Questions tagged [environment]
Referring to the surrounding ecosystem of the planet Earth, its natural mechanisms and balances, and study of the effects of human interaction with it.
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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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Has Azerbaijan "not had any environmental activist initiatives for the past decade"?
A long article about the Azerbaijani blockade of the (now former) Lachin corridor claims that:
Azerbaijan is an authoritarian country that has not had any environmental activist initiatives for the ...
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Can indoor plants recycle the air we breathe?
This question on the Gardening SO site suggests that plants can be used to clean the air within a home or office environment.
I know of the research done by NASA on indoor plants which can clean/...
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Was Greenpeace ever sponsored by the KGB?
As an urban legend, I've heard this claim many times. Allegedly, in the 1970s, the KGB sponsored various Western "anti-war" movements, especially the ones that could hinder Western nuclear ...
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Is there an increase in whale deaths due to windfarms?
During a recent speech in North Carolina, Donald Trump blamed offshore wind farms for the rise in whale deaths.
Trump made the remarks about offshore wind’s possible link to the surge in baleen whale ...
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Do lost people tend to unintentionally walk in circles?
Is it fact/myth that when you get lost in the wilderness, you go round in circles?
Common belief has it that people who get lost in unfamiliar terrain often end up walking in circles. Although ...
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Is pollution the main cause of Notre Dame Cathedral's deterioration?
A 2017 Time article discussing the crumbling, wearing out, and water damage of France's Notre Dame Cathedral prior to the 2019 fire writes (emphasis added):
Notre Dame, which looms over the capital ...
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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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Was the 2023 Ohio train derailment the 'worst environmental disaster in US history'?
According to Impact Nottingham:
East Palestine, Ohio: Exploring The Worst Environmental Disaster in
the History of the USA
On 3rd February 2023, a freight train carrying various potentially
hazardous ...
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Are more than a billion umbrellas thrown away every year?
I own a Blunt umbrella. From their and other umbrella sites, there is a claim that over a billion umbrellas are thrown away every year.
Blunt claims it on their website
Finisterre claims it
Senz ...
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Would covering 10% of hydro-power reservoirs with solar panels generate as much power as fossil-fuel plants worldwide?
This article in the journal Nature, claims that:
Covering 10% of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with ‘floatovoltaics’ would install as much electrical capacity as is currently available for fossil-...
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Do banana peels take 2 years to decompose?
A Google search for "banana peel decompose time" gives the result: 2 years.
This claim is repeated in several reputable sources, such as: Popular Mechanics, The Guardian, and BBC.
However, ...
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Does flying a small GA aircraft use less fuel than driving the same distance by car?
This is a notable claim by Friedrich Merz, head of the CDU party and a member of the German parliament:
„Ich bereue nicht, dass ich zur Hochzeit von Christian Lindner geflogen bin. Um es mal auf den ...
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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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Was plastic from a seaplane shot down in 1944 recently found in an albatross stomach?
The environmentalist website Ocean Sentry makes the claim (citing Calgary Herald) that:
The massive clockwise North Pacific Gyre is carrying plastic that is over 50 years old. Last year, plastic ...
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Is cancer a man-made disease?
Not too long ago a story about a study examining mummies for the prevalence of cancer caused a flurry of articles in the media claiming that cancer is a man-made disease. The researchers claim that ...
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Does glass decompose in one million years?
Is there any authoritative reference to the claim that glass decomposes in one million years? I came across that figure multiple times (for example, 1, 2, 3). They often cite The New Hampshire ...
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Are fossil fuels making the world greener?
The popular understanding (at least among those who are not climate skeptics) of global warming is that it is likely to create environmental catastrophe for reasons such as spreading deserts and ...
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Does the average carbon footprint per bitcoin transaction range from 233.4 to 363.5 kg of CO2?
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30087-X says,
According to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, Bitcoin’s energy use in 2018 translates to a carbon footprint of 19.0 to 29.6 ...
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Is photosynthesis 60% efficient?
In this article it is claimed that photosynthesis efficiency could be up to 60%.
The closest process to artificial photosynthesis humans have today is photovoltaic technology, where a solar cell ...
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Do windmills in freezing climates require power so they don't seize up?
This graphic shared on Facebook, says windmills require active heating in freezing climates when not producing electricity. Its exact text reads,
Germany's millions of solar panels are blanketed in ...
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Feasibility of electric car production given current production levels of various elements and compounds
This infographic (source) shows the elements required for production of 20 million Tesla cars per year, and compares that with current production rates of those elements. Looks like this was in ...
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How long do disposable plastic shopping bags take to break down [closed]
Recently in Australia some major supermarkets have begun phasing out disposable shopping bags.
A lot of people are saying things like that the new reusable bags are worse than the disposable bags.
...
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Is being a vegan more environmentally friendly than otherwise?
On their website, PETA claimed the following:
A recent United Nations report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change. And the U....
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Is buying organic vs. conventional products better for the environment?
From http://www.goldengatexpress.org/2013/04/07/true-organic-food-benefits-environment-sustainability/:
Another reason to choose organic products is that the environmental footprint attached to ...
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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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Does grass alone produce enough oxygen for life?
Over a work happy hour tonight, two employees were talking about their different lifestyles -- one likes riding four wheelers, which the other considers to be recreational pollution. Somehow the fact ...
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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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Does 1 acre of hemp produce more oxygen than an equivalent amount (let alone 25x) of forestland? [closed]
I have a friend who likes to promote hemp on Facebook, and one of the posts had this "factoid":
Looks highly doubtful to me but I can't find any real supporting/disputing info.
Is there ...
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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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Does rolled sod produce 40x as much oxygen as a pine forest?
From an advertisement for turf / rolled sod by a German company:
250 m² Rollrasen produzieren etwa so viel Sauerstoff wie 10.000 m² Kiefernwald oder etwa so viel, wie eine vierköpfige Familie zum ...
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Is paying your bill online more environmentally friendly than post?
My monthly Comcast statement says that I should go paperless and pay my bill online via "Ecobill, the environmentally friendly way to pay your bill each month".
All jokes about Comcast aside, has ...
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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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Do colder temperatures increase our hunger?
I've heard this multiple times as an explanation to eating more in relation to being exposed to colder temperatures (restaurants that are colder, during the winter, etc.) but I have yet to be able to ...
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Does the Earth only have 60 years of harvests before the top soil is lost?
According to this 2014 Scientific American article by Chris Arsenault
Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top ...
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Do "big-battery" electric vehicles release more CO2 than diesel equivalents over their lifetime?
Autocar report that Mazda have made a surprising claim about electric vehicles with larger batteries (i.e. 95kWh):
Mazda says it will never build a ‘big-battery’ electric car, because it believes ...
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Have 500 million mammals, birds and reptiles died in the 2019 Australian bushfires?
Several news sites have reported that almost 500 million animals* have died in the 2019 Australian bushfires. Example: article in news.com.au (Jan 1st 2020)
Ecologists from the University of Sydney ...
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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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Did the 2018 drought in Europe result in 2019 worldwide grain crop not meeting demand?
An essay on T-Online.de makes the following claim:
Schon ein einziger Dürresommer in Europa 2018 führte dazu, dass die Getreideernte in diesem Jahr weltweit den Bedarf nicht mehr deckt (noch gibt ...
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Does the Constitution of Bhutan state that 60% of Bhutan must be forested?
Transcription:
Did you know?
The constitution of Bhutan specifies that 60% of the country must remain forested.
-- MightyFacts.com
Title and picture is pretty self explanatory. Is the ...
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Is the water used in coal burning power plants "never returned to the environment"?
According to a Duke University press release titled Replacing Coal with Gas or Renewables Saves Billions of Gallons of Water:
Water consumption – the amount of water used by a power plant and ...
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Does the Kiri Tree reduce carbon dioxide emissions ten times more than the average tree?
The About section of the Kiri Tree website says:
The tree is known to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions ten times
more than the average tree and also in return produce ten times more
oxygen ...
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Can magnets be used to clean laundry?
According to the Magnetic Laundry site, magnets can be used instead of detergent to clean laundry!
For a "scientific" explanation, their video states:
These magnets work at an atomic level to ...
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Are a third of the proteins we consume dependent on synthetic fertilizer?
In July 1997, Vaclav Smil wrote an article in Scientific American on humankind's use of the Nitrogen Cycle (emphasis added):
Synthetic fertilizers provide about 40 percent of all the nitrogen taken ...
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Did Finding Nemo encourage people to flush pet fish down the toilet?
A Smithsonian article about goldfish starts out with (emphasis added):
The 2003 Pixar film Finding Nemo popularized the misconception that all drains lead to the ocean, encouraging young fans to ...
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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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Is food becoming less nutritious because of depletion of soil minerals and nutrients?
Over and over, I have heard and read claims that the soil growing much of the planet's crops is "depleted" and thus our foods do not have sufficient minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients.
Five ...
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In Miami, can you see fish from the ocean swim on the streets because of the sea level rise?
I was reading this article at theBlaze.com that talks about an interview Al Gore had with Chris Wallace (shown on Fox News on Sunday Jun 4, 2017).
The article focuses on claims that Al Gore had made ...
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Has ExxonMobil sequestered over 40 percent of all captured CO2?
From ExxonMobil's website on carbon capture and storage (CCS):
With a working interest in approximately one-fifth of the world’s total carbon capture capacity, ExxonMobil is a leader in one of the ...
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Is there more forest in the Northern Hemisphere now than 100 years ago?
In April 19, 2019, there was a public debating event called "Happiness: Capitalism vs. Marxism" featuring Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson and psychoanalytical philosopher Slavoj Žižek as the ...
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