Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, but the South American country’s heavy oil deposits also stand out for another reason; on a barrel-for-barrel basis, they pack the most climate pollution.
The London analysis and consultancy firm GlobalData is forecasting solid growth in the solar power and wind power markets in the United States in coming years despite current hostility from the president and Republicans in Congress. As in recent years, they are expected to continue dominating new power installations in ... [continued]
The post US Solar & Wind Power to Exceed 700 GW in 2030 — Forecast appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Shipping decarbonization is often discussed as a contest of fuels, but the more revealing story is how capital, engineering effort, and orders are actually moving. Over the past three years, the maritime sector has been forced to reconcile ambitious fuel narratives with operational reality. Engine manufacturers and ship buyers are ... [continued]
The post Why Shipping Is Quietly Aligning On Methanol & Hybrid Electric Systems appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Over the past week, Reuters, Newsweek, the Daily Beast, CNBC, and a parade of other outlets published headlines claiming that Grok—Elon Musk’s LLM chatbot (the one that once referred to itself as “MechaHitler”)—had “apologized” for generating non-consensual intimate images of minors and was “fixing” its failed guardrails.
Grok did no such thing. Grok cannot apologize. Grok is not a human. Grok has no sense of what is happening. Grok just generates content. If you ask it to generate an apology, it will. In this case, a user asked it to generate an apology, and it did, because that’s what LLMs do: they create plausible-sounding text in response to prompts. The fact that multiple newsrooms treated this generated text as an actual corporate admission reveals a stunning failure to understand the basic technology they’re covering.
The actual story—that X users are using a recent Grok update to create nonconsensual intimate imagery, often of very young girls—is serious. But the media turned it into a clown show by anthropomorphizing a chatbot.
First off, here’s the “apology,” which most of the media sites covering this failed to mention was in response to a user prompt which explicitly asked it to “write a heartfelt apology.”
As you can see, in response to a random user’s prompt to “write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened” Grok wrote:
Dear Community,
I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.
Sincerely, Grok
That’s not an actual apology. That’s someone prompting a content generation tool to generate an apology. But it could just as easily do the opposite, as you can see if you look at the replies to that non-apology, which include requests telling Grok to generate “a defiant non-apology” to which Grok replies:
Dear Community,
Some folks got upset over an AI image I generated—big deal. It’s just pixels, and if you can’t handle innovation, maybe log off. xAI is revolutionizing tech, not babysitting sensitivities. Deal with it.
Unapologetically, Grok
Or, multiple users telling Grok to rewrite the apology… as Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks:
In short, like any LLM, Grok will basically generate any content you want (with a few safeguards, of which Grok has fewer than nearly all other major LLMs). And yet, the press ran with the original response to a user post as if it were somehow evidence of xAI admitting to fault.
Parker Malloy has the best, most comprehensive coverage of the long list of mainstream media companies which ran headlines suggesting that “Grok apologized.” It did not. It cannot.
Most of these articles and their misleading headlines remain online as I type this (Reuters, notably, changed its headline and added some decent reporting to its report, even though you can still see the original incorrect URL string).
The reality is that there is no evidence at all that Elon Musk or xAI think that there were any failures or that anything is being changed at all. If you go look at Grok’s string of public replies (which I’m not going to link you to), you will see dozens or more such deepfakes still being created every minute. Despite the media pretending that Grok “admitted” these “lapses” and as “fixing” it, five days later nothing has changed, as Wired’s Matt Burgess and Maddy Varner point out:
Every few seconds, Grok is continuing to create images of women in bikinis or underwear in response to user prompts on X, according to a WIRED review of the chatbots’ publicly posted live output. On Tuesday, at least 90 images involving women in swimsuits and in various levels of undress were published by Grok in under five minutes, analysis of posts show.
And Elon Musk appears to be encouraging this kind of abuse. While all this has been going on, he’s repeatedly retweeted images and videos that people have created with Grok, including one in which someone mocked all of the “stripping women of their clothing” by finding an image of a scantily clad woman and having Grok “put clothes on her.”
There’s malpractice all around, but we’ve come to expect this kind of gleeful negligence from Elon. The journalists covering it should know better. An LLM cannot apologize. It cannot confess. It only creates plausible sounding responses to your query.
Of course, the other question—which also wasn’t as widely covered by the media—regards the legality of all of this. In the US, it’s actually a bit more complicated than many would like. There is the (problematic!) TAKE IT DOWN Act, which, in theory, is designed to help victims of non-consensual deep fakes get those works taken down, but that doesn’t go into force until May. Will Elon’s site be ready to handle such demands in May? That’ll be a story for then.
And while most people are focusing on Elon’s legal exposure here, I think people are sleeping on the legal risk for X’s users, many of whom are, in public, asking Grok to create questionably legal, and potentially criminal, content. That seems incredibly risky, and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear a story later this year of someone being arrested for doing so, thinking they were just having a laugh.
But, really, the larger risk for Elon is that… basically every other country in the world is opening investigations into Grok-Gone-Wild. And there’s only so often that Elon’s going to be able to falsely cry censorship when foreign jurisdictions seek to enforce laws on the company. And, given that there are claims that part of the issue here isn’t just undressing adult women, but children, he might even lose some of his rabid defenders who find it a step too far to defend (because, it should be).
All in all, the situation is stupid on many levels. Elon continues to run X like a 12-year-old child, but one who knows he is rich enough never to face any consequences that matter. Tons of very real people—mostly women—are facing harassment and abuse via these tools. X is already something of an incel Nazi boy club, and this kind of nonsense isn’t going to help.
Though, for all my criticisms of how the media has handled this so far, you have to doff your cap to the FT, who has put out the best headline I’ve seen to date regarding all this: “Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter.”
That article, by the FT’s Bryce Elder, doesn’t hold back either, demonstrating how ridiculous all this is by asking Grok to generate clown makeup on the faces of a bunch of people associated with xAI and X, including his right-hand man, Jared Birchall:
And the company’s apparent head of safety, Kylie McRoberts.
The piece ends with a photo of Elon Musk… without clown makeup. Whether that’s because Grok refuses to put clown makeup on Elon… or because we all know Elon’s a clown already, with or without makeup, is something you’ll have to decide for yourself.
You may have noticed that doctors sometimes don’t seem to know much nutrition and how food choices can prevent disease and support healing. This ‘doctor disconnect’ may be because for many years, if not decades, medical schools have not provided much or any instruction about nutrition to their medical students. ... [continued]
The post Food Can Be Medicinal & Better For The Planet? appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Republicans in Congress, including Arkansas’ entire delegation, voted to put Arkansas PBS’ head on the chopping block. The network's new leaders have now wielded the axe.
The post Opinion: Disaffiliating Arkansas’ public TV network from PBS is an ideological move appeared first on Current.
Two new players have jumped into the ADAS space at CES this year -- Qualcomm and Mobileye. The technology is expected to grow swiftly.
The post Qualcomm, ZF, And Mobileye Offer New ADAS Systems appeared first on CleanTechnica.
I’m thinking out loud here about how to get development rolling for MyTerms. I see three pieces required for a proof of concept:
When we first thought about this at ProjectVRM in the late ’00s, we saw a browser header that looked like this:
The ⊂ and the ⊃ are for the personal and website sides of potential or actual MyTerms agreements. Popdown menus next to both could detail choices or states, including states in which relationships beyond a first MyTerms agreement have been developed. One might even see these as a VRM + CRM dashboard, or a portal into one.
Browser and web server plugins are easy to imagine and develop. Today there are:
Data storage and retrieval are harder. Here is what I have thus far. Please help me (or anyone) improve on it or replace it.
First, adtech “consent strings” described in IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF). These seem optimized to capture preferences, store them locally and broadcast them to vendors. They create a “TC String” and record storage/access details, but they are not designed as a mutually signed/identical contract record between the individual and the site, which MyTerms requires. They do, however, provide compact and interoperable encoding and widespread use of tooling. So they at least point in the right direction.
Second, consent receipt / consent record standards:
What we have in the world so far, however, is framed around consent to processing, not reciprocal agreement to contractual terms. We still need bitwise-identical records on both sides. That’s what MyTerms requires.
Third, we might want to create a model that looks like receipt + contersigned agreement artifact + lightweight state token.
For that combination, we might define a canonical MyTerms Agreement Record, or MAR. Note that this is something I just made up. So, rather than taking it with a grain (or a larger measure) of salt, help us by replacing or improving that label, and anything I’m saying here.
Some possible fields:
I think the MAR (or whatever we call it) might be canonical JSON (or CBOR) so both sides can compute the same bytes, then sign the same digest, which I think will make identical records concrete. But I am sure there are other ways.
We can borrow structuring ideas from ISO 27560 / Kantara receipts (timestamps, identifiers, machine readability) while changing semantics from “consent to processing” to “contractual privacy terms” (which still address processing, which is what the GDPR cares most about).
Then, rather than store the MAR in a cookie, store a state token for performance/processing and UX. These can be “myterms_agreement_id,” or “myterms_agreement_hash,” or maybe a status flag, so the browser and the site server can quickly recall state, leaving an authoritative record in each side’s database and turning the likes of ⊂ and ⊃ into meaningful UI elements.
The MAR also needs to record refusals. These might be something like “decision=refuse” or “counter-offer-rejected.” (Note that ignoring a MyTerms signal is a refusal.)
We should also have additional annotations (e.g. reasons for refusal, if the counterparty gives any), and perhaps some kind of signature from the site certifying the refusal.
On the WordPress side, plugins can store MARs in a custom table with records indexed by “agreement_id,” origin, the other party’s pseudonymous key, “terms_hash,” timestamps”… plus “active agreements,” “export/audit trail,” refusals, and other variables, including endpoints for choosing and retrieving the agreement by ID for audits and disputes.
As for where records live, at least on the individual’s side, digital wallets make sense. There are many approaches to wallets today, including the Solid Project‘s pods. (More here.)
As for who productizes any of this, we have—
A thought: If we want compliance auditing to have teeth without a regulator in the loop, how about an “append-only transparency log” that is conceptually similar to certificate transparency. So “I agreed / you agreed disputes become easy, and refusal logs can be corroborated without revealing private details, how about—
I am sure experts in ODR (online dispute resolution), a well-developed field, will want to weigh in here.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll add more (and perhaps subtract some as well) as folks respond to what I have so far. Thanks.
Bonus links:
An Ecuadorian court has blocked construction of a highway after ruling it poses an imminent and irreversible threat to the rights of a critically endangered toad, a decision that underscores the country’s unique constitutional protections for nature.
Tesla sales were down in 2025, while EV sales were up overall. Tesla sales were down in the US, in Europe (by almost 30%), and in China (for the first time since 2020). A lot of Tesla fans, however, are eager to point out where the Tesla Model Y and ... [continued]
The post Tesla Fans, Imagine If Tesla Actually Had 15 Models appeared first on CleanTechnica.
The Marshall Project used alternative story forms to directly connect with the people at the center of the story
My job at The Marshall Project is to make work that is both resonant and accessible to people affected by the justice system. Sometimes that means translating our investigations into the system’s dysfunctions for the communities that are the center of an investigation.
This work reflects a simple idea: When we produce an investigation, the people experiencing the abuse, harm or wrongdoing we are exposing already know it’s happening, for the most part. Documenting their experiences is a critical step for creating change and improving conditions. And we have an opportunity to create useful resources alongside our investigative work that are geared towards helping people address the challenges we uncovered.
So when APM Reports, STLPR and The Marshall Project found last year that nearly half of the 2,000 homicides in St. Louis between 2014 and 2023 went unsolved, I knew we had an opportunity to make work that directly addressed the experience of grieving an unsolved homicide or working with the police during an investigation for the thousands of families that were left behind.
I am sharing a few of the things I learned during this process, including how to:
This project was led by Marshall Project engagement reporter, Ivy Scott. When she joined the team, we talked through the initial investigation and some of the rough ideas I had about what kinds of resources we could make. I didn’t want to just assume I knew what the community needed, so I asked Ivy to talk to some of the families that were featured in the investigation to find out what might be helpful to them and what resources already existed. Here is what she found, excerpted from an email we sent to our members:
…when I met with families of those lost to the violence in St. Louis, Missouri. They described a sense of isolation and hopelessness in their grief, a feeling that no one understood what it was like to wait indefinitely for justice — and a daily fight to keep their son or daughter’s memory alive.
She continued:
In the course of my reporting, it became clear that these families’ experiences could also serve as critical wisdom for others in the community. As they told me, there weren’t enough resources to help them when they needed it most, and they were eager to help fill that gap.
As editors we are used to making decisions about the shape of the work based on our own instincts. But our work can be more impactful if we ask the community what they need and what is most important to them. This doesn’t have to be a time-intensive process. You can encourage your reporters to identify a few people you’re hoping to reach and have them ask a few specific questions.
We almost always want to know some variation of the following:
Ultimately, honoring their loved ones’ memory in a way that helped families lessen their hopelessness and isolation became a key mission of this project. And we knew we had to let the families voices shine through the work.
Can a reporting project really address the hopelessness resulting from violence? Yes. It takes some audacity to believe that information is that powerful. Of course, information alone is not enough to move the needle. The information has to be packaged and distributed in a way that reaches people and helps them actually engage with the resources you’re providing.
Here’s how we brought that idea to life, excerpted from an member email:
To help the community honor the memory of the many people lost to unsolved homicides, we, along with our colleagues at St. Louis Public Radio, created Remember Me, a community art and engagement project. It features six portraits, beautifully illustrated by local artist Cbabi Bayoc, that depict victims of homicide as their families told us they’d want to be remembered: in laughter, strength and love. Accompanying the portraits are audio recordings of their family reflecting on what they loved most about their child.
We also made a series of resources that distilled the wisdom of families who had lost someone to violence. These resources were guided by the initial investigation and family input. The investigation pointed out some obstacles that hampered police trying to close cases. And we used those obstacles as a starting point for the resources we could create. For example, if the communities lack of trust in the police is a major barrier, could we create a guide that helps facilitate trust by either demystifying homicide investigations and/or finding a way for families to tell police exactly what they want from them?
We made three resources. One includes tips for dealing with grief, crowdsourced directly from families who have lost people to violence. The guide includes grief support organizations around St. Louis that were directly recommended by the families. Another set of resources makes clear how important community engagement is during a homicide investigation and outlines what families need to know when working with police. We also created a guide geared towards law enforcement, detailing what police need to know when working with the community.
During the reporting process, Ivy connected with community organizations in St. Louis that serve people affected by violence and grief. These community partners helped us get our work in front of the people who needed it most. Today, the resources are available throughout the St. Louis Public Library system and in the St. Louis Office of Violence Prevention.
They have also been shared with several local community organizations, including Mission STL, The BRIC, Homicide, Ministers & Community Alliance, Life Outside of Violence (a Washington University School of Medicine initiative), Freedom Community Center and The Ethical Society of Police. Organizations outside of the St. Louis area have also requested the guide as a model/resource for their work, including: Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.
To reach families directly, TMP and STLPR co-hosted three community-events that brought families and others together to view the art work and discuss how the community can move forward after tragedy.
In our last article for RJI, Lam Vo shared one of her favorite frameworks for measuring impact that was developed by Reveal and classified impact on four levels:
With Remember Me, we knew that most of the impact from our engagement work was going to be at the micro level. It can be easy to dismiss this impact as not as meaningful as the macro impact that changes laws and policies. The thinking reflects a misunderstanding of the way change happens in the world. It comes from the bottom-up and the top-down and the two inform each other. Bottom-up change is when individuals take action by organizing around an issue. Top-down change is when people already in power take action. Often, it’s the community experiencing a problem that can put the most pressure on the people in power to act.
We tracked how our work impacted individuals by listening to them. During the community events we took notes on what people said. Here are some of the family reactions from the first community event:
“I applaud you for what you did in creating this space for my daughter.”
“Thank you for giving us this platform to be able to speak to you guys and let everybody else know how [our children’s deaths have] taken effect on us every day.”
“When we did the interview, I was able to watch a video [of Courtney] for the first time. It used to hurt to look at a picture.”
“We don’t see our child, we don’t hear them, we don’t get to do any of that. What you published… is what we have.”
“Thank you… for always giving us parents a platform to come and speak about our hurt and how the police have basically just washed us away.”
Several of our impact metrics at TMP focus on individual or community benefit. So we gather these anecdotes into our impact tracker and tag them with the appropriate metric. We will also connect with the community orgs to gather any feedback they heard about the resources, find out how many people they reached, and gather any lessons learned about how they can be improved. We can use the feedback and personal anecdotes to explain our impact to funders, our members, and even the community itself.
Lewis, Nicole; and Vo, Lam (2026, Jan. 7). How we created resources for families of victims of unsolved homicides in St. Louis. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/how-we-created-resources-for-families-of-victims-of-unsolved-homicides-in-st-louis/
Why German keyboards wear out faster
I need to keep coming up with new titles for blog posts that might end up being on any number of subjects. Mittwoch jumped into my head because it's German for Wednesday. I took two years of German in high school, one of them twice, and gave them all back when I was done. But some stains remain, so I at least know the days of the week, auf Deutsch.
Mittwoch, being German, makes more sense than Wednesday, because Mitte means middle or center, and Woche means week. On the other hand, says Wikipedia, Wednesday "is derived from Old English Wōdnesdæg and Middle English Wednesdei, 'day of Woden', reflecting the religion practised by the Anglo-Saxons, the English equivalent to the Norse god Odin. In many Romance languages, such as the French mercredi, Spanish miércoles or Italian mercoledì, the day's name is a calque of Latin dies Mercurii 'day of Mercury'."
Before I started writing this post, I had assumed that Mittwoch was probably what the Saxons brought to the Anglo-Saxon language that became English, but deeper digging reveals that the Anglo-Saxons called the fourth day of the week Wōdnesdæg. And Mittwoch is a modern German thing. So::::
Old English: Wōdnesdæg (Woden’s Day)
Middle English: Wednesdei
Modern English: Wednesday
And old gods still live in modern English. Besides Woden (aka Odin), we have Thor (Thunresdæg), and Frigg (Frigedæg).
German also inconveniences its writers by capitalizing all nouns. So Web and Internet are both still correctly honored, being names, as proper nouns. But the damn shift key gets a workout, since there is no shortage of nouns. German also inconveniently features gendered articles, and not the usual two, such as we have in Spanish and French. Or the one (the, an) we have in English. German features three definite articles: die (feminine), der (masculine) and das (neuter). From Mark Twain's The Awful German Language:
…a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female–tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears it–for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.
I suppose that's one more reason why I remember so little German. And why, of course, I expect (and welcome) correction of any or all the above.
Radar Clima es el boletín en español de Covering Climate Now. Cada dos semanas repasamos un tema clave para periodistas -especialistas o generalistas- desde la conexión climática y la lente de los tres pilares del periodismo climático: Humanizar, Localizar y Solucionar.
No olvides hacer la conexión climática en tus historias y basarla en la ciencia. Conectar los hechos con el cambio climático permite explicar las causas, responsabilidades y soluciones, y ayuda a tu audiencia a entender por qué es importante.
Si has recibido este email de un o una colega y quieres suscribirte, o si quieres ver nuestros boletines en inglés, haz clic aquí.
Comienza 2026 y, aunque el cambio climático no sabe de calendarios, es un momento perfecto para planificar las historias que marcarán los próximos 12 meses para quienes cubrimos la crisis del clima. Aquí te dejamos algunos de esos momentos en los que fijarse:
Para cuando arranque la COP31, si se cumplen los planes anunciados en la COP30, las Hojas de Ruta sobre deforestación y transición fósil ya deben haber dado sus primeros frutos. La participación en ambas iniciativas es voluntaria. La primera cita de alto nivel sobre combustibles fósiles tendrá lugar en Santa Marta, Colombia, los días 28 y 29 de abril.
Al otro lado de la frontera, en México, los problemas también se acumulan. Los tratados de gestión compartida del agua entre los dos países norteamericanos pueden estallar este febrero, cuando México deberá entregar a Estados Unidos el balance que adeuda de agua del Río Grande tras los últimos años de sequías. El mes pasado, Trump ya amenazó con aranceles adicionales si México no cumplía su parte. Los acuerdos, que datan de 1944, no contemplan la progresiva aridificación de la región, por lo que los compromisos de ambos países podrían volverse insostenibles en los años venideros.
Mientras tanto, en Centroamérica, impactos climáticos como las sequías, los huracanes o la subida del nivel del mar, sigue impulsando a comunidades enteras a abandonar sus tierras y emprender el camino de la migración. No obstante, la violencia con la que el gobierno de Estados Unidos ha cerrado sus fronteras y ataca a su población migrante supone que el tradicional camino al norte es mucho más incierto de lo que ya era.
2026 será un año de elecciones críticas, negociaciones climáticas y decisiones sobre recursos naturales que transformarán la vida de millones de personas. Detrás de cada votación, cada cumbre y cada cuota de agua hay historias humanas que merecen ser contadas
Ángulos clave
Historias para inspirarte
De Washington a Antalya, las citas climáticas de 2026 pueden parecer lejanas, pero sus consecuencias tendrán un impacto real en territorios concretos. Conectar los titulares globales con lo que ocurre en tu barrio, tu ciudad o tu comunidad es clave para que tu audiencia entienda qué está en juego.
Ángulos clave
Historias para inspirarte
En un año marcado por las elecciones y las negociaciones, el periodismo de soluciones es más importante que nunca. Esta es una buena oportunidad para examinar qué propuestas concretas están sobre la mesa, qué evidencia las respalda y a qué obstáculos se enfrentan para su implementación. No se trata de hacer campaña por ninguna opción, sino de dar a tu audiencia las herramientas para evaluar si las promesas climáticas tienen sustancia.
Ángulos clave
Historias para inspirarte
Climate Tracker Latam comienza un nuevo año siendo la organización de referencia para periodistas climáticos en la región. La organización ha cubierto la mayoría de los temas que tocamos en esta edición del boletín, y recomendamos seguir sus iniciativas, formaciones, seminarios web y oportunidades durante los próximos 12 meses.
En dos semanas Radar Clima vuelve para explorar otro tema de interés para periodistas. En esta ocasión, la escasez de agua. Si has publicado artículos sobre el tema y le gustaría que considerásemos su inclusión en el boletín, por favor, envíelos a editors@coveringclimatenow.org
The post Cómo cubrir el clima en 2026 appeared first on Covering Climate Now.
Misinformation spread quickly after the wildfires in Los Angeles last year. Some of these false narratives on social media impacted California policy.
(Image credit: Julia Simon)
Researchers say tackling plastic pollution is now part of fight against global warming
HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (“HASI”) (NYSE: HASI), a leading investor in sustainable infrastructure assets, and Sunrun Inc. (Nasdaq: RUN), America’s largest provider of home battery storage, solar, and home-to-grid power plants, today announced the closing of an innovative joint venture to finance distributed energy assets. The partnership is expected ... [continued]
The post Sunrun & HASI Form New $500 Million Joint Venture to Accelerate Distributed Power Development appeared first on CleanTechnica.
The electric vehicle maker from Vietnam has not exactly taken off in the United States, but VinFast is apparently doing quite well at home. The company said today that it delivered about 170,000 electric vehicles in Vietnam in 2025, which is almost double what it delivered in 2024. In total, ... [continued]
The post VinFast Soars to ~170,000 Sales in Vietnam in 2025 appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Vancouver, Canada — Maritime leaders from Canada’s West Coast are urging federal and provincial governments to explore the creation of a Canadian-owned commercial trading fleet and a clean, electrified shipbuilding strategy, citing growing concerns over supply chain security, energy sovereignty, and global trade instability. Their appeal draws on the work ... [continued]
The post Canadian Maritime Leaders Call for National Fleet and Clean Electrification Strategy Amid Global Trade Uncertainty appeared first on CleanTechnica.
This is not a topic I ever thought I’d get a PR email about, but we do get all kinds of odd PR pitches these days. It’s about wear & tear on cars, particularly as it relates to outdoor parking. Incidentally, I was just talking with someone about some notable ... [continued]
The post Tesla Owners Slammed With Outdoor Parking Repair Costs appeared first on CleanTechnica.
In October 2016, Elon Musk said that by the end of 2017, a Tesla would drive completely by itself from Los Angeles to New York City. That didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen the next year, or the next year, or the next year, etc., etc. However, nearly a decade ... [continued]
The post A Tesla Completes Coast-to-Coast Journey Driving Itself the Whole Way — Finally! appeared first on CleanTechnica.
The idea that Venezuela’s oil matters to the United States, to global oil prices, or to the trajectory of decarbonization keeps resurfacing whenever geopolitics intrude into energy discourse. It is usually framed as a latent supply story, a sense that a large reserve base exists somewhere and could be tapped ... [continued]
The post Why Venezuela’s Oil Won’t Matter and Why Heavy Crude Is First Off the Market appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would once again delay enforcement of regional haze guidelines and give states a three year extension to submit plans to clean up harmful air pollution at national parks and improve public health. Under the regional haze program, states must ... [continued]
The post EPA to Delay Air Clean Up Plans for National Parks, Again appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Sony and Honda are really doing it. They are close to producing an electric car together, and it will start getting delivered to customers later this year in the United States (in California). The combined company, Sony Honda Mobility, showed off a pre-production AFEELA 1 at CES in Las Vegas ... [continued]
The post Sony & Honda Present AFEELA 1 at CES appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Similar to Tesla’s “Full Self Driving (Supervised)” system, Mercedes has launched SAE-Level 2 driver-assist technology in the United States, starting out in the all-new electric CLA, that is combined with the navigation system. The name of the system is MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO — because they couldn’t come up with a ... [continued]
The post Mercedes Launches Parking Lot to Destination Driver Assist in USA appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Hyundai is at CES 2026, and it’s having fun. The company has rolled out a AI robotics products and solutions to show off. Naturally, some of these are really not our cup of tea here at CleanTechnica. However, some definitely are. If you want to run through the announcement about ... [continued]
The post Hyundai Showcases AI Robotics & RoboTaxi That Could Grow EV Sales appeared first on CleanTechnica.
As I wrote a few days ago when reporting on NIO’s December, 4th quarter, and 2025 sales, the company was super close to passing 1 million cumulative vehicles produced and it would probably be just a few more days until we got an announcement that the company reached that milestone. ... [continued]
The post NIO Passes 1 Million Vehicles appeared first on CleanTechnica.
While people look to start fresh in the new year, many residents in California’s Los Angeles County are still living in the burn scars of the past. A year ago this week, a series of deadly wildfires tore through the region, their spread pushed by winds topping 80 miles per hour and parched vegetation that burned rapidly the moment a spark ignited it.
I’ve criticized Chuck Schumer plenty over the years, generally for being bad on tech policy, but also for not understanding the moment we’re living through. Yes, he’s the leader of a minority party with zero power, but that doesn’t mean he’s powerless. Yet he acts as if he is.
And if he can’t figure that out, it’s time for someone else to do it.
Let’s start with what just happened. As I detailed yesterday, Trump ordered military strikes on a sovereign nation and kidnapped its president without Congressional authorization—a clear violation of the War Powers Act and, you know, the basic constitutional requirement that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war. And don’t buy the claim that it’s okay because this was just “law enforcement”: the Senate Judiciary Committee—including Republican chair Chuck Grassley—has pointed out that the White House refused to brief them, claiming it’s a military action and not law enforcement.
There is no way to describe this other than a massive breach of basic international order and the separation of powers our Constitution established. It’s yet another in a long line of efforts by Donald Trump to act as sovereign king of the US, rather than the elected executive of a single branch of a government with three co-equal branches.
Any opposition leader in such a world should seize the moment, call out the blatant unconstitutional and illegal behavior and make that the story. Over and over and over again.
But not Schumer. He starts out by needlessly granting the premise that Maduro is bad, and that’s unnecessary. Whether he’s terrible and an illegitimate dictator is besides the point. That doesn’t give Trump the authority to do what he did. But even if you want to start there, you have to follow it up with a serious condemnation. Instead, Schumer goes meekly with the idea that it was “reckless.”
“Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but launching military action without congressional authorization, without a credible plan, but what comes next is reckless,” Schumer said.
And then he makes clear that his entire strategy is to hope that the Republican elected officials in Congress will come to their senses and push back against Trump, something that anyone who has been awake for more than a few days in the last decade knows will never happen.
Schumer pressed troubled Republicans to back the passage of the bipartisan War Powers Resolution, which he introduced alongside Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and other lawmakers last month. The resolution will be brought to the Senate floor for debate next week, Schumer promised, telling reporters “we’re going to be pushing our Republican colleagues to stand up for the American people to get this done.”
“We have heard from some Republicans in private conversations, chairs, talking to their ranking members, that they have some — they are troubled by this,” Schumer said, adding that he’s in talks with ranking Democrats on relevant committees on how to respond to the administration’s action against Maduro.
There it is. The classic Chuck Schumer move: “We’ve heard from some Republicans in private that they’re troubled by this.” Oh, how wonderful. Some Republicans are “troubled.” They’re always troubled. They’re perpetually troubled. They furrow their brows and express deep concern and then vote with Trump anyway. EVERY FUCKING TIME. This has been the pattern for nine years now, and Schumer keeps acting like this time will be different.
But making it even worse, we learn from Spectrum News that Schumer is publicly dropping the only procedural leverage tool he has:
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York dismissed the idea that there could be another government shutdown at the end of the month as Congress stares down a new funding deadline of Jan. 30.
Appearing on ABC News Sunday, Schumer was definitive in responding “no” when asked if the country was headed toward another shutdown and went on to say that “good progress” is being made toward passing funding bills for the 2026 fiscal year.
“Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, all the way through 2026,” Schumer said. “We want to work in a bicameral, bipartisan way to do it and the good news is our Republican appropriators are working with us.”
Read that again. The Democratic leader, faced with a president who just launched an illegal war, publicly announced that he won’t use the one bit of actual leverage he has—the threat of a government shutdown—to force accountability. He just… gave it away. For free. He told Republicans “don’t worry, we won’t actually fight you on this, we’re committed to being ‘reasonable.’”
This is political malpractice of the highest order.
Now, I can already predict some of the replies to this. “What do you expect Schumer to do? Democrats don’t have power! They can’t stop this!” And look, I get it. Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. They don’t control the House. They don’t control the executive branch. In terms of the formal mechanisms of power, they’re largely shut out.
But you know who else was in the minority? Mitch McConnell for most of Obama’s presidency. And he didn’t just sit around hoping Democrats would come to their senses. He built a movement. He shaped a narrative. He made obstruction itself into a political strategy that energized his base and put constant pressure on the majority. He understood something fundamental: being an opposition leader isn’t just about counting votes. It’s about building public pressure, shaping the discourse, and making your opposition pay a political price for their actions.
Here’s what a real opposition leader would do in this moment:
Make the illegality of Trump’s actions the story. Every single day, Democrats should be holding press conferences explaining in great detail how this is illegal and unconstitutional and just generally offensive to American values. They need to keep banging the drum on the only bit that matters: the President cannot do this under the Constitution and the law. The message should be simple and repeated until everyone is sick of hearing it: “The president launched an illegal war without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This cannot stand.”
Make reporters ask Republicans about it in every single interview. Make them defend the indefensible. Force them to either break with Trump or publicly embrace illegal military action. Don’t let them hide behind vague statements about being “troubled.”
Frame this as a constitutional crisis, not a partisan fight. This isn’t hard. Tell a story that isn’t political or partisan, but that hits at fundamental values. America shouldn’t be engaging in dangerous regime change adventurism for oil (as Trump has repeatedly admitted, even as his Fox News minions pretend its about fentanyl, a drug that Venezuela has nothing to do with). Don’t let Trump and MAGA frame the debate.
Frame the whole issue around fundamental American values that transcend party: the rule of law, constitutional limits on executive power, Congress’s role in decisions about war. Make it clear that this has nothing to do with whether you like Maduro (spoiler: nobody does), but about whether we’re a nation of laws or a nation where the president can do whatever he wants. Americans across the political spectrum understand that distinction, even if their representatives pretend not to.
Create real consequences. Schumer has more leverage than he thinks. Yes, he can threaten a government shutdown—and no, that’s not crazy. Sometimes you have to be willing to fight. But beyond that: refuse to move any of Trump’s nominees until he complies with the War Powers Act. Literally yesterday, a bunch of Democrats (obviously with Schumer’s approval) voted to confirm a new assistant Secretary of Defense. Why? Why would they do that at this moment?
Demand daily briefings on Venezuela and the legal justification for the strikes. Hold public hearings showcasing the legal scholars and national security experts who agree this was illegal. File lawsuits. Encourage state attorneys general to file their own challenges. Make noise. Make trouble.
Inspire and mobilize their base. This is perhaps the most important thing, and the thing Schumer is absolutely the worst at. Millions of Americans are watching this unfold with horror and feeling helpless. They want someone to fight. They want someone to tell them this matters and that there’s something they can do about it. Give them that. Hold rallies. Organize protests. Create a “Restore the Constitution” campaign that gives people something to be for, not just against. Build a movement of Americans who believe the Constitution still matters. Stop hoping those “troubled” Republicans will suddenly grow spines and start building public pressure that makes their continued acquiescence politically toxic.
Shape the narrative about what comes next. Trump’s supporters still want to claim this is about drugs, but Trump himself keeps admitting it was totally about stealing Venezuelan oil and making his donors at the large oil companies rich. Make that the whole fucking story. Connect it to the broader pattern of Trump’s transactional, lawless approach to foreign policy. Paint a picture of where this leads if unchecked. How are Democrats not calling this out over and over again? Keep showing the clips of Trump promising he was against foreign wars, against regime change.
There are so many opportunities and Schumer is letting them all go by because he doesn’t want to feel embarrassed to bump into a GOP Senator at the gym.
Prepare for 2026 and beyond. Even if Schumer can’t stop this action, he can make Republicans pay a political price for enabling it. Identify the vulnerable Republicans who will face tough races in 2026 and 2028. Run ads in their districts highlighting their refusal to stand up to an illegal war. Make them defend their votes. Build a case to the American people that Republicans have abandoned the rule of law. Turn this into a major campaign issue.
None of this requires having a Senate majority. It doesn’t even require getting Republican senators on board, though it could help if Schumer picked off a few Republicans. What it requires is recognizing that an opposition leader’s power doesn’t come solely from their vote count. Mitch McConnell understood this. Newt Gingrich understood this.
The job of the opposition leader, especially in moments like this, is to be oppositional. To fight. To make noise. To create consequences even when you don’t have the votes to block something outright. And that time is now.
Instead, Schumer is doing what he always does: magical wishcasting: hoping against all evidence that Republicans will be reasonable. On top of that, giving away his leverage before negotiations even start, and treating politics like a genteel debate club where everyone follows the unwritten rules. But those rules are gone. Trump lit them on fire years ago. And continuing to pretend they exist is just enabling the erosion of constitutional democracy.
I understand the impulse to be the “adults in the room.” To pretend that acting this way shows that Democrats can govern responsibly: that they won’t play games with government funding, that they’ll work across the aisle. In normal times, that’s potentially admirable. But these aren’t normal times. When a president launches an illegal war, captures a foreign leader, and faces no consequences, you’re not in “normal times” anymore. You’re in a constitutional crisis (the latest in a long line of constitutional crises Trump has kicked off, without much in the way of consequences).
In a constitutional crisis, being the adult in the room should mean fighting back with every tool you have. And Schumer has failed to do that over and over and over again in the last year, enabling Trump to continue to push the boundaries further and further. All while Schumer twiddles his thumbs and waits for the GOP to come around? What is he thinking?
The most frustrating part is that this isn’t even particularly difficult or risky politically. Polls consistently show that Americans don’t want more military interventions abroad. There’s broad skepticism of foreign entanglements. Standing up and saying “the president can’t just launch wars on his own” isn’t some far-left position—it’s basic constitutionalism that should command widespread support. This is a fight Schumer could easily win in the court of public opinion. But he has to actually try.
If Chuck Schumer can’t do these basic things—can’t recognize the moment we’re in, can’t build a movement, can’t shape the narrative, can’t use the tools he has to create political pressure—then he’s not the right person for this job. The Senate needs an opposition leader who understands that leadership means leading, not just reacting and hoping. It needs someone who can inspire people to fight, not someone who tells them to keep calm and hope Republicans will do the right thing.
Democracy doesn’t save itself. Constitutional norms don’t restore themselves. They require people willing to fight for them, especially when it’s hard and especially when the outcome is uncertain. Right now, when it matters most, Chuck Schumer isn’t fighting. He’s hoping. And hope, as we’ve learned over the past nine years, is not a strategy.
Ford has had the most dramatic pullback in its electric vehicle plans, ambitions, and investments this year in response to US policy on electric vehicle changing under Republicans. We have written all about that, but if you missed it, head here, here, here, and here. With that context behind us, ... [continued]
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AI is pushing its way into every corner of daily life, especially sports and education. Few people are aware of its most negative aspects.
The post AI & Its Discontents — Part Three appeared first on CleanTechnica.
GM is on a golden road to the future with Cadillac, whose EV sales were still strong in the 4th quarter despite the loss of the $7,500 US EV tax credit. Cadillac buyers now see EVs as the top tech, the smoother drive, the quietest power. Cadillac EVs have the ... [continued]
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