Questions tagged [climate-change]
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns. In public discourse, often used as a shorthand for the effects of anthropogenic global warming.
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Are global wildfires decreasing?
According to the World Health Organization,
Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes and they are ...
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Does the ratio of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere show that fossil fuels are not the dominant cause of global warming?
I stumbled upon the following paper
Skrable et al. (2022)
The specific activity of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO₂, which is devoid of ¹⁴C, enters the ...
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Has 90% of ice around Antarctica disappeared in less than a decade?
According to CNN, 90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.
In the video, CNN Climate Correspondent, Bill Weir states:
... the ice around the continent was growing. In 2014,...
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Does global warming trap as much heat as 600,000 Hiroshima-class bombs every day?
In January 2023, in an interview at the World Economic Forum, former US Vice President Al Gore claimed that we're adding the equivalent of 600,000 Hiroshima bombs every day in heat to the atmosphere:
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Has natural gas "reduced carbon emissions from power generation by 38%" in Ohio?
On January 6, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation that legally defined natural gas as a source of "green energy."
In a January 10 opinion piece U.S. representative Troy Baldwin (of Ohio)...
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Is 70% of the world economy weather-sensitive?
Several sources make varying claims that 70% of the global economy is sensitive/dependant on the weather:
Frogcast: Participative fundraising
70% of the world economy is weather sensitive.
JOM: ...
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Is Amazon powered by 85% renewable energy?
In a video on the TED YouTube channel, Chris Roe, Amazon's director of energy and sustainable operations, makes a claim that Amazon is powered by 85% renewable energy.
I suspect 85% is too optimistic ...
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Did increased global methane emissions in 2017 come from cattle farming?
In a 2017 press release, Don’t blame cattle – it’s humans who caused methane levels to skyrocket., Robert Howarth, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University claims that there ...
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Does it take 16 kg of CO2 equivalent to make two hamburgers?
Does it take 16 kg of CO2e to make two hamburgers? It seems an exaggeration
It’s also worth putting the amount of carbon involved in having a Christmas tree in context. The Carbon Trust estimates ...
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Is offshore wind 9 times cheaper than fossil fuel?
The claim: "Offshore Wind in the U.K. Is 9 Times Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels"
Yahoo news version
The source from the article: Carbon Brief: Record-low price for UK offshore wind is nine times ...
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Is moderated livestock grazing an effective countermeasure for desertification?
In this TED talk from 2013, Allan Savory claims that livestock/cattle grazing (not industrial farming, but rather some frugal grazing of herds) help prevent and reverse desertification processes, ...
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Is the equivalent of 2000 American football fields lost every hour due to drought and desertification?
BBC states the following
Approximately 12 million hectares (46,000 sq miles) are lost around the world each year as a direct consequence of drought and desertification. That's the equivalent of 2,000 ...
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Do Lufthansa's Compensaid schemes make flights carbon-neutral?
My employer recently announced that all outbound flights will be carbon neutral due to a recent program of our preferred airline.
Lufthansa's Compensaid claims that
With our reliable partner ...
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Is methane responsible for nearly one-third of all global warming to date?
A recent BBC article says that the latest IPCC report says methane is responsible for 0.3°C out of 1.1°C of all cumulative warming since pre-industrial times.
According to the IPCC, around 0.3C of ...
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Do the lifetime emissions of 'three and a half Americans' kill 'one person'?
On 29th July 2021, Nature published a paper titled "The Mortality Cost of Carbon" and many publications have repeated a rather sensational part of the abstract of the paper (emphasis added):
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Have Australia's emissions fallen to the lowest level since 1990
The Liberal Party of Australia posted a claim on Facebook that Australia's emissions have fallen to the lowest level since 1990. Is this accurate?
Below is a screenshot of the Facebook post, and ...
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Have greenhouse gas emissions from Australian red meat production fallen nearly 60% since 2005?
The BBC is reporting that Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) is reporting that "greenhouse gas emissions from the industry have fallen by almost 60% since 2005". This seems to be from the ...
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Did Elon Musk's bitcoin transactions release more carbon in a few days than the amount saved by all Teslas ever sold?
In The Guardian, on May 29, 2021, Adam Greenfield writes:
Elon Musk’s recent large-scale transactions in proof-of-work-based Bitcoin released more carbon into the atmosphere in just a few days than ...
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Has non-TSI solar output increased over the past century in ways the IPCC climate models ignore?
Prof. Nir Shaviv, an American-Israeli astrophysicist, who argues against Anthropomorphic Global Warming, wrote (6 years ago):
As an astrophysicist, I see that the scope of solar effects considered by ...
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Will renewable energy strategies generate a net increase in jobs?
In the battle against climate change we often hear that new renewable energy programs will generate a large number of new jobs. At the recent Paris Climate summit Boris Johnson said that a green ...
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Publication Bias in Climate Sensitivity Estimates
It is claimed by Rickova and Irsova, in a paper titled "Publication Bias in Measuring Climate Sensitivity" [A], that:
We present a meta-regression analysis of the relation between the ...
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Are environmentalists largely responsible for Californian forest fires?
An article on Reason, and the associated video, claim that the severity of the recent forest fires are largely due to environmental regulations that prevent good forest management, along with an ...
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Are there currently more large fires in Africa and South America than the rest of the world?
This has been doing the rounds on Twitter:
NASA fire map shows the absolute failure of mainstream media for not expressing how devasting fires in southern Africa and South America are.
Certainly to ...
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Is there a 10% chance of 6-10°C of warming this century?
From a 2016 The Atlantic article, Human Extinction Isn't That Unlikely:
UN-approved climate models estimate that the risk of six to ten degrees Celsius of warming ...
“On a more plausible emissions ...
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Does sending an email have a carbon footprint of 0.3g to 50g CO2e?
The carbon footprint, in carbon dioxide equivalent, of sending an email message, has been estimated at 0.3 gCO2e for a spam email, 4 gCO2e for a "proper email", and 50 gCO2e for an "email with long ...
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Why did the value for "average surface temperature of Earth" change from 15°C to 14°C in some scientific literature concerning climate change?
I recently stumbled across an article from a global warming skeptic stating that the "average surface temperature of Earth" changed from 15°C to 14°C in some scientific literature concerning climate ...
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Did British homes increase greenhouse gas emissions by 4% in 2018?
According to this report from The Times,
Greenhouse gas emissions fell in every sector — including transport, industry and energy — in 2018, but emissions from homes went up 4 per cent, government ...
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Have China and India more than doubled carbon emissions since 2000 while U.S. emissions have fallen?
The following meme has been shared circa Dec 2019 on social media and several blogs:
The text reads:
China's Carbon Emission Change Since 2000: +208%
India's Carbon Emission Change Since 2000: +155%
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Do CO₂ emissions need to be cut to near zero to stop global temperatures rising?
In Bill Gates' 2010 TED talk, Bill Gates: Innovating to zero! [YouTube], Gates mentions that he has
asked the top scientists on this several times: Do we really have to get down to near zero? Can't ...
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Are the Australian bushfires in the same path as a proposed high speed rail line?
Is it true that a proposed high-speed rail line is in the path of the brushfires?
Source: https://noagendasocial.com/@AdamAtSea/103473125309193160
Also: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/
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Do Swedes believe climate change spending to be the biggest waste of taxpayer money in 2019?
Yesterday, Breitbart claimed:
The Swedish public has voted that climate change spending has been the biggest waste of taxpayer money in 2019, according to a poll by the Swedish Taxpayers' ...
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Did Alexander Graham Bell write "the unchecked burning of fossil fuels would have a sort of greenhouse effect" in 1917?
Quoting from a clearly low-quality journal:
In 1917 Alexander Graham Bell wrote. The unchecked burning of fossil fuels] would have a sort of greenhouse effect", and "The net result is the ...
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Were the emission savings of Greta Thunberg's trip by boat outweighed by crew flights?
Greta Thunberg sailed from England to New York in a yacht.
Wikipedia explains:
The trip was announced as a carbon-neutral transatlantic crossing serving as a demonstration of Thunberg's declared ...
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Does the production of a Tesla battery produce as much CO2 as driving 200,000 km?
Recently I read on Greenpeace's website, that the production of a 100 kWh battery, as in the Tesla Model S, produces as much CO2 as driving a regular car for 200,000 km.
Source: Tesla car ...
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Is climate change causing more storms and worse storm damage?
The BBC reports, under this headline Climate change: Bigger hurricanes are now more damaging
One of the big questions that scientists have wrestled with is how to compare storm events from ...
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Do termites produce 10 times more CO2 than humans?
On October 21 2019 Australian Federal MP Malcolm Roberts posted an image to his Facebook feed claiming termites produce 10 times more CO2 than humans in a year. Is there a factual basis to this?
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Did 500 scientists sign a declaration saying "There Is No Climate Emergency"?
In this press release from The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), there is a claim that 500 prominent climate scientists and professionals has submitted a declaration that there is no “climate ...
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Does the USA have the highest cumulative CO2 emissions since 1750?
Vox has posted a cumulative graph of CO2 emissions since 1750. And the USA is flagged as the chief culprit. The actual title of the Vox article is:
Why the US bears the most responsibility for ...
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Will global warming save millions of lives?
The Telegraph reported in 2009 that:
Global warming will save millions of lives
Dire predictions about climate change and health omit the cost of cold, says Bjorn Lomborg.
By Bjorn Lomborg.6:56PM GMT ...
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Is climate change already killing people and costing billions in the USA?
According to Gizmodo:
Climate change will make our lives worse in the years to come, but a new report out last week highlights the stark costs people are already paying across the Atlantic. In 2012 ...
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Do Milankovitch Cycles fully explain climate change?
The Milankovitch Cycles is the effect on the climate caused by variations in astronomical movements by the Earth relative to the Sun.
A recent Natural News article attributes of the recent effects of ...
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Did the US Climate Reference Network Show No New Warming Since 2005 in the US?
I believe most are aware of the difficulties on surface based temperatures. Gaps in thermometer placement and reliance on extrapolation, placement near HVAC unit, cities and other heat sources or ...
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Are the 2019 Amazon rainforest fires only 7% higher than the 10 year average?
This article makes the following claim:
While the number of fires in 2019 is indeed 80% higher than in 2018, it’s just 7% higher than the average over the last 10 years ago, Nepstad said.
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Was the number of forest fires in the Amazon in Summer 2019 considerably higher than usual?
This picture made the rounds in summer 2019, supposedly showing the areas affected by rainforest fires in Brazil (and other countries) right now. Of course it looks very bad and I'm pretty sure it is. ...
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Do beef farmed pastures net remove carbon emissions?
This viral image claims that an example beef farm with 130 cattle removes many tons of Carbon from the atmosphere every year. However it does not provide any sources.
This image has been shared many ...
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Has sea level rise slowed down?
This is a piece taken from the
Wikipedia page for the Jason-1 satellite used to measure sea level rise.
Although the 1993–2005 Topex/Poseidon satellite measured an average annual Global Mean Sea ...
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Was the 45.9°C temperature in France in June 2019 the highest ever recorded in France?
It was widely reported that on 28th June, 2019, a record temperature of 45.9°C was recorded in Gallargues-le-Montueux, France, breaking the previous 2003 record of 44.1°C. Sources: Metéo France, BBC, ...
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Does a return economy-class seat between London and San Francisco release 5.28 tonnes of CO2 equivalents?
I took this self-survey of CO2 emissions run by the German Environment Agency.
It computes for example that an economy class seat from London to San Francisco and back – about 22 hours flight &...
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What is the impact on climate change of having a child?
I found one study from 2017 that says (emphasis mine):
We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and ...
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Does having one fewer child reduce my carbon footprint as much as 71+ people going vegan?
In July 2017, ScienceMag reported on a study:
Eating no meat cuts an individual’s carbon footprint by 820 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year [...] by choosing to have one fewer child in ...
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