Interesting Ideas

As the father of two young girls, I can speak with some authority on this story. There’s a hit show called Miraculous where a high school girl in Paris also becomes a superhero. I won’t go into the details, but, as a superhero must do, she’s constantly saving the world. ... [continued]

The post BYD + Miraculous — Saving the World in Different Ways appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A few days ago, I wrote about Waymo having a problem with passengers not closing robotaxi doors fully. It’s apparently paying towing companies $20 or so to go to these vehicles and close their doors. Waymo reportedly said that it has a solution coming with future vehicle models that will ... [continued]

The post It Seems Hyundai Has A Solution For Waymo’s Door-Closing Problem appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Architects and designers have recycled ancient practice of collecting rainwater to make buildings ecologically friendly

When the legendary Taiwanese rock band Mayday were due to perform in Beijing one evening in May 2023, some fans were worried that the rainy weather could affect the show. Mayday were taking to the stage in Beijing’s National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, built for the 2008 Olympics. Like the real-life twig piles that give the building its nickname, the stadium is built with an intricate and highly porous lattice, made of steel.

“Don’t worry too much,” reassured an article published by the official newsletter for China’s ministry of water resources. “The Bird’s Nest also has its ‘secret weapon’!”

In this week’s newsletter: US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis, a study reveals – and the hotter the world gets, the greater the economic losses

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Donald Trump has long railed against emissions-cutting policy as an expensive “hoax” and “scam”. But the climate crisis itself comes with a major price tag for Americans, a new study shows.

Previous research has found that global heating has driven up utility costs, home insurance premiums and healthcare bills. But according to the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, it has also slashed US incomes by more than a tenth since 2000 – a severe national economic jolt.

‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body

The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age

Africa’s great elephant divide: countries struggle with too many elephants – or too few

Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows

Economic damage from climate change six times worse than thought – report

Tackling climate crisis will increase economic growth, OECD research finds

From ride-to-work challenges to waste-conscious catering, making your office more environmentally minded doesn’t have to be a slog

• Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint

• Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com

January marks the start of a new work year, and as Australians head back to the office, site or shop floor, it’s a good opportunity to revisit and refresh some wasteful work practices.

Most people spend a considerable amount of time at work so actions we take there can be meaningful, says Helen Oakey, chief executive at Renew, a not-for-profit that advocates for people to live sustainably.

Todolí foundation produces varieties from Buddha’s hands to sudachi and hopes to help citrus survive climate change

It was on a trip with a friend to the east coast of Spain that the chef Matthew Slotover came across the “Garden of Eden”, an organic farm growing citrus varieties he had never heard of. The Todolí Citrus Foundation is a nonprofit venture and the largest private collection of citrus in the world with more than 500 varieties, and its owners think the rare fruit could hold the genetic secrets to growing citrus groves that can deal with climate change.

The farm yields far more interesting fruit than oranges and lemons for Slotover’s menu, including kumquat, finger lime, sudachi and bergamot.

Donald Trump shocked the world when he sent Delta Force into Venezuela to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and his wife. There have been various ideas for why he did so, including the most common theory — that it’s all about the oil. (Venezuela has 18% of the world’s proven oil reserves.) ... [continued]

The post Trump’s Psychopathic Power Trip on Greenland appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Flood warning raised to highest level with roads washed away and rain forcing evacuation of Kruger national park

Large areas of north-eastern South Africa and neighbouring Mozambique have been inundated for several days with exceptionally heavy rainfall. Some locations in South Africa recorded hundreds of millimetres of rain over the weekend, such as Graskop in Mpumalanga, where 113mm fell in 24 hours, and Phalaborwa, which recorded about 85mm of rainfall. Rain has continued to fall across the region since the weekend.

The deluge has been driven by a slow-moving cut-off low pressure system that has remained anchored over the region, repeatedly drawing in moisture and triggering intense downpours. Further heavy rainfall is expected on Friday and over the weekend. Maputo, Mozambique’s capital, could expect daily rainfall totals to exceed 200mm by the end of Friday, while western parts of South Africa and north-western Eswatini may record more than 100mm.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Eavor is a next-generation geothermal energy company that set out to solve one of the long-standing limits of geothermal power. Conventional geothermal electrical generation only works where naturally permeable, water bearing hot rock exists close enough to the surface. Eavor’s idea was different. Instead of relying on naturally flowing hot ... [continued]

The post When Next-Generation Geothermal Meets First-of-a-Kind Reality appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Up to 30,000 customers of South East Water had no supply or low pressure at height of incident

Water has been restored to most homes across Kent and Sussex after almost a week of disruption.

South East Water (SEW) said the outage, which began on Saturday, was the result of Storm Goretti causing burst pipes and power cuts.

Germany has now completed and pressurized roughly 400 km of hydrogen backbone pipeline with no connected suppliers and no contracted customers, a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere. The infrastructure exists and is operational, but no hydrogen is flowing to anyone who has agreed to pay for it. This is not ... [continued]

The post The Opportunity Costs of Germany’s Hydrogen Backbone appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Exclusive: Secret report suggests fats, oils and grease accumulate in ‘inaccessible dead zone’ at Malabar plant, then dislodge when pumping pressure ‘rapidly increases’

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A giant fatberg, potentially the size of four Sydney buses, within Sydney Water’s Malabar deepwater ocean sewer has been identified as the likely source of the debris balls that washed up on Sydney beaches a year ago.

Sydney Water isn’t sure exactly how big the fatberg is because it can’t easily access where it has accumulated.

This week’s furore is microplastics researchers’ ozone moment. If they fail, the powerful plastics lobby will step into the breach

• Debora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity

Are we being injured and killed by ubiquitous, teeny-tiny shards of toxic plastic? Or aren’t we? For many months, the Guardian has reported a series of worrying scientific results that our bodies are full of jagged microplastic particles that could be giving us everything from heart attacks to reproductive problems.

But on Tuesday, the Guardian revealed that a significant number of scientists think many of these studies showed no such thing. Or maybe they did. The methods are new and riddled with problems, so we can’t always reliably tell.

Debora MacKenzie is a science journalist and author of Stopping the Next Pandemic: How Covid-19 Can Help Us Save Humanity

Offshore wind turbines have been the bête noire of US President Donald Trump ever since 2013, when he brought a case against an offshore project in Scotland. He lost, and the rage has lingered all these years. The president can’t smack back against wind turbines in Scottish waters, but he ... [continued]

The post Trump Judge Hands Another Offshore Wind #FAIL To Trump appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Eugene, Oregon — Students and community groups raised the alarm today after discovering that, on January 6th, the University of Oregon began a pilot project, using an additional large “natural” methane gas turbine to generate electricity to sell to the local publicly owned utility, Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB). ... [continued]

The post Students & Community Groups Cry Foul As University of Oregon Increases Fossil Fuel Use By Over Fifty Percent appeared first on CleanTechnica.

When it comes to alerting the public about food contamination, public health officials can use all the help they can get — and they may be getting it, from a snake. Specifically, the giant anaconda that featured in the new National Geographic series Pole to Pole with Will Smith is contributing ... [continued]

The post Reading The Food Systems Tea Leaves Through The Eyes Of A Giant Snake appeared first on CleanTechnica.

At every stage of technological development, you get laggards who don’t want to move forward and make that new technology into some kind of massive risk or problem. That has been proven quite definitively with clean energy technologies. Solar power and wind power come with so many benefits and so ... [continued]

The post UK Gets More Offshore Wind As Trump Tries To Block It appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Uru Chipaya, one of South America’s most ancient civilisations, are battling drought, salinity and an exodus of their people as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on their land

In the small town of Chipaya, everything is dry. Only a few people walk along the sandy streets, and many houses look abandoned – some secured with a padlock. The wind is so strong that it forces you to close your eyes.

Chipaya lies on Bolivia’s Altiplano, 35 miles from the Chilean border. The vast plateau, nearly 4,000 metres above sea level, feels almost empty of people and animals, its solitude framed by snow-capped volcanoes. It raises the question: can anybody possibly live here?

Washington, D.C. — Today, Politico reported that the Trump administration will use funding legally directed by Congress to reduce pollution to instead help build new and prop up aging, expensive, polluting coal plants. Responding to competitive pressure from lower cost and lower risk resources, utilities have voluntarily retired 158 coal plants over ... [continued]

The post Trump Redirects Pollution-Control Funding to Prop Up More Polluting Coal Plants appeared first on CleanTechnica.