First of all, it's hacker news, not a general news site. And while the width of breadth of the type of news you'd find on here is larger than just coding and other hackery, it's still at least usually based in technology. Like batteries. Still, the official guidelines say anything "a hacker might find interesting" and we seem to be a environmentally-minded bunch, so maybe it would fly.

Second, it's based on use submissions. You think we should know something interesting about the AU fires? Submit a good article about it I guess. If I and others learn something interesting, it'll get voted up. That's how it works.