Misleading
What’s worse: lithium mining or oil extraction? Viral social media posts suggest misleading answers to complex question.
Claim:
Lithium mining for electric cars has a greater environmental impact than oil extraction for gas cars.
Darrik Burns
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Source: Facebook, Social media users, 2024-08-16 -
AccurateAtmospheric CO2 concentrations rising faster today than the last 50,000 years, as accurately claimed in recent social media posts
Claim:
CO2 concentrations are increasing in Earth’s atmosphere faster than they have in the last 50,000 years.
Source: Facebook, Social media users, 2024-05-14 -
From vibrant corals to white skeletons: climate change and looming existential threats to coral reefs
Coral reefs and their ecosystems serve important roles on Earth – they flourish with biodiversity, providing habitat to 25% of…
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Inaccurate -
Sea-level rise: to mitigate or adapt? Experts say we need to do both.
Roughly 900 million people lived in low-lying coastal cities and settlements in 2020; a figure that is projected to reach 1 billion by 2050. Is there anything we can do now to reduce sea-level rise and its impacts? Our past actions will already impact sea-levels for thousands of years. But not everything is set in stone. We possess the power to reduce sea-level rise and its impacts over the next century and beyond with our current actions. Some advocate to mitigate the causes, and others to adapt to the consequences. But what do experts say?
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Inaccurate -
InaccurateSea levels have risen for over 100 years, despite misleading photos shared on social media
Claim:
Sea-level rise is not occurring or showing any impacts, based on photographic evidence.
Source: Facebook, 2024-06-06 -
IncorrectDead things transform into fossil fuels in Earth’s crust over millions of years; no evidence of deeper origins or renewable source
Claim:
Oil and gas are not "fossil fuels"; they are a renewable energy source generated in Earth's deeper interior (i.e., upper mantle)
Source: X/Twitter, Robin Monotti, 2024-05-25 -
IncorrectHimalayan salt formed through the evaporation of ancient seas; no evidence that this salt is petrified blood or tissue
Claim:
Himalayan salt deposits are the petrified remains of ancient giants.
Source: TikTok, Facebook, Social media users, 2024-05-18 -
IncorrectMesas, buttes, and similar landforms are created by deposition and erosion; they are not the remains of ancient trees
Claim:
Several types of flat-topped landforms, such as buttes and mesas, are the remains of giant ancient trees.
Source: TikTok, 2024-03-04
