James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.
June 26th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The first portion of the 2017 Hudson Bay System Study in the Arctic, part of the 2017 Canadian Research Icebreaker CCGS Amundsen Expedition, has been cancelled due to climate change–induced hazardous sea ice conditions
June 25th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The Trump Administration's ongoing push to review and possibly undo various regulations may lead to the undoing of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rule that requires electrified vehicles to emit a warning sound when driving at low speed, going by recent reports
June 24th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The MIT self-driving vehicle tech spinoff Optimus Ride has been granted approval to begin testing "highly automated" vehicles in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The approval was granted by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT)
June 24th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Utah's Park City Transit recently deployed 6 all-electric Proterra Catalyst FC+ buses, which will be used to serve transit riders in the ski resort communities in Park City and Summit County, according to recent reports
June 24th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The refreshed Nissan Leaf EV has been teased yet again, with another glimpse from the company of what we can expect when the rapidly approaching launch of the new Leaf arrives in a few months
June 22nd, 2017 | by James Ayre
GM has finished production of its first batch of next-generation, self-driving Chevy Bolt EV test vehicles, according to a new press release
June 22nd, 2017 | by James Ayre
The Maven Gig carsharing service, aimed at those working in the freelance "gig" economy as delivery drivers or on-demand taxi service drivers, has now launched in San Francisco, California
June 22nd, 2017 | by James Ayre
The state of Texas has finally gone ahead and legalized the testing of self-driving vehicles there, with governor Greg Abbott signing a bill on the matter into law last week
June 22nd, 2017 | by James Ayre
Rapid jumps in the temperatures of the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere over just a few decades time have been a somewhat common event during the glacial periods of the last 100,000 years or so
June 22nd, 2017 | by James Ayre
While it's become something of an assumed truth for some that, as the impacts of anthropogenic climate change begin bearing down on the "developed" world in earnest, those who currently deny the existence of climate change will come around. ... I remain highly skeptical
June 21st, 2017 | by James Ayre
Despite the need to vastly and rapidly curtail transportation sector carbon emissions if anthropogenic climate change is to be limited to any real degree, the US transportation sector is continuing to grow ... year by year
June 21st, 2017 | by James Ayre
The intense heat wave that's been gripping much of the western US in recent days has actually forced the cancellation of a number of flights out of Phoenix, Arizona — owing to the simple fact that the Bombardier CRJ aircraft to be used for the flights in question weren't designed to operate above 118° Fahrenheit
June 21st, 2017 | by James Ayre
The state of California has again been named by the American Lung Association as the US state with the worst air quality -- mostly as a result of having the highest ozone/smog levels out of any state in the country, but also high particle pollution levels
June 21st, 2017 | by James Ayre
A portion of West Antarctica over twice the size of the US state of California partially melted in 2016 as the result of high temperatures brought by an especially pronounced El Niño, compounded by a rapidly warming climate, according to new research published in the journal Nature Communications
June 20th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The man who was killed last year in the much publicized Tesla Model S Autopilot crash had been visually warned 7 separate times (including 6 auditory warnings) during the trip about not having his hands on the wheel, according to a new 500 page report from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
June 20th, 2017 | by James Ayre
May 2017 was the second warmest (or hottest) May on record — in terms of global average surface temperatures. It was only a tenth of a degree behind the current record holder, May
June 19th, 2017 | by James Ayre
While Houston, Texas, is already regularly home to some of the worst flooding events that occur within the US, the reality is that, thanks to rising seas, increasingly extreme rainstorms, and increasingly powerful hurricanes, such events will actually become considerably worse over the coming decades
June 19th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Officials with the US Environmental Protection Agency have suspected Fiat-Chrysler of using illegal auxiliary emissions control devices (aka "defeat devices") since as far back as November 2015, going by the contents of newly released emails
June 18th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The set of self-driving vehicle rules now being proposed by a group of US House Representatives would bar individual states from putting their own testing and design regulations in place, going by the contents of a draft proposal that was obtained by Reuters
June 12th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The electric vehicle smart grid charging technology firm eMotorWerks doubled its revenues for the third consecutive year in 2016, according to a recent press release. This expansion and revenue growth was partly the result of partnerships with companies such as AeroVironment, Webasto, and Nayax. The company's growing customer base is reflected in the fact that the firm now has more than 18,000 charging stations installed around the world
June 12th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Following its earlier city-level proposals competition in Europe, Hyperloop One has now revealed the candidate shortlist produced by that competition. The shortlist includes the proposals that were/are both economically and technically feasible
