Interesting Ideas

As dingoes vanish from parts of Australia, a new documentary is calling on governments to move away from eradication and towards solutions that benefit both farmers and animals

Carol Pettersen was a small child when her family moved deep into the bush around the Fitzgerald river, on Western Australia’s south coast. It was the 1940s, and her white father and Aboriginal mother had broken the law simply by being together. So the bush became their refuge.

In that country of mallee heath, banksias and low coastal scrub, dingoes were part of the family’s hidden world. At night, Pettersen could hear them calling through the dark; by day, she glimpsed them moving through the bush – a flicker of red fur among the trees.

Allendale, Northumberland: Once again, wildlife has made a home here, in part because they feel safe

A big moon is cresting the Scots pine as I sit at an upstairs window looking down on to the garden. Awaiting the dusk emergence of a female tawny owl has become an evening ritual. After a day spent in the confines of a nest box in our sycamore tree, her departure shifts back by a few minutes every night. Completely silent, she drops towards the woodland border and skims the plants, each time on the same trajectory, a grey shadow in the gloaming.

Another movement on the path below catches my eye: a woodcock slinking along, using the box hedge to disguise her passage. If I hadn’t been watching for the owl I would never have known that she too is nesting somewhere in the garden’s thick leafiness. In July 2023, I wrote about a woodcock nesting in a flower border a few metres from the house, four chicks successfully hatching from four eggs. Last year, another attempt was disturbed by a cat captured on trailcam. This may be the same bird returned for a third time. Woodcocks are extremely secretive birds, their close proximity to a house very unusual.

The Eden Project’s National Wildflower Centre is opening entries for its Wildflower Photographer of the Year 2026 competition on 29 May. The contest showcases images of some of Britain and Ireland’s 1,600 wildflower species, and a selection of photos from last year’s competition will be on display at Eden Dock, Canary Wharf, London, during CWG’s Nature Week, from 13 July

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Senate voted to approve the nomination of ex-congressman Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management by a vote of 46-45. Pearce formerly represented New Mexico in the House of Representatives and was the second nominee made by Donald Trump to lead the ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club Statement on Vote to Confirm Steve Pearce to Run BLM appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Yesterday, we celebrated Mothers’ Day — and, no, the apostrophe is correct in the plural rather than singular designation. That’s because it was the entire community of women, not just individual moms, who were originally celebrated in the 1870s by Julia Ward Howe. Howe cried out for women to take ... [continued]

The post A Mothers’ Day Call: Women, Rise Up For Transformative Clean Energy! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Question: Can I still make a long cross-country trip with my Tesla Model 3 that is getting long in tooth? Short answer: Yes! My dual-motor Tesla Model 3 is going on 7 years old with 175,359 miles on the odometer. The initial EPA range when new was 310 miles, but ... [continued]

The post Cross Country Road Trip in an Old Tesla Model 3 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Washington, DC — On Friday, Toyota Motor reported its earnings for the fiscal year ending in March 2026. Toyota sold approximately 9.6 million units globally and touted that over 5 million units were “electrified vehicles.” While the full-year earnings from Tokyo claim “record” sales, Sierra Club isn’t buying their spin. Toyota reported a ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club: Toyota Isn’t Delivering for U.S. Families appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Levels of Pfas in northern gannet eggs in Canada fell up to 74% over 55-year period of study

Levels of some of the most dangerous Pfas compounds have dramatically fallen in Canadian seabird eggs, which the authors of a new peer-reviewed study say illustrates how regulations are effective.

Researchers looked at Pfas levels in the eggs of northern gannets in the St Lawrence Seaway basin over a 55-year period. Pfas levels shot up from the 1960s through the peak of the chemicals’ use in the late 1990s and early aughts, then fell.

I have been seeing LinkedIn posts about Panthalassa’s wave-powered AI data-center concept recently, and the reaction they’ve been getting is familiar. Big funding round. AI power bottleneck. Ocean energy. No grid connection. No land constraint. Autonomous machines. A new category. It had all the ingredients of a story built to ... [continued]

The post The Ocean Is Not A Server Rack: Panthalassa, Peter Thiel, And Wave-Powered AI Compute appeared first on CleanTechnica.

London mayor talks up coalition-building, highlights his environmental record, and worries national Labour party is on the wrong track

When Sadiq Khan was first elected as mayor of London 10 years ago, Barack Obama was US president, the UK was still in the European Union and Leicester City had just been crowned the unlikely champions of the English Premier League.

In the intervening decade, Donald Trump has gone from reality TV star to two-time US president, the UK has had six different prime ministers, and Brexit has convulsed the country. London has been rocked by tragedies ranging from terror attacks to the Grenfell Tower fire.

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would allow data centers, power plants, and industrial facilities to begin construction on “non-emitting” components before the project has received its necessary air permits. Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin’s EPA has been giving Big Tech and Big Fossil Fuel shortcuts ... [continued]

The post EPA to Allow Power Plants to Bulldoze Through Pollution Protections appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Today we mark the formal introduction of Ford Energy. For the better part of a year, we have operated quietly to build a foundation for this business. We haven’t just been planning; we have been executing — securing supply chains, readying our manufacturing sites and aligning our technology with the massive ... [continued]

The post Introducing Ford Energy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Data from missions showing critically low snowpack on mountains across the west raises alarm among experts

High above the jagged peaks of California’s Sierra Nevada, the view from the cockpit is breathtaking. At first glance, the mountains appear draped in a pristine white blanket. But as the flight crew gears up for a high-stakes mission, the sensors onboard this specialized aircraft prove that looks can be deceiving.

“This is a distinct dry year,” says Tom Painter, CEO of Airborne Snow Observatories.

As the global auto industry rapidly shifts toward EVs, new analysis warns that Europe risks forfeiting a major industrial opportunity. Scaling back EU car climate rules would put a potential 34 Northvolt-sized battery factories at risk. That’s according to a new T&E report which models the ‘industrial opportunity cost’ of weakening EU ... [continued]

The post 34 Northvolt-Sized Battery Factories Could Be Lost If EU Scales Back EV Targets — Study appeared first on CleanTechnica.

It was just a bit ago Tesla announced its first semi truck coming off of its high-production line. Now, 370 Tesla semi trucks have been ordered by WattEV. “More than 300 of the Tesla Semis will be deployed under a joint program with the Port of Oakland. Delivery of the ... [continued]

The post 370 Tesla Semi Trucks Ordered appeared first on CleanTechnica.

For farmers, renewable energy can be the difference between making a living and selling land that has been in the family for generations.

The post Renewable Energy Puts Money In The Pockets Of Struggling Farmers appeared first on CleanTechnica.

After a series of deaths on the beaches of Brittany, one bereaved family set out to prove the foul-smelling bloom was to blame

When her phone rang at around 5pm on 8 September 2016, Rosy Auffray was still at work. It was one of her daughters, distressed, calling to tell her that their father, Jean-René, had not come back from his daily run. Only the family dog had returned, alone and exhausted. Rosy rushed back home.

When she arrived, Rosy noticed that the dog was behaving bizarrely: she refused to walk, then collapsed under a bush. Her fur stank of rotten eggs, of overflowing sewers. Rosy knew where that smell came from: the mudflats roughly three miles from the family home in Brittany, where seaweed had been accumulating and putrefying. The soggy, decomposing seaweed stretched for miles along the shore, sometimesas much asfive feet thick, killing other plants and suffocating fish and small birds.

With the help of citizen scientists, researchers studying rare humpback ‘jaw-gaping’ believe the move could be a social display

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Off the coast of Western Australia, a humpback whale is “pirouetting”, sweeping its pectoral fins through the water, its massive jaw hanging wide open. Surrounded by companions, the animal isn’t lunging for a meal: rather, it is putting on a mysterious behavioural display.

This underwater ballet, captured on camera by an onlooker and shared online, is one of the clearest examples of a rarely documented phenomenon known as “gaping”.

Move by largest donor to environment programme poses further uncertainty for already troubled negotiations

The largest donor to the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has paused funding to the body before its revised budget on 12 May, triggering concern among member states and NGOs.

The news could carry significance for the already troubled plastic treaty negotiations being overseen by Unep. Since 2022 countries have been struggling to agree on how to deal with the volume of plastics being produced and used, a subject widely acknowledged to be one of the most serious environmental issues of the age, but despite six rounds of talks there has been no agreement in sight.

Vitória Régia imagines rightwing Bolsonaro plot succeeded with US help – and highlights threats facing Indigenous peoples

The year is 2025 and far-right coup plotters have annihilated Brazil’s democracy, assassinating the president, closing the national congress and surrendering the Amazon rainforest and its untold riches to the United States.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Amazon of America,” a thick-accented North American soldier tells a group of journalists being taken on a propaganda tour of an oil refinery in the newly annexed jungle realm. Nearby, a replica of the Statue of Liberty has been carved out of the wilderness to celebrate Washington’s tutelage over more than half of Brazil.