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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Climate & environment fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about climate & environment. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

1,358 published reviews in this topic

dpaClimate & environment

Das Eis in der Antarktis schrumpft nicht, sondern nimmt zu.

Publisher’s rating: Die Zahlen beziehen sich auf eine Studie, in der es nicht um das gesamte Eis in der Antarktis geht, sondern nur um das Schelfeis. Laut einer der Studienautorinnen liefert die Studie lediglich «eine kleine Momentaufnahme» und trifft keine Schlussfolgerungen über den Klimawandel. Insgesamt gingen in der Antarktis in den letzten Jahren mehrere tausend Gigatonnen an Festlandeis verloren.

The claim arose from a Facebook post stating that Antarctic ice had gained 5,305 square kilometres and 661 gigatonnes since 2009. The review traces those figures to a 2023 study, “Change in Antarctic ice shelf area from 2009 to 2019.” That study measured floating ice shelves, not all Antarctic ice; the review distinguishes them from the grounded ice sheet. The post and a blog used the area increase to suggest that warnings about the climate crisis were exaggerated, but the area measurement alone does not establish that the continent’s total ice mass was growing. The review reports that glaciologist Helmut Rott put the grounded ice mass loss between 2009 and 2019 at about 2,200 gigatonnes, equivalent to six millimetres of sea-level rise. He explained that ice flows from the interior towards the shelves, then calves from their edges; therefore, changes in shelf area are not the same as changes in the mass of grounded ice. Rott also described the reported shelf-area increase as insignificant and not evidence of a longer-term trend. He noted that three large icebergs calved in the following two years, more than reversing that area gain. Study co-author Julia Andreasen told dpa that the article offered only a snapshot of shelf-area development based on satellite images and drew no conclusions about climate change or the overall change in Antarctic ice mass. For broader context, the review cites estimates that Antarctica lost 2,720 ± 1,390 gigatonnes of ice from 1992 to 2017. Thus, the post’s figures describe a limited, temporary change in floating shelf area, not evidence that Antarctic ice as a whole was increasing.

APA - Austria Presse AgenturClimate & environment

Das Eis in der Antarktis sei seit 2009 um über 5.000 Quadratkilometer gewachsen und habe hunderte Gigatonnen an Eis gewonnen

Publisher’s rating: Die Behauptungen der Klima-Skeptiker sind falsch. Die genannte Studie bezieht sich nicht auf das gesamte Eis in der Antarktis, sondern nur auf das Schelfeis. In der Antarktis gingen in den letzten Jahren mehrere tausend Gigatonnen an Festlandeis verloren.

The claim draws on a May 2023 study that measured changes in Antarctic ice-shelf area between 2009 and 2019. The review explains that the study’s reported increase—5,305 square kilometres—was an area change in floating ice shelves, not evidence that Antarctica’s entire ice mass gained hundreds of gigatonnes. The study’s authors, the review reports, made no conclusions about climate change or the overall change in Antarctic ice mass. The distinction matters because the continent’s ice includes floating ice shelves and ice resting on land. The review cites glaciologist Helmut Rott’s account that Antarctica lost about 2,200 gigatonnes of land-based ice from 2009 to 2019, corresponding to six millimetres of sea-level rise. That land-based ice flows toward the shelves; the review says the transfer across the boundary between grounded ice and shelf ice is decisive for the land-ice mass balance and sea-level rise. The area increase also does not establish a lasting gain. Rott described the change in shelf area over 2009–2019 as close to zero relative to the total shelf area, and said that the apparent gain was more than erased within the following two years by the calving of three icebergs. The review therefore distinguishes a limited, satellite-based measurement of shelf area from claims about total Antarctic ice mass or a long-term trend.

dpa-factcheckingClimate & environment

Die schwedische Klimaaktivistin Greta Thunberg hat 2018 in einem Tweet den Untergang der Menschheit im Jahr 2023 vorausgesagt.

Publisher’s rating: Der Satz lässt eine solche Lesart überhaupt nicht zu. Der Zeitraum von fünf Jahren bezieht sich auf die Nutzung fossiler Brennstoffe. Richtig ist, dass Thunberg den Tweet gelöscht hat. Der darin zitierte Online-Artikel gibt die Aussagen des angeblich paraphrasierten US-Wissenschaftlers völlig falsch wieder. Dieser sprach 2018 vielmehr vom Einfluss fossiler Brennstoffe auf das Eis in der Arktis, nicht von einem Ende der Menschheit.

The allegation concerns a tweet Greta Thunberg posted on June 21, 2018, which was later presented as predicting that humanity would be wiped out by 2023. The review says the tweet quoted a sentence at the beginning of an article on gritpost.com. Read in full, that sentence makes the five-year period conditional on stopping fossil-fuel use; it does not say that humanity would end in five years. The review explains that the article’s intended warning was about reaching emissions limits by 2023, with catastrophic climate effects occurring decades or centuries later: “Vielmehr geht es darum, dass die Menschheit bis 2023 bestimmte Grenzwerte für Schadstoffemissionen erreichen müsse, da sonst aufgrund von Rückkopplungen im Klimasystem katastrophale Ereignisse Jahrzehnte bis Jahrhunderte später garantiert seien.” The review traces the wording to the gritpost.com author’s paraphrase of a January 11, 2018, talk by Harvard professor James Anderson in Chicago. It contrasts that paraphrase with reporting about the talk and Anderson’s own response to the Associated Press. According to the review, Anderson discussed the irreversible effects of fossil-fuel use on polar ice caps, not human extinction by 2023: “In der Rede, über die etwa das «Forbes»-Magazin berichtete, ging es etwa um die Auswirkungen des Kohlenstoffgehalts in der Atmosphäre: Die Welt müsse, so Anderson demnach, bis 2023 aufhören, fossile Brennstoffe zu verwenden. Ansonsten wären die Auswirkungen auf die polaren Eiskappen irreversibel.” The review also quotes Anderson calling the extinction wording “eine völlige Verzerrung” of his talk. The review reports that Thunberg deleted the tweet, but says archived versions still made its content and the cited article traceable. It notes that gritpost.com’s article was no longer available by January 2021, while an archived version dated May 1, 2018, showed its text. Thus, the extinction claim arose from reading the five-year condition as a deadline for humanity’s end, rather than as a deadline concerning fossil-fuel use and its consequences.

dpaClimate & environment

Cette infographoie montre qu'il n'y a pas de secheresse en France.

Publisher’s rating: Non, ces allégations se fondent sur un raisonnement trompeur. Le risque de sécheresse est évalué sur base de plusieurs indicateurs, dont celui des niveaux des eaux de surface. Mais le calcul tient également compte de nombreux autres paramètres, comme l'état des nappes phréatiques, dont deux tiers présentent des niveaux sous les normales mensuelles.

APA - Austria Presse AgenturClimate & environment

Deutsche Wetterkarten werden bewusst mit Flammen versehen um Klimapanik zu verbreiten

Publisher’s rating: Die Wetterkarten sind manipuliert und wurden von einigen Usern für Satire eingesetzt, manchmal aber ohne Kennzeichnung geteilt. Die originalen ARD-Wetterberichte verwendeten keine Flammen.

The claim concerns online images presented as German television weather maps, with flames used to illustrate heat, and alleges that they were deliberately made to spread climate panic. The review places these images in a broader debate over accusations that media coverage of climate change uses alarming colors. It distinguishes the viral images from the actual ARD broadcast: the images were altered, and the original weather reports did not show flames. The evidence in the excerpt therefore undercuts the presentation of flames as a feature of official German weather maps; it does not establish that the maps were deliberately created to spread climate panic. The review describes three circulating images and gives different qualifications for each. One carried a satire label; another was accompanied by text indicating it was not a real depiction; a third had no such label. The lack of a label on that third image is relevant to how it could be understood when shared, but the excerpt does not identify who made it or establish their intent.

dpaClimate & environment

La station de recherche soviétique au pôle sud de la mystérieuse Antarctique est entièrement recouverte de neige 65 ans après sa construction, l'arnaque du réchauffement climatique.

Publisher’s rating: Non, ces allégations s'appuient sur un raisonnement trompeur, fondé sur la seule comparaison de deux photos. L'enfouissement de stations en Antarctique peut résulter de l'accumulation de neige dans certaines zones. Ce phénomène normal n'a pas de rapport direct avec le dérèglement climatique, ont expliqué deux glaciologues à la dpa.

The claim uses photographs of a Soviet refuge at Antarctica’s pole of inaccessibility—one showing the base in 1958 and another showing it buried beneath snow—to argue that global warming is a hoax. The review says the images are about six decades apart, but argues that comparing two photographs cannot establish a contradiction between rising global average temperatures and snow accumulation at one site. It identifies the later image as showing Chinese adventurer Feng Jing, who reached the pole of inaccessibility on January 25, 2020. [S1] The review consulted two glaciologists. Frank Pattyn of the Université libre de Bruxelles said structures placed directly on snow can be buried as snow accumulates unevenly; some areas, including coastal and mountainous regions, receive more snowfall than others. Jean-Louis Tison said wind redistribution could have piled snow onto the refuge, while stressing that even this explanation would not connect the local burial to climate change. [S1] The review also supplies context left out by the photo comparison: Antarctica receives substantial snowfall, but its central regions, including the South Pole, are relatively little exposed to precipitation. Pattyn said snowfall accumulation is expected to increase in Antarctica as warmer air can carry more moisture. Tison added that the continent is nevertheless currently considered to be losing mass overall, with icebergs breaking away outweighing snowfall gains, particularly in West Antarctica. He said recent precipitation increases, if present, were measured on the coasts, not in central Antarctica. The review therefore treats the buried refuge as a local snow-accumulation phenomenon, not evidence that global warming is a hoax. [S1]

dpaClimate & environment

90 procent van de stroom wordt opgewekt in kolencentrales.

Publisher’s rating: Kolen zijn verantwoordelijk voor zo'n 14 procent van de elektriciteitsopwekking in Nederland, en 36 procent wereldwijd. Waar auto's op fossiele brandstof - zoals de naam zegt - honderd procent fossiele brandstoffen gebruiken, rijden elektrische wagens in Nederland op een energiemix waarvan zo'n 33 procent hernieuwbaar is.

The review examines a Facebook claim that electric cars run on electricity generated 90% by coal-fired power plants. It tests that specific figure against electricity-generation data, distinguishing the electricity used by vehicles from energy produced directly for uses such as transport and heating. Its central finding is that coal supplies nowhere near 90% of electricity generation in either the Netherlands or the world. For the Netherlands, the review reports that coal generated 16.54 billion kWh in 2021, about 14% of the country’s electricity mix. It also says renewables supplied 33% of electricity generation that year. Worldwide, coal accounted for about 36% of electricity generation in 2021, while renewables accounted for about 28%. The review notes that China, the country it identifies as most reliant on coal-fired electricity, was at 55% in 2021; its share had been 87% in 1965, showing that the historical figure does not describe the later period. The review cautions that these electricity figures do not cover all energy production. When energy used directly for heat and transport is included, it reports coal’s share of global energy production in 2021 as 25.21%, rather than its 36.26% share of electricity generation. In the Netherlands, coal represented 6.9% of total energy production in 2021. Those broader figures still do not support a 90% coal share. The evidence therefore addresses the claim’s stated electricity-generation measure, while making clear that electricity and total energy are different measures.

dpaClimate & environment

Un nuage toxique de poussière d'uranium en provenance de l'Ukraine a atteint Lublin en Pologne.

Publisher’s rating: Les autorités polonaises et ukrainiennes affirment qu'aucune augmentation des radiations n'a été constatée ni à Lublin, ni à Khmelnytskyi. Des données plus anciennes le confirment également. D'après des chercheurs et les autorités polonaises, les épisodes pluvieux ont temporairement augmenté les niveaux de Bismuth-214 dans l'air. Toutefois, ce phénomène est naturel et inoffensif.

The claim linked explosions in Khmelnytskyi, western Ukraine, to a toxic uranium-dust cloud that supposedly reached Lublin, Poland, and caused elevated radiation readings. The review places the reported explosions on May 13, 2023, and says elevated levels of Bismuth-214 were measured in Lublin two days later. It reports that the review examined whether the explosions released uranium and whether radiation levels in Poland had risen.

dpaClimate & environment

Deze video toont een protest van klimaatactivisten.

Publisher’s rating: De video toont geen protesterende klimaatactivisten, maar een grote dansopvoering in de Duitse stad Wuppertal. Het drie uur durende optreden is onderdeel van het de projectweek "Wundertal", van het Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch.

The video was presented as showing climate activists making a mess with colored powder, but the investigation identifies it as a public dance performance in Wuppertal, Germany, rather than a climate protest. The footage shows a large performance associated with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch and its “Wundertal” project week. The review describes how the investigators traced the video’s source: the name “wuppertal.aktuell” was visible in the footage, and searching for it led them to the original video on Instagram. That original post identified the performance as a project of Tanztheater Pina Bausch. The event took place on 21 May 2023 on Sonnborner Straße, where about 200 professional dancers and hobbyists performed together to organ music for more than three hours. The review says the event launched a week of dance performances around the city. It notes that a climate activist could have been among the dancers, but says the performance itself had no political message and was not a climate protest. The post’s interpretation therefore misrepresented the event shown in the video.