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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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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Does sharing a shower use less water?
From what I found on the Internet, a brief shower is more water efficient than a bath. I was wondering if there is any research about water use with more than one person using a shower? My gut ...
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Is there a huge gas bubble below the Gulf of Mexico floor ready to wreak havok?
I was sent the video HERE a bit back, which gave me pause. It was sent by a family member who at least grants plausibility to 9/11 conspiracies and some other, shall we say, "fringe" theories about ...
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Does the meat industry cause 414 billion dollars in externalized costs?
About 34 minutes into the 2014 Documentary Cowspiracy, there is a statement by David Simon, the author of Meatonomics, about hidden costs of animal food production.
I've added up the costs of ...
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Do Starbucks' new lids use more plastic than the previous lids plus straws?
Have recently seen this claim circulating Facebook:
The image goes to a post by a group called UnbiasedAmerica... but it looks like the original source article is the story Starbucks Bans Plastic ...
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Do candles create more carbon dioxide than light bulbs?
During the annual ritual of Earth Hour:
...around one billion people are expected to switch off their lights for one hour as a political statement against climate change and fossil fuels, and in ...
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Is it more environmentally friendly to stir hot drinks with pasta?
In the café where I work, somebody tried introducing pasta, spaghetti in particular, in place of purpose-made wooden sticks, for stirring hot drinks, as it was thought to be more "environmentally ...
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Are biofuels environmentally friendly?
Both the EU and the USA have programmes to encourage the use of biofuels in gasoline and diesel. This is supposed to help reduce oil imports and help the environment at the same time.
But government ...
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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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Did SF grocery bag ban cause at least an additional 5.4 deaths a year due to bacteria in reusable grocery bags?
The paper Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness (Klick & Wright, 2012) claims that
Our results suggest that the San Francisco ban led to between 5.4 and 15.8 additional
deaths.
The logic ...
user17967
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Do forests increase atmosphere's oxygen?
I've read that forests are important because they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen to the atmoshpere 1. But other places say that this is false for a mature forest:
"On average, then, this ...
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Is 22-23 Celsius (72-73 degrees F) measurably the optimal temperature for office productivity
I must admit that I lost the original reference for the claim, but almost certain it was LifeHacker, so it is notable enough.
The claim is that 72-73 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 22-23 Celsius) is ...
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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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Are storms getting more or less severe in the long term for Australia?
Over the past couple of years people have been claiming that storms are getting more severe in Australia. Some linking this to global warming.
Specifically Professor Ross Garnaut in the opening ...
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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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Are we running out of drinking water so that we need to be frugal with it?
I’ve read in the news that a majority of earth’s population might run out of drinking water. As with many of these kind of predictions it’s difficult to judge the urgency and correctness of it ...
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Is Russia funding environmentalist groups to protest fracking?
Leaked transcripts from a private Clinton speech suggest that Russia has given large amounts of money to environmentalist groups in Europe and the US to promote protests against fracking, according to ...
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Does lead used in electronics leach into the environment via landfill at detrimental levels?
Despite being one of the earliest metals exploited by man, lead is an environmental poison. If it gets into the body it causes a variety of acute and chronic symptoms and even low levels are thought ...
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Is dolphin hunting in Taiji unsustainable?
In the article "Dolphin hunt claim denied" (page 3 of mX Sydney, 25 March 2015), Australia for Dolphins chief executive Sarah Lucas refers to "the violent and unsustainable dolphin hunts in Taiji". ...
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Does crop burning in Cambodia contribute to particulate levels in Bangkok?
Bangkok is currently coping with unhealthy levels of PM2.5 particulates.
On the 26th of January, the Bangkok Post wrote an article with the following passage on a link with Cambodian crop burning:
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