Questions tagged [ecology]
a branch of biology and the scientific study of the interactions of organisms with their environment.
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Is the honey bee apocalypse real?
In 2013 Time magazine wrote
A World Without Bees: The Price We’ll Pay If We Don’t Figure Out What’s Killing the Honeybee.
In 2021 New York Post writes
Why the honey bee ‘apocalypse’ is based on a ...
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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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Did cultivated amaranth "almost disappear" from the Americas from the 1500s to the 1970s?
Iowa State University claims:
After the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in Mexico in the early 1500s, amaranth almost disappeared in the Americas as a crop until research began on it in the U.S. ...
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Is electric pulse fishing less ecologically harmful than beam trawl fishing? [closed]
The Netherlands have championed a technique for fishing which uses electric shocks to lure fish into their nets. It is called electric pulse fishing. The Dutch state (and fishing lobby) maintains that ...
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Is transportation highly pollution intensive, relative to production?
The text of this paper, Batra and Belladi (2012), claims:
transportation is highly pollution intensive, specially relative to production
They provide some more context:
With international ...
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Does forest therapy (Shinrin-yoku) improve the immune system?
According to shinrin-yoku.org, forests help to improve the immune system, including the part that fights cancer:
But in the past several decades there have been many scientific studies that are ...
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Does light pollution matter for Insect declines and agroecosystems?
Recently it was claimed that the increase in artificial light at night was a significant contributor to the 'ecological armageddon' of decreasing insect populations. It was further argued that the ...
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In California, is water from the north diverted into the Pacific Ocean?
Possibly addressing the Californian wildfires, president Donald Trump claims that in California "water coming from the north" is "being diverted into the Pacific Ocean".
Governor Jerry Brown must ...
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Is "Earth Overshoot Day" a useful or reliable metric of humanity's effect on the world?
Apparently, we are rapidly approaching Earth overshoot day and that day gets earlier every year. The Guardian explains:
Humanity is devouring our planet’s resources in increasingly destructive ...
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Do Americans use 500 million straws per day?
CNN claims that Americans use 500 million straws per day.
Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws, enough to
circle the Earth twice, or fill 125 school buses.
Other sources ...
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Is climate change causing jellyfish to wash up on the beach?
The following article
Thousands of Venomous Portuguese Man O’ Wars Wash Ashore in Australia: ‘It Was the Stuff Of Nightmares’
details an event where a large number of a jellyfish creatures washed up ...
user11643
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Are species becoming extinct at a rate of 0.01%-0.1% per annum?
The World Wide Fund for Nature warns that
there is, in fact, a very serious biodiversity crisis.
And illustrates this with an unreferenced "scientific analysis"
These experts calculate that ...
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Is the Great Barrier Reef dead after 25,000,000 years of being alive?
The New York Post published an article in 2016 titled Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016).
The Great Barrier Reef of Australia passed away in 2016 after a long illness. It was 25 ...
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Do Kaziranga National Park workers shoot and kill poachers?
Bored Panda reports:
Kaziranga National Park is a story of success when it comes to conservation of rhinos – but what they’ve done to achieve it is allowing its workers to shoot and even kill ...
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Are there more tigers in private ownership in the US than there are in the wild?
According to the WWF there are more tigers in US backyards than live in the wild.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/more-tigers-in-american-backyards-than-in-the-wild
I have heard variants of ...
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Can 3D ocean farms provide food and biofuel far more sustainably than other sources?
This article in The Nation contains an excerpt from “Ecological Redemption: Ocean Farming in the Era of Climate Change,” a lecture by Bren Smith given at the Thirty-Fifth Annual E. F. Schumacher ...
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Are 100 million sharks culled per year for safety reasons?
Are 100 million sharks culled per year for safety reasons?
Example claim
A woman has a 1 in 262,365 chance of being killed by a shark in her
lifetime.
In that very same lifetime she has a 1 ...
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Have 'upland farmers' struggled to protect livestock from foxes since the fox hunting ban in the UK
The Daily Mail reports plans to repeal the fox-hunting ban.
At present it is legal to hunt with two hounds to flush a fox to a gun. If the proposed change went ahead, the exemption would cover ...
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Are polar bears doing well despite a reduction in sea ice?
From Skeptical Science and many other sources:
In conclusion, the reason polar bears have been classed as threatened comes from the impacts of future climate change on the bears’ habitat. Current ...
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Is it almost impossible to find animals that are not contaminated by chemicals?
From Chapter 3 of Rachel Carson's seminal book, Silent Spring (1962):
FOR THE FIRST TIME in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from ...
user7920
3
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1
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How fair is "N% lower environment load" claim for lower grammage paper?
This is basically a rephrase of this question from Sustainability SE. Paper manufacturer UPM claims they have paper that has the same key characteristics (as white, as thick and as usable in office ...
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Is there a high ecological impact from buying a new car?
First, a disclaimer: this is my first question here, so please point out any deficiency so I can amend it.
Here in Italy, the Government has a recurring policy (it is happening every 2/3 years now) ...
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Is the value of a tree $193,250?
There is a sign, at the Eden Nature Park & Resort in City of Davao, Philippines, that says this:
Of concern to all!
A tree is worth $193,250
According to Professor T.M.Das of the
University of ...
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Do wind turbines kill many birds each year?
It has been claimed that due to their large size, and the velocity of their blades that wind turbines kill large numbers of birds that run into them at night, or in fog, and die.
http://www....
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Are 2–4 hour washing machine programs eco friendly?
New washing machine (at least in the EU) often have a special program named with something like "green" or "eco" and that are supposed to be environmentally friendly. These are often for around 2–4 ...
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