Arik Ligeti

Here at The Narwhal, we do journalism differently. As an independent non-profit, we’re accountable to you, our readers — not advertisers or shareholders. So we measure our success based on real-world impact: evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better. Our stories have been raised in legislatures across the country and cited by citizens in petitions and letters to politicians.

Driving north from Calgary, you could easily pass by the rural town of Olds, Alta. — population 9,679 — located a couple kilometres off the main highway to Red Deer, and surrounded by a sprawling patchwork of Prairie farmland. But a company called Synapse Data Centre Inc. has a $10-billion plan that would really put Olds on the map. It wants to build an AI data centre so big that it would consume as much electricity as the city of Edmonton.

Get the inside scoop on The Narwhal’s environment and climate reporting by signing up for our free newsletter. The Narwhal’s explainer on the tumultuous and surprising downfall of British Columbia’s carbon tax has been recognized with an award from the Canadian Association of Journalists. B.C. politics and environment reporter Shannon Waters’ story, What on earth just happened with B.C.’s carbon tax?, received the award for daily excellence at a ceremony on Saturday in Calgary.