During Hispanic Heritage Month, we celebrate the generations of Latino communities whose cultures, stories, labor and leadership have helped shape Nevada, including the ways our communities care for the land, water and one another.
Latino Conservation Week reminds us that enjoying the outdoors is not equally accessible to everyone. Language barriers, transportation, cost and limited information can prevent families from experiencing Nevada’s parks, trails and public lands.
And access matters.
We cannot ask communities to protect places they have never been welcomed into or given the opportunity to experience. Meaningful time in nature can inspire a lifetime of stewardship, advocacy and care for creation.
For LEAN, this is where creation care, racial justice and community belonging intersect.
Faithful stewardship means:
Making parks and public lands welcoming to everyone Providing bilingual and culturally responsive information Supporting affordable, family-friendly outdoor opportunities Including Latino voices in conservation and land-use decisions Protecting neighborhood parks, clean water and accessible green spaces
Creation care is not only about preserving beautiful places. It is also about ensuring every family can experience the beauty, healing and joy of God’s creation.
Public lands belong to all of us—and everyone should be able to feel that they belong there.
Affordability seems to be the word of this election. But our neighbors need more than a campaign buzzword.
We heard these concerns during the 2024 election, and too many families are still waiting for relief.
Nevada’s conditions only intensify the pressure. A housing shortage, dependence on cars, fuel prices, and the cost of transporting goods all stretch household budgets. And as we have learned, economic growth does not automatically mean household security.
For neighbors on fixed incomes or without income, there is even less room to absorb rising prices. When the bills increase, something has to give: groceries, prescriptions, gas, or rent.
Long-term reform and immediate assistance belong in the same conversation. More affordable homes must be paired with what families need to remain housed, fed, healthy, and connected to work today. Our neighbors cannot put their lives on hold while waiting for relief.
A useful question for every candidate and legislator is: “What will your proposal change in a household’s monthly budget, who will benefit, and when will relief arrive?”
For LEAN, affordability is about whether our neighbors can meet their basic needs and build a future with dignity. That is a commitment we must carry beyond Election Day.
Nevada experienced its warmest August on record, while the Southwest’s daytime temperatures averaged nearly 6 degrees above normal.
El Niño and unusually warm oceans contributed—but scientists emphasize that these conditions are unfolding against a hotter baseline created by human-caused climate change.
And hotter temperatures do more than make summer uncomfortable.
Warmer air pulls moisture from Nevada’s soil and vegetation.
Water evaporates faster, placing greater pressure on rivers and reservoirs.
Drier landscapes increase wildfire danger.
Parched soil may be unable to absorb sudden rain, increasing flash-flood risks.
Families face higher cooling bills and greater danger when housing lacks reliable air conditioning.
Climate change is not only a creation-care issue. It is also a housing, health, water, energy and economic-justice issue.
The people most affected are often those with the fewest resources to adapt: older adults, children, outdoor workers, unhoused neighbors, people with chronic illnesses and families already struggling to pay their utility bills.
Nevada needs policies that:
Protect residents from utility shutoffs during extreme heat
Establish safe indoor-temperature standards for rental housing
Expand accessible cooling centers and urban shade
Strengthen protections for outdoor workers
Improve wildfire, flood and emergency-alert systems
Require major industrial developments—including data centers—to account for their water, electricity and climate impacts
Continue Nevada’s transition toward cleaner, affordable energy
Record-breaking heat is becoming less exceptional. Our public policies must catch up with our changing climate.
Caring for creation means caring for the people who bear the greatest burden when our climate changes.
I recently moved to Reno, and I was driving in the neighborhood along Keystone, when I looked to my right. The new Data Center being built next to the Truckee River and very close to downtown. On weekends, I love to tube along the Truckee in the summers, so it made me start to wonder what will this area look like in the next couple of years.
Data centers have quickly become one of Nevada’s major policy conversations. It has united everyone, and while much of the debate has focused on electricity demand, water use, utility rates, tax abatements and economic development.
But another issue deserves attention: public health.
A report highlighted by the Environmental Protection Network (EPN) examines the potential health consequences of the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to support it. The central concern is not simply what happens inside a data center. It is what happens when enormous new electricity demand requires additional power generation.
THE BIG PICTURE
Data centers require extraordinary amounts of electricity to operate servers, networking equipment and cooling systems.
As AI increases electricity demand, utilities and policymakers face a basic question:
Where will that additional power come from?
If additional demand results in greater reliance on natural gas, coal or diesel backup generation, researchers warn that data-center expansion could contribute to additional air pollution and associated health impacts.
This means the environmental footprint of a data center cannot necessarily be measured by looking only at the facility itself.
THE POWER PLANT MAY BE THE BIGGER STORY
One of the most significant findings highlighted by EPN is that the majority of modeled health impacts associated with data centers may occur through electricity generation rather than at the data-center campus itself.
Research cited in the report estimated that more than 90% of modeled health impacts came from the power plants supplying electricity to data centers.
That distinction matters.
A data center can operate in one community while the power plant producing its electricity—and the pollution associated with that generation—is located somewhere else.
The question therefore becomes bigger than:
Where are we building data centers?
Nevada also needs to ask:
What are we building to power them?
POTENTIAL PUBLIC-HEALTH COSTS
Researchers cited by EPN modeled potentially significant national health consequences if data-center electricity demand continues growing while relying heavily on fossil-fuel generation.
Their estimates include increased asthma symptoms, respiratory and cardiovascular impacts, premature deaths and billions of dollars in associated health costs.
These numbers are projections based on particular assumptions about data-center growth, electricity generation and emissions—not counts of health impacts already occurring.
Still, they highlight an important policy consideration: the costs associated with data-center development may extend beyond electricity infrastructure and utility bills.
Some costs may ultimately appear in health-care systems, families and communities.
AN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE QUESTION
Where pollution occurs matters.
Communities located near power plants and other energy infrastructure may experience environmental and health consequences associated with electricity demand generated somewhere else.
That raises questions of environmental justice:
Who receives the economic benefits?
Who pays for the infrastructure?
Who experiences the pollution?
Who has a voice before these decisions are made?
These questions are particularly important when affected communities already experience disproportionate environmental or economic burdens.
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR NEVADA
Nevada’s rapidly developing data-center debate has already expanded beyond local zoning decisions.
Policymakers and communities are discussing electricity demand, water resources, transmission and generation infrastructure, utility rates, tax incentives, public lands and the appropriate role of state and local government.
Public health belongs in that conversation as well.
As Nevada evaluates additional data-center development and the energy infrastructure needed to support it, policymakers could examine:
• How much additional electricity will proposed facilities require?
• Where will that electricity come from?
• Will additional fossil-fuel generation be necessary?
• What emissions could result from new generation and backup power systems?
• Which communities would experience those emissions?
• Are cumulative environmental and health impacts being evaluated?
• How will infrastructure costs be allocated between data centers and other ratepayers?
• Do affected communities have meaningful opportunities to participate before projects are approved?
THE POLICY QUESTION FOR 2027
Nevada does not have to treat economic development, affordable electricity, environmental stewardship and public health as separate conversations.
They intersect.
As lawmakers prepare for the 2027 Nevada Legislative Session, the larger question is not simply whether Nevada should accommodate growing demand for data centers.
It is how Nevada establishes rules for that growth—and how policymakers account for the full costs and benefits associated with it.
A LUTHERAN LENS
Lutheran advocacy calls us to consider both care for creation and care for our neighbor.
Technology itself is not the only question. We also consider how decisions about technology affect people, communities and the resources we share.
When evaluating Nevada’s expanding AI infrastructure, that means asking who benefits, who carries the burdens, and whether the health and well-being of our neighbors are being adequately considered.
The cost of powering AI is not measured only in megawatts and dollars.
It can also be measured in water, air quality, utility bills, climate impacts and community health.
Those costs deserve a place in Nevada’s conversation.
Nevada officials reviewed the registration records associated with 185 voter identifiers flagged by the Department of Homeland Security. The state reported that its records indicated the people were citizens and that DHS supplied no names, birthdates or addresses that would allow Nevada to verify whether both agencies were examining the same individuals.
That matters because DHS had originally suggested that as many as 15,903 noncitizens might be registered in Nevada before reducing the claim to 185. Nevada has not confirmed either number, and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar says the state has not conducted a targeted removal of noncitizens from the rolls.
