Interesting Ideas

A magical corner of Oregon has the highest US rate of wildfire smoke deaths. How do residents live with the haze – and grief?

Driving into the county, you can’t miss the sign.

“IT’S THE CLIMATE”.

SB 868 would end red tape blocking millions from utility bill savings SACRAMENTO — The Environmental Working Group today applauds the California Legislature for passing a bill that will help Californians invest in clean energy while also tackling sky-high energy bills by making it easier to install small, affordable “balcony ... [continued]

The post California Legislature Approves Bill Easing Access to Clean, Affordable “Balcony Solar” appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Xiaomi has been one of the best EV stories of the past few years. Whereas Apple, Sony, Samsung, Google, and others have dropped the ball and given up on producing cool, compelling, high-tech electric vehicles, Xiaomi came onto the market like Usain Bolt leaves the blocks. It quickly had some ... [continued]

The post Xiaomi Launches Global EV Website appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Much of the autonomous vehicle (AV) space is uncharted territory. However, at Waymo, with more than 200 million miles driven fully autonomously, we’re one of very few companies that can look to our past to illuminate our future. Our experience has led us to ten fundamental truths that shape how ... [continued]

The post 10 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million Fully Autonomous Miles appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Competing in the Chinese auto market — which is now largely the Chinese EV market — has gotten harder and harder. There’s a constant stream of new vehicles being launched with the latest tech, great features, and shockingly competitive pricing. In order to try to stand out and attract more ... [continued]

The post Wild Vehicle Designs To Try To Compete In China Need To Go, MIIT Decides appeared first on CleanTechnica.

I’ve been driving my base 2026 Tesla Model Y with “Full Self Driving” V14 since May 26 — 3 months now — so here’s an update on what it can do and cannot do for me. I drove earlier versions of FSD on my 2019 Model 3 for 6+ years, ... [continued]

The post What Tesla “Full Self Driving” V14 Still Can’t Do appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Balcony and rooftop solar could cover home cooling costs, if policy makers prioritize access SACRAMENTO — California is experiencing more frequent and dangerous heat days, but sky-high utility bills mean millions of people can’t afford to run air conditioning that could keep them safe, a new Environmental Working Group report ... [continued]

The post California’s Extreme Heat, Soaring Utility Bills Make Cooling Unaffordable For Millions appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Renewable energy is still crushing US President Donald Trump's fossil fuel fantasy, with solar energy and energy storage making an especially strong showing.

The post Renewable Energy Is Winning, Trump Is Losing (Shocker!) appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Even low levels of traffic noise can negate the benefits of listening to natural sounds, researchers say

Hearing the trill or whistle of a bird while going about daily life is well known to boost people’s mood. But a new study suggests the psychological benefits of hearing birdsong are being threatened by traffic noise.

Researchers found that even low levels of traffic noise negatively affected the benefits to wellbeing that could otherwise be derived from listening to natural sounds.

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Today, Sierra Club celebrated Delaware Governor Matt Meyer signing into law a suite of legislation that will protect families in the state from having to pay for Big Tech’s pricey artificial intelligence data centers. The legislation being signed into law today is a first-of-its-kind bill that ensures ... [continued]

The post Delaware Governor Signs First-of-its-Kind Bill to Power Data Centers with Clean Energy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Our buildings are monuments to extraction and extreme emissions. But what if we turned from destructive concrete to timber?

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I travelled to Oslo in the early autumn. It felt like arriving into the future. Or, at least, a fragment of a possible future. I drove north in the quiet digital bubble of my electric rental car. In 2024, Norway became the first country in the world where electric cars outnumbered petrol cars.

A smooth, pristine motorway unfolded between farmlands and low hillsides of dense green forest. Long tunnels carried the route up above the banks of Lake Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake. After a little more than an hour, the road curved downward to run parallel to the lakeshore.

Civil society groups argue climate crisis means transport sector needs to urgently reduce its carbon emissions

Dozens of civil society groups have demanded the UK government do more to promote cycling and walking, after this summer’s extreme heat exposed the desperate need to decarbonise transport.

This summer’s heatwaves and wildfires were “immediate, real-world manifestations of the climate emergency”, the groups said, making reform of transport – responsible for more carbon emissions than any other sector in the UK – an urgent priority.

Ocean Conservancy says last year’s cleanup collected 13.9m pieces of rubbish from beaches and rivers worldwide

More than 1.3m plastic bottles were collected from beaches, rivers and waterways last year during the world’s largest single-day volunteer ocean cleanup.

About 630,000 people took part in the International Coastal Cleanup in 2025, removing almost 13.9m pieces of rubbish from more than 15,000 miles of coastline and waterways.

Lethal temperatures ​and wildfires have exposed a widening gulf between voters demanding ​action and politicians unwilling to confront the long-term choices global heating requires

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The climate crisis means “we’re going to have to change everything – the way we live, the way we produce, the way we trade,” France’s veteran radical-left firebrand, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, told the summer congress of his France Insoumise party last weekend.

The term “climate change”, said Mélenchon – the most likely rival to Marine Le Pen in next year’s presidential run-off, according to one poll this week – may sound “almost reassuring”, but its actual impact will feel like “landing on another planet whenever we leave home”.

Protests and petitions planned amid growing concerns over impact of climate crisis on numbers of Alpine rodent

Animal rights campaigners are gearing up for protests and petitions aimed at persuading the French government to ban the hunting of Alpine marmots.

Open season on the rodents, members of the squirrel and groundhog family, begins in September, a few weeks before they go into a long winter hibernation.

Asturias, Spain: Wild Finca is thrilling in its ecological abundance, and was created in just eight years despite countless obstacles

On a rocky 13-hectare pocket in the foothills of the Picos de Europa, Luke Massey and Katie Stacey are raising children, dogs, cattle, chicken, ducks, geese and eyebrows. In their eight years here, the farm they call Wild Finca has become a mass of scrub, with scattered large trees and dozens of clearings that Luke calls fields, but which look more like tiny irregular glades, riddled with trails and hemmed all around by the blackthorn, gorse and bramble that has sprung up around the tumbled remains of drystone walls.

If Wild Finca is a forever home to the Massey-Staceys, it is a whole world to nature. Witness the butterflies and wasp spiders, the snakes, lizards, hedgehogs and sparrows, and the thousand-piece cricket orchestra that performs each evening as the glow-worms light up. It offers denning and roosting sites for foxes, pine martens, badgers and 17 species of bat, feeding opportunities for roe deer and wild boar, several species of eagle and vulture, and a pit stop for others such as the nightingale I heard singing in early morning mist.

ONS data shows rising toll of climate crisis, with officials warning this summer on track to set further records

More than 40,000 extra people died on the hottest days in England between 1988 and 2025 than would be expected in normal temperatures, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday.

The figures do not include this summer, when England has sweltered under a succession of heatwaves and is on track to record its highest ever number of heat-related deaths. The UK Health Security Agency announced on 30 July that an estimated 2,877 people had died in the May and June heatwaves alone. The total is almost double the figure for the whole summer in 2025.

NLR Modeling Shows Coordinated Operation of Mid-Columbia Hydropower Plants Could Boost Efficiency Systemwide By Karen Petersen, NLR Collaboration is essential to any successful river expedition. Turns out, it is no different in a cascaded hydropower system—especially one where different operators run dams, each with their own goals and needs. But ... [continued]

The post Collaboration Could Be a Win-Win for Cascading Hydropower appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Tampa, Florida — On August 20, Duke Energy alerted Florida environmental regulators of a chemical spill at the utility’s Anclote Power Plant. According to reports, approximately 3,200 gallons of sodium bisulfite — a potentially strong irritant to skin and tissue — spilled onto the soil and asphalt surrounding the plant ... [continued]

The post Chemical Spill at Duke Energy Plant in Florida Highlights Risks of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Research finds demand has more than doubled since 2000 and 80% of current demand comes from Asia

A booming demand for concrete has resulted in sand and gravel being extracted from riverbeds faster than nature can replenish it. A study published in Reviews of Geophysics shows that the demand for sand and gravel has more than doubled in the last two decades, with overextraction leading to weaker riverbanks, lower groundwater levels, coastal salt intrusion and poorer water quality.

In 2024, city-building and infrastructure projects around the world turned 28bn tonnes of sand and gravel into concrete. Researchers reviewed data on sand and gravel extraction going back to 1974 and have shown that since 2000 demand has more than doubled, with more than 80% of current demand coming from Asia, supporting urban development and road-building across China and India in particular. They found much of the material was being extracted from rivers across Asia and Africa. Data on extraction is scarce but where it does exist the researchers showed that extraction often exceeded natural sediment replacement severalfold.