Microsoft's West Virginia data center is not a climate setback — it is a structural choice that forecloses the alternative. Off-grid gas infrastructure does not degrade toward clean energy over time; it locks in methane dependence for the life of the asset. When Stand.earth identified this project as potentially representing "the end of corporate decarbonization goals" , the claim was precise: not that Microsoft would miss targets, but that the architecture it is building makes the targets impossible to reach from inside the company's own operations.