter, and I think I’ve needed to wear a jacket maybe two times when going out. Still very much tee-shirt weather at the moment.

Slightly cooler, and wetter weather, however, is forecast — at least locally — for coming days.

Summers starting sooner, becoming longer and hotter, in many places

15 April 2026

Erik Rolfsen, writing for the University of British Columbia (UBC):

A new study by UBC researchers has found that between 1990 and 2023, the average summer between the tropics and the polar circles grew about six days longer per decade. That’s up from roughly four days per decade found in past research investigating up until the early 2010s.

On a day less than a week ago, the maximum temperature in Sydney, NSW, was forecast to reach thirty-three degrees Celsius. That’s nearly a month and a half into what is meant to be autumn in this part of the world. Sure, one swallow does not a summer make, so to speak, and the region can experience unseasonably warm days anytime of the year, I know.

But the UBC findings confirm what many of us have long suspected: summers today are longer and warmer than they once were. The consequences are far reaching though, impacting on health, water supplies, and food production, among other things.

Climate change may render Iceland uninhabitable in a century

2 March 2026

Chico Harlan, writing for MSM:

Sometime over the next 100 years, human-driven warming could disrupt a vital ocean current that carries heat northward from the tropics. After this breach, most of the world would keep getting hotter — but northern Europe would cool substantially, with Iceland at the center of a deep freeze. Climate modeling shows Icelandic winter extremes plunging to an unprecedented minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is possible the scenario will not come to pass, but authorities in the North Atlantic Ocean nation are taking no chances, having deemed the prospect a national security risk.

How anyone can claim climate change is a hoax, or non-existent, when it had the potential to result in an entire country literally freezing over is beyond me.

Heatwaves impact daytime spending habits of Australian consumers

6 February 2026

Luke Cooper writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Researchers found on days when maximum temperatures were 35C or higher, which the Bureau of Meteorology classifies as a “hot day”, a $5.4 million collapse in daily daytime consumer spending was recorded.

However, on a recent excessively warm day, consumer spending increased by five percent from six o’clock in the evening until about five hours later. That makes sense as people stay in their hopefully cooler homes, until it is a little more comfortable to go out later in the day.

The impact of climate change is indeed far reaching.

Climate change making El Nino and La Nina harder to forecast

16 September 2025

Tom Saunders, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

Thanks to climate change and a rapid warming trend in our oceans, the historical record and current analysis of the two Pacific phases has become contaminated. El Niño, the warm episode, is being falsely observed, while the cool state, La Niña, is at risk of going undetected.

The two well-known climate patterns have a significant influence on weather, either making Australian summers dryer and warmer, or wetter and not quite so warm. Of course the impact of both systems is not limited to Australia, but across the Pacific ocean, and beyond. It seemed like it was only a matter of time before climate change began to have impact on these weather patterns.

Climate change, higher temperatures, impact on well being

27 August 2025

A MIT lead global study of posts on X, and Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, has revealed higher temperatures not only effect health and workplace productivity, but also — perhaps unsurprisingly — well-being and emotions:

A massive study of social media data revealed that individuals become significantly more irritable in extreme heat. The research implies that rising temperatures may directly affect the emotional health of millions of people around the world.

This during a recent late winter bout of unseasonably mild weather hereabout (though the tables are soon to be turned). I left the house yesterday morning wearing a hoodie, but had taken it off about two minutes later. Hate to think what summer’s going to be like, if winter is quite warm.

Mind you, with above average rainfall predicted for parts of Australia’s east coast, over the next few months, maybe temperatures will remain relatively mild.

Don’t believe all the news you hear on commercial TV and radio

4 February 2025

Amanda Meade, writing for The Guardian:

People who get most of their news from commercial TV and radio are more likely to believe the conspiracy theory that climate change is a natural phenomenon rather than caused by humans, a new study has found.

The research conducted by Monash University, based in Melbourne, Australia, also found people who sourced news from commercial media outlets, generally scored lower on a measure of civic values, compared to those relying on non-commercial, and public, broadcasters. People with lower civic value scores tend to be more reluctant to take on views that clash with theirs.

And, if I’m understanding the study findings correctly, almost sixty-percent of Australians source news from social media platforms. With Facebook about to do away with fact-checkers, that’s going to be a lot of people with access to news that possibly has not been substantiated or verified.

Weird winter weather points to yet more unstable weather

5 September 2024

Mick Tsikas, writing for The Conversation:

The severe weather rounds out a weird winter across Australia. The nation’s hottest ever winter temperature was recorded when Yampi Sound in Western Australia reached 41.6C on Tuesday. Elsewhere across Australia, winter temperatures have been way above average.

41.6°C? It doesn’t even get that hot in summer, at least where we are on the east coast of Australia. Well, hardly ever. There have been one or two days when highs have pushed into the forties, but that’s usually at the height of summer, and still, is rare.

There’s been some strong winds recently. But the trade winds are common around this time of year, particularly August. The warm weather experienced in parts of Australia last week — in what was still winter — is definitely unusual though. I looked up the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), and found the value had been neutral in second half of August. The SAM is a metric of how close cold weather fronts come to the southern part of the Australian landmass.

A negative SAM value means they reach quite some way inland. Cold fronts bring rain and cooler weather. With SAM values being neutral or positive though, these fronts have not been coming through, which may partly explain why it was so warm. But I think climate change, of course, is the remainder, or most, of the reason.

On one day, temperatures almost reached 30°C during this late winter heatwave, in our part of the world. I truly dread to think what summer will bring…

Is climate change increasing the strength of Australian red wine?

9 July 2024

Apparently red wines made in Australia — and quite possibly elsewhere, I imagine — have been increasing in alcoholic strength over recent decades. This seems like a mystery of the times, because the go-to culprit, global warming, may not be responsible. Rather, the way grapes are grown, and changes in fermenting methods — which apparently includes a slight decrease in the amount of water going into the mix — may be playing a part.

In the past, water was most commonly “added” to wine in the form of ice-blocks, in the times before refrigeration. Small — quite small, I believe — quantities of water, were always included in the winemaking process, but that’s been cut back more recently as well. So there we have it, some red wines contain more alcohol, but no one seems one-hundred percent sure why. I’m not the biggest wine-drinker though, so I doubt I’ll be investigating this matter much more.

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