Questions tagged [pollution]

The act of allowing leaving substances in the natural environment that may or may not be harmful, or the substances themselves.

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Do Jet Skis produce in an hour equivalent pollution to 100,000km of a new/small car?

I recall this claim being published in a newspaper a while back but time has buried it in the Interwebs, though it does come up from time to time as e.g. Driving a jet ski for one hour will produce the equivalent amount of pollution as driving a…
Brian M. Hunt
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Is the European NO₂ limit of 40 µg/m³ for outside air backed by strong evidence?

According to the Umwelt Bundesamt, the average annual limit for the NO₂ concentration is set to 40 µg/m³ with the intention to protect people with asthma, small children and older people, especially those with damaged airways. This is lower than the…
Christian
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Can the oxygen levels in a polluted city be as low as 11%?

Normal levels of oxygen in atmosphere is around 21%. Recently in a discussion somebody commented that the polluted cities like Delhi has only 11% of oxygen in its atmosphere on some peak days of pollution. Can this be really true? Even if lot of…
PermanentGuest
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Do cigarettes emit three times as much particulates as an idling diesel engine?

We can see that cities like Melbourne are pushing far the smoking bans Often smoking is compared to car pollution, and is said to be insignificant But, according to this experiment A turbo diesel 2 litre engine was started and left idling for 30…
caub
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Is Bhutan the only carbon neutral/negative country?

Twitter moments recently had a moment about Bhutan being the only carbon neutral country in the world: Why Bhutan Is All Alone in the Carbon-Neutral Nation Club and one tweet in the Twitter moments said Here's why Bhutan is the only carbon-neutral…
Andrew Grimm
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Can cremating bodies cause black rain?

There is speculation that the mysterious black rain that Japan had a few months ago was from China cremating bodies, and in particular, mass cremations from coronavirus victims. 7 News: Coronavirus victims’ cremated bodies blamed on ominous black…
user56212
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Does each car in inner London cost society £8,000 in health and environmental cost over its lifetime?

The topic of air quality is getting a load of attention in newspaper headlines in the days leading up to Clean Air Day (21st June, apparently). For example, The Independent reports a recent study on the cost of pollution caused by cars: In total,…
matt_black
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To what extent do needle trees contribute to fine dust pollution?

Today I ran into an article concerning cars and their effect on the existence of particulate matter. Especially the last paragraph caught my attention where it is claimed that coniferous also contribute highly to the formation of particulate matter.…
NashVio
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Do Ultra-dense H11-grade HEPA filters remove up to 99% of PM0.3 particles?

The Xaiomi Air Purifier 2 website claims: HEPA (High-efficiency Particulate Arrestance) is frequently used in hospitals and labs to filter out micron-sized particles. Mi Air Purifier uses an ultra-dense Toray PP and PET HEPA filter to trap PM2.5,…
Zolbayar
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Has the claim that there's a causal relationship between poor air quality and death been debunked?

The EPA and other regulatory bodies have long concluded there is a casual relationship between poor (ambient) air quality and death. This news article challenges that claim: researchers have finally published a study claiming to have…
Liron Yahdav
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Are Silvester (New Year's Eve) fireworks as pollutive as cars in one year?

In my local newspaper, the Salzburger Nachrichten, there was the following article to be found on 31st of December, 2016: Guten Rutsch - krach, bumm! Hell wird es wieder sein am Nachthimmel und schön krachen wird es natürlich auch. Der Katzenjammer…
rexkogitans
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Is the Taylor oil spill on the scale of Deepwater Horizon?

According to CNN, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill leaked 176.4 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. By comparison, and also according to CNN, they say According to the [the Department of Justice's September] filing, the Taylor spill is…
Evan Carroll
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Is Google causing 40% of the CO2 emission of all internet traffic?

In Switzerland we sometimes have not very well researched articles in the free newspaper '20 Minuten Friday'.They now claim in a video that Google is causing 40% of the CO2 emission of the internet traffic. Title: Your Google search is bad for the…
Peter
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Does particulate pollution in outdoor air kill tens of thousands every year?

The effects of particulate pollution have recently been in the news. In the UK the Daily Mail reported: Toxins emitted by Britain’s booming number of diesel cars are fuelling a health crisis that kills 40,000 people a year, a landmark report warns…
matt_black
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Does an old car with engine turned off pollute more than a new car going 60 mph?

On the show Real Time with Bill Maher (Jan 9, 2015), Jay Leno (a guy that seems knowledgeable about cars) made this very interesting statement 37 minutes in: A 1977 Ford Galaxy, one of those big ones. Park it on the street, with the engine…
user3371583
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