Full title: Microsoft is using wetlands and native gardens to ‘camouflage’ 20-plus data center sites by blending them into nature — critics blast the ‘biomimicry’ effort as ‘lipstick on a pig’ amid a 20-year gas power deal
Full title: Microsoft is using wetlands and native gardens to ‘camouflage’ 20-plus data center sites by blending them into nature — critics blast the ‘biomimicry’ effort as ‘lipstick on a pig’ amid a 20-year gas power deal
Yes. But that’s going to create winds and convection, not pollution. Less so if cooled evaporatively or using said wetland as a heat sink(unlikely). They might even be good for the water table.
What. Half the hue and cry is because they’re a huge waste of water unnecessarily because economics.
The renaturation might be really good. I don’t know how the site looked before.
Have a look. https://petapixel.com/2026/09/19/before-and-after-photos-show-data-centers-furiously-popping-up-across-america/
Yeah, but this article describes Microsoft exactly not doing that.
Let’s quote the article, shall we?
The goal is to “minimize the visual impact on communities near our data centers.” Not to actually be sustainable, but to look less offensive to the casual observer.
“I cannot really see any level of biomimicry investment that makes a gas plant a desirable neighbor.” Me neither.
“Emissions have risen by Microsoft’s own accounting, too.” It is pollution.
“Microsoft had no clear answer when questioned if it would ever change its mind on a site.” They are raping the planet we live on. Please think.
You do know that when water evaporates the wind carries it away, right? And most of the time very far away from where it originally evaporated.
The renaturation not the evaporative cooling.