Interesting Ideas

Thames at Ham designated as one of 13 new swimming areas across England to be monitored for water quality

The first designated bathing water area on the River Thames in London will welcome swimmers for the official start of the bathing season on Friday as one of 13 new monitored swimming areas across England.

The Thames at Ham, in south-west London, has been designated as a new river bathing water area after campaigners gathered evidence to show thousands of people use the river for swimming throughout the year.

Canvey Island foreshore, Essex

East Beach at West Bay, Bridport, Dorset

Falcon Meadow, Bungay, Suffolk

Granville Parade Beach, Sandgate, Kent

Little Shore, Amble, Northumberland

New Brighton Beach (east), Merseyside

Newton and Noss Creeks, Devon

Pangbourne Meadow, Berkshire

Queen Elizabeth Gardens, Salisbury, Wiltshire

River Dee at Sandy Lane, Chester, Cheshire

River Fowey in Lostwithiel, Cornwall

River Swale in Richmond, Yorkshire

River Thames at Ham and Kingston, Greater London

Enthusiasts say mycology offers connection, nourishment and a deeper tie to the land – and the African diaspora

On her typical walk in the woods in Newton, Massachusetts, something stopped Maria Pinto in her tracks. She spotted what appeared to be a glowing yellow figure with a metallic sheen among the pine needles on the ground. It was the first time Pinto was enthralled by a mushroom – the American yellow fly agaric, a poisonous fungus that is relatively common where Pinto lives in Massachusetts.

“It forced me down on my knees to examine it further, because it didn’t look real,” Pinto, a naturalist and writer, said. “It looked like it was from another dimension.” On that day in 2013, she captured the mushroom from dozens of angles on her phone.

An Energy Research & Social Science paper crossed my screen recently that put structure around something visible to anyone who has compared nuclear forecasts with build rates. Nuclear power has been projected to grow faster, cheaper and more broadly than it actually has, not once or twice, but across decades, ... [continued]

The post Nuclear Imaginaries, Hydrogen Assumptions, And The Grid Reality Models Still Miss appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Crunch time has come for communities that rely on water from the Colorado River. California, Arizona, and Nevada will be directly affected.

The post US Plan To Allocate Water From The Colorado River Will Severely Impact California, Arizona, & Nevada appeared first on CleanTechnica.

With Punta Marina residents loving or loathing the incomers, ‘peacock rangers’ have been appointed to defuse tensions

Federico Bruni was sitting on a bench, eating a piadina romagnola (flatbread sandwich) and minding his own business, when a peacock strutted up in the hope of a few crumbs. High-pitched squeals emanated from the direction of a disused military barracks across the road. “That would be the call to love,” Bruni said. “The male peacocks are courting the female ones – we’re in peak mating season.”

As another couple of peacocks wandered by, their iridescent trains sweeping the pavement behind them, this could be mistaken for a wildlife park. But the scene is Punta Marina, a seaside town on the Adriatic coast of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region that has been colonised by the birds, to the delight – or despair – of its approximately 1,000 residents.

Climate and transport organisations warn ministers not to ‘sleepwalk into crisis’ amid Iran war oil and gas shortages

Private jets should be banned and the speed limit on UK motorways reduced to 60mph as part of a pre-emptive effort to ease the looming fuel supply crisis, according to leading climate and transport organisations.

The group – including Greenpeace and Transport and Environment – are calling on ministers not to “sleepwalk into a crisis” that could lead to severe shortages of jet fuel and spiralling petrol prices at the pump in the coming months.

Exclusive: Commission says alert would trigger coordinated international response that could help avoid millions dying

The climate crisis should be declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, or millions more people will die unnecessarily, leading international experts have said.

The independent pan-European commission on climate and health, which was convened by the WHO, concluded the climate crisis was such a worldwide threat to health that the WHO should declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” (Pheic).

I just saw the following headline from the Wall Street Journal: “Honda’s Never Faced a Crisis Like This—and a Comeback Won’t Be Easy.” The subheading is as follows: “The Japanese automaker reported a $2.7 billion loss amid EV whiplash in the U.S., its biggest market.” My first thought was basically ... [continued]

The post EV Marketing Failure in USA — and a Honda & Auto Industry Financial Crisis appeared first on CleanTechnica.

How many news articles do you go to now that are behind a paywall? This is the era of media we’re in — news sites need subscribers. There are sites, like The Guardian, that want to make sure content is accessible and important news and discussions get out there to ... [continued]

The post Have You Seen A Paywall Recently? Support Cleantech Media Here appeared first on CleanTechnica.

In this week’s newsletter: The public stranding of a young humpback exposes tensions between animal rights activism and other choices around biodiversity

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Timmy the whale is lost at sea, presumed dead.

In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales help sustain thousands of marine species – and are part of the global carbon cycle.

Smuggled in syringes: how Nairobi became a nexus for the black market in giant harvester ants

Don’t reach for the bug spray: scientists find insects may feel pain after crickets nurse sore antennae

Labour must fulfil promise to introduce clean air act, charities urge

Cranbrook, Kent: The swarm has gathered in a plum tree, looking for a new home. And I have just the place

There comes this moment in May when I’m still anticipating the fresh green of spring, but looking up at the oak see it in a lustreless summer hue. A little rain would renew its sheen, but it’s been dry for weeks and there is no reprieve from this fleeting sense of loss.

Abruptly, there comes a noise, a rising hum almost mechanical in tone, but as I look for the contraption responsible, I see instead a mass of insects flowing over the line of hawthorns. The honeybee swarm swirls in a cloud before the queen, imperceptibly landing, triggering a leisurely implosion. Guided by pheromones, thousands of worker bees join her to form a solid ball, hanging precariously from the twig of a plum tree.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Plug-in balcony solar systems make it easy for homeowners and renters to install their own solar panels and offset the cost of electricity from the grid.

The post Trump’s Fossil Fuel Fantasy Wilts Under Balcony Solar Pressure appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This new entrant to the Australian market has shot into the top ten consistently over the last few months — with 1,845 units sold since its launch early this year. Jaecoo is a sub-brand of Chery. For a first-time EV owner’s point of view, I reached out to one of ... [continued]

The post Our New Jaecoo J5 Battery Electric Vehicle! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

While there are still days the Thames is so dirty even dogs avoid it, steps are being taken to restore public waterways

Some people think we are odd for swimming in the Thames. “Isn’t it cold?” they ask with a shiver, like they are the ones who just took the plunge. Er, yes, that’s the whole point. Cold water ignites the central nervous system and reboots the mind.

“Isn’t it dirty?” they ask. Yes, sometimes, particularly when it’s rained. Then we don’t get in the Thames, we get in a rage instead, taking contamination measurements and signing petitions challenging the behaviour of the water company that spews sewage into the river.

Agrivoltaics has become one of those ideas that is simple enough to fit on a social media tile and complex enough to be mangled by one. The image that prompted this discussion showed a farmer kneeling beneath solar panels in front of vegetables, sheep, mountains, and an American flag, with ... [continued]

The post Solar & Farming Can Share Land, But The Details Matter appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Following the theme of the week — Chinese EV producers expanding rapidly around the world — we have another story of a Chinese EV company opening up bigger pathways abroad. Stellantis and Leapmotor have had a partnership helping each other, and that’s expanding. Part of this is about expanding Stellantis’ ... [continued]

The post Leapmotor Gets Bigger Avenue Into Europe — And Beyond appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Butterfly Conservation poll is open until 7 June with choice of 60 species from small tortoiseshells to purple emperors

Will it be the rapidly disappearing former garden favourite, the small tortoiseshell? Or the poet John Masefield’s “oakwood haunting thing”, the charismatic purple emperor? Or perhaps the brimstone, the ultimate harbinger of spring?

The question of which is Britain’s favourite butterfly is being put to a popular vote for the first time. The charity Butterfly Conservation is running the poll, which runs until 7 June, giving people the chance to choose their favourite from the 60 species that fly around Britain every summer.

Ah, it’s the important stuff. Titans of industry are in China this week with Donald Trump to meet with the most powerful man in the world, Xi Jinping. Something is afoot. Maybe. I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, what gets attention from one of the biggest newspapers ... [continued]

The post Elon Musk Gets A Whole New York Times Article For Making Faces At A Chinese Luncheon appeared first on CleanTechnica.

While listening to the technical discussions at XPENG presentations and press conferences, I started to see the people behind the technology. While we can get caught up in the technical details, all the progress that we see comes from human ideas and the hard work of teams of people. Every ... [continued]

The post XPENG’s Human Approach To Technology: Part 1 appeared first on CleanTechnica.