Interesting Ideas

In this week’s newsletter: Once close to extinction, the species is rebounding due to years of conservation work

• Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

I will never forget the moment I first saw a mountain gorilla. It was early on Mount Muhabura in Uganda, and I had spent the morning stumbling up the slopes of the inactive volcano in the Virunga range, which also spans Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Just when I thought my lungs could not take it any more, I noticed the silhouette of a creature picking leaves off a branch in a forest clearing. It was not alone. Nine mountain gorillas – all members of the Nyakagezi family – were having their breakfast around me.

I was with Ugandan park rangers and veterinarians from the NGO Gorilla Doctors, who have helped oversee one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the fortunes of an endangered species in the past century – and I was excited to learn more about how they did it.

As Iran war exposes global dependence on fossil fuels, the biggest emitters are reaping the rewards

‘A surrender to special interests’: alarm as Utah shields fossil-fuel companies

‘All we can do now is pray they continue’: Maasai welcome the first rains but know that drought is far from over

One interesting piece of EV charging news this week is that BMW electric vehicles will be able to receive EV charging data from Eco-Movement, an EV charging data platform owned by Dow Jones Energy. While there are many EV charger apps and websites, the Eco-Movement information will be available within ... [continued]

The post BMW Electric Vehicles To Receive Dow Jones Energy Charging Information appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Hyundai Motor officially launches its all‑electric IONIQ lineup brand in China, signaling a renewed commitment to the NEV market Two new design concepts preview the future direction of the IONIQ lineup brand ahead of Auto China 2026 The VENUS Concept sedan and EARTH Concept family SUV debut as two ‘planets’ ... [continued]

The post Hyundai Motor Company Launches IONIQ Lineup Brand in China with the Premiere of Two New Concept Cars appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Charity advises replacing seed and nut feeders, where birds gather, with small amounts of mealworms, fat balls or suet

Garden birds should not be fed seeds and nuts over the summer months, the RSPB has said, in an attempt to reduce the spread of avian diseases.

Bird lovers are being urged to take down their bird feeders between May and October to help birds such as the greenfinch, whose numbers have plummeted after the spread of trichomonosis, a parasitic disease transmitted more easily when birds cluster around feeders in the warmer months.

BYD recently announced that it would be launching 20 dealerships across Canada this year. According to Globe and Mail, three locations are already under discussion in Toronto, Ontario. In addition, dealerships in Montreal (Quebec), Vancouver (British Columbia), and Calgary (Alberta) are also in the plan. Starting in Ontario is interesting. ... [continued]

The post BYD Expanding Across Canada With 20 Locations appeared first on CleanTechnica.

In a village in Norway, humans representing flora and fauna of all kinds meet to reimagine ‘nature-centric governance’

“My ask of humans is quite large,” says the northern bat to a room of reindeer, wolf lichen, bog, and other beings. “It’s a shift of consciousness, and an understanding that … we are a relation.”

The scene could come from a sci-fi novel imagining a more-than-human uprising. In fact, it’s from a recent “interspecies council” in Oppdal, Norway, in which non-humans – spoken for by humans – convened to discuss the region’s future.

The New York Auto Show comes to a close this weekend. There were both encouraging and discouraging developments for vehicle electrification. However, while I expected innovative technology from automakers, the most encouraging presence was from the city and state of New York. Overall, automaker launches were not as exciting this ... [continued]

The post The Best of the New York Auto Show Was New York Itself appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This is a tale of four cities, Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis, and Vancouver, each trying to answer the same question in a different way. How do you make room for more people in existing neighborhoods without pushing growth ever farther outward, and how do you do it in a way that ... [continued]

The post A Tale of Four Cities on Infill, Emissions, & Political Nerve appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Getting permission to connect a large rooftop solar system to the grid may be more trouble than its worth for many homeowners.

The post Residential Rooftop Solar Nightmare In Massachusetts appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The California-based electric truck startup Harbinger has opened up new opportunities for fleet electrification in the medium-duty Class 4-6 vehicle market.

The post Electric Trucks Are Selling Like Hotcakes appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Javier Milei’s reforms to the law will open up high-altitude areas to mining and risk water reserves already strained by the climate crisis, say activists

Saul Zeballos was born and raised in Jáchal, a community tucked into the foothills of the Andes in Argentina, drinking water from the river that bears the town’s name. That changed in 2005, when the Veladero gold and silver mine started operating in San Juan province.

A decade later, a major cyanide spill from the mine polluted the rivers in the San Juan region, raising fears it could affect waterways downstream in the Jáchal basin, although further studies have shown that cyanide levels remained at safe levels. Two further spills were reported in 2016 and 2017 and are still under investigation.

Potholes are super annoying. Especially driving a sedan like our 2019 Tesla Model 3, they are not something I want to accidentally run into. And they seem to form constantly in Florida. Well, Waymo and Waze are apparently teaming up to help get rid of them faster. Announced yesterday, they ... [continued]

The post Waymo & Waze to Fight Potholes! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Neill says ‘one of the most beautiful and remote places in the world’ will be permanently changed if Bendigo-Ophir wins fast-track approval

The grapevines in Sam Neill’s vineyard in Central Otago – a picturesque region known for its undulating hills and wines – are pregnant with pinot noir grapes, almost ripe for picking as autumn arrives.

“My family has been here for over 150 years. I’m connected to this land like nowhere else on earth,” the 78-year-old actor and winemaker says. “It’s perfect for wine. It’s great for tourism. And it’s one of the most beautiful and strange, remote places in the world.”

The crew of the Artemis II moon mission sent back a message of love and hope to the Earth when death and destruction are everywhere.

The post Artemis II Crew Sends A Timely Message Of Love To The Earth appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Langstone, Hampshire: Solitary bees, albeit hundreds of them, are hovering low to the ground, hoping to mate before nightfall

One of the 68 UK-recorded species of mining bee in the genus Andrena, the ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria) is classified as solitary. Yet on the narrow, balding strip of turf in front of my neighbours’ garage, they appear anything but.

The ground shimmers with movement, as several hundred bees hover low in the spring sunshine. While each female maintains her own burrow – a neat, pencil-eraser-sized hole excavated in the bare, sun-warmed soil – they’ve gathered here in a dense aggregation, turning this modest patch into a bustling settlement.

Residents of Fleetwood say continuous foul smell from Transwaste site is causing illness and making life hell

In the week that many families went to the coast for the fresh sea air or the tang of fish and chips, visitors to one Lancashire resort inhaled a rather more unpleasant aroma.

“Welcome to Fleetwood,” read the local newspaper headline. “The town that smells of bin juice.”

Campaigners say birds could die trying to access ancestral nests that were sealed during rail refurbishment

Some swifts returning to Britain to breed will be unable to access their ancestral nesting holes after they were blocked in a £7.5m refurbishment of a Derbyshire railway viaduct, campaigners say.

Nature lovers had appealed to Network Rail to unblock three holes which were among at least nine swift nesting sites on the twin viaducts at Chapel Milton, on the edge of the Peak District.

New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself

On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.

In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.

A couple of years ago I wrote that natural hydrogen was interesting as geology, but not as a limitless new clean fuel economy. That remains the right starting point. The state of play in 2026 is not that the miracle arrived late. It is that the sector has moved from ... [continued]

The post Natural Hydrogen Is Real, Commercialization Is Not appeared first on CleanTechnica.