The goal of this blog is to create a list of super facts. Important facts that are true with very high certainty and yet surprising, misunderstood, or disputed by many. This blog aims to be challenging, educational, and fun, without it being clickbait. I determine veracity using evidence, data from reputable sources and longstanding scientific consensus. Prepare to be challenged (I am). Intentionally seek the truth not confirmation of your belief.
Author: thomasstigwikman
My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.
Super fact 109 : The global number of people without electricity has halved since 2000, but it has increased in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the year 2000 1.35 billion people in the world was without electricity and in the year 2023 it was 675 million people according to Our World in Data. The dark aspect of the statistics is that the number of people without electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased from 500 million people to more than 600 million people.
The global number of people without electricity has halved since 2000, but it has increased in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to electricity is defined as having an electricity source that can provide very basic lightning and charge a phone or power a radio for 4 hours per day. Data source: Data compiled from multiple sources by the World Bank. CC BY. The graphs come from this page from Our World in Data.
This also means that the share of people without electricity living in Sub-Saharan Africa increased from 37% in the year 2000 to 80% now. However, it is also true that the share of people in Sub-Saharan Africa with electricity has doubled, rising from 26% to 53%. What is going on is that population growth has outpaced this expansion, meaning the number of people without electricity has still risen.
For the rest of the world, it is unequivocally good news. For example, in South Asia more than 500 million people lacked electricity in the year 2000, 414 million lacked electricity in 2010, and only 27 million people lacked electricity in 2023. Another way to look at the access to energy gap is by considering how long it is possible to run an air conditioner in different countries. Click here for data and analysis. In summary, the news for Sub-Saharan Africa is complicated but for the rest of the World, it is very good news. To read more about this topic click here.
I consider this a super fact because I believe it is an important but surprising fact in two parts. First the great news for the world and secondly the mixed news for Sub-Saharan Africa.
No Relief for the Heat Down in Africa
As mentioned, four of the five regions of the world, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, MENA, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have made substantial progress. However, Sub-Saharan Africa is a complicated case. Note that MENA stand for Middle East and North Africa.
An alternative way of looking at access to electricity is to consider how much electricity is being used in each country and how that translates into the number of hours or minutes that an air conditioner could be running. Note it doesn’t mean that an air conditioner will be shut off after, let say 25 minutes, just that is much electricity one person use. What should be noted from the graph below is how dire the situation still looks like in Sub-Saharan countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is still very behind in this regard, and the fact that global warming is likely to hit Africa very hard that is not good news.
Energy Poverty: How long could the average person run an air conditioner every day? This is how many hours a typical 1000 W single-room air conditioner could be powered by the current average residential electricity use per person in various countries. Data source: Calculated based on International Energy Agency and UN World Population Prospects. OurWorldinData.org – Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. Licensed under CC BY by the author Hannah Ritchie. The graph is coming from this page from Our World in Data.
Super fact 108 : A Pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its magnetic poles. The radioactive beam from a pulsar that is located where the sun is located would heat earth’s surface to tens of thousands of degrees. The pulsar may rotate hundreds of times per second, and we only detect the beam when it crosses our line of sight. A neutron star, or a pulsar, is vastly denser than the Sun, typically hundreds of trillions of times denser.
As mentioned, a pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits beams of radiation from its magnetic poles. A neutron star is an ultra-dense remnant left behind when a massive supergiant star runs out of fuel and collapses. You can read more about neutron stars in my post here and you can read about neutron stars that act like super magnets called magnetars here. This web page feature a calculation of what the intensity of a pulsar beam would be if it hit Earth and the pulsar is located where the sun is.
The beam from a pulsar hits earth causing destruction. This is an AI picture generated by me and ChatGPT.
I consider this a super fact because pulsars are a very extreme type of star, which existence I believe comes as a surprise to many people.
Pulsar with energetic jets in space. Shutterstock asset id: 2697475389 by Nazarii_Neshcherenskyi
Below is a one and a half minute NASA video explaining what a pulsar is. It is taken from this website.
Different Types of Neutron Stars and Different types of Pulsars
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons
Neutron stars are extreme stars. They are small super dense stars with extreme gravitational fields. They are in a sense like a gigantic atomic nucleus. Perhaps it is not surprising that they are extreme in other ways as well. There are pulsars, neutron stars which emit twin beams of radiation from their magnetic poles. Those poles may not be precisely aligned with the neutron star’s rotation axis, so as the neutron star spins, the beams sweep across the sky, like beams from a lighthouse. To observers on Earth, this can make it look as though the pulsar’s light is pulsing on and off.
There are different types of pulsars. Some spin extremely fast. They rotate hundreds of times per second, even 700 times per second. They are called Millisecond Pulsars. There are pulsars that emit beams of radio waves and pulsars that emit only gamma rays. A black widow pulsar a star system consisting of a rapidly spinning pulsar and a companion star that is being consumed by the pulsar like a black widow spider eats its mate. This link feature animation videos from NASA showing a star being consumed by a black widow pulsar.
Finally, there are magnetars, neutron stars with extremely powerful magnetic fields trillions and quadrillion times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field at the surface. You can read about them here.
Superfact 107: Electric vehicles are rapidly replacing the internal combustion engine (ICE cars) and are becoming commonplace around the world. It is analogous to how cars once replaced the horse and buggy.
In Norway close to 100% of all new cars sold in 2025 were electric vehicles. Around the world a substantial percentage of new cars sold in 2025 were electric vehicles. This phenomenon is not as visible here in the US, where I live, but if you travel, you’ll notice.
The graphs below show that the share of new cars that were sold in 2025 that were EVs was substantial, but more importantly there is a sharp upward slope of the curve(s). The share of new cars sold in 2025 that were electric was in respective region or country: Norway 97%, Denmark 71%, China 53%, European Union 27%, World 25%, the United States 10%. The graphs are taken from this page on the Our World in Data web page. I encourage you to play around with the interactive graphs. You can read more about new cars sales in Norway here.
It should be noted that electric cars include fully battery-electric and plug-in hybrids. With battery-electric cars is meant cars or other vehicles that are powered entirely by an electric motor and battery, instead of an internal combustion engine. With plug-in hybrid is meant cars or other vehicles that have a rechargeable battery and electric motor, and an internal combustion engine. The battery in plug-in hybrids is smaller and has a shorter range than battery-electric cars, so over longer distances, the car starts running on gasoline once the battery has run out.
This is a fact that is important, and that likely comes as a surprise to people living in countries that are lagging in this transition, such as the United States. Therefore, I consider it a super fact.
The Share of EVs
The sharp increase in the sale of electric cars is a recent phenomenon and therefore there are still a lot of ICE cars on the roads. Therefore, there is a significant difference between the share of electric vehicles on the road and the share of new cars sales being EVs. The share of electric cars on the roads in 2024 was in the United States 2.7%, in the world 4.5%, in China 11%, in Sweden 13% and in Norway 32%. See the graph below.
Share of cars currently in use that are electric, 2010 to 2024. Data source: International Energy Agency Global EV Outlook 2025. OurWorldinData.org/energy | CC BY
The graph below illustrates the sales of fully battery-electric cars versus plug-in hybrids.
The bar graph below is an alternative illustration showing the share of new cars sold that are electric in 2024 for the world and 8 countries.
Share of new cars sold that are electric, 2024. Electric cars include fully battery-electric and plug-in hybrids. Data source: International Energy Agency Global EV Outlook 2025. OurWorldinData.org | CC BY
This article states that there are now more new electric cars sold in the EU than ICEs. However, it should be noted that they include hybrids (non-plug-in) in this number.
Are EVs cleaner than ICE cars ?
Yes, they are, for the most part. EV Cars emit less pollution than Internal Combustion Engine Cars, even considering manufacturing, disposal and EV Cars being charged by dirty grids. Basically, this is because burning oil to move a vehicle creates significantly more heat than motion.
It all depends on how dirty the grid is. This map shows the average EV as a gasoline MPG equivalent for the different grid networks in the United States in 2020. As you can see an average EV corresponds to a 76 mpg gas car in Texas (with the ERCOT) grid, which is much cleaner than almost any gasoline car. Also, the ERCOT grid has become cleaner since 2020. The average for the United States is 91 mpg. There are a couple of grids for which owning an EV may not be cleaner. I created another super fact post that explains the details called: super fact (29) EV Cars Indeed Emit Less Carbon Pollution. You can read more here.
There are concerns about the mining of minerals for EV cars, such as cobalt and lithium, which has an environmental impact. However, this environmental impact should be compared to the environmental impact caused by the drilling and transport of oil (and the burning of gas/oil). In general, the environmental impact of EVs is considered much less. In addition, EV batteries last a long time, and 95% to 98% of the valuable materials in EV batteries (lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper.) can be recycled/recovered. You can read about other EV myths here. However, this is probably a topic for a future super-fact.
Craigavad a scientist and fellow blogger, wrote a very well balanced and insightful article on the issue of the carbon cost of electric vehicles. I encourage you to read it : “The Carbon Cost of Electric Cars: are they worth it?”
Superfact 106: IPCC likely retiring the RCP8.5 emissions scenario does not mean that the IPCC backtracked on any climate science. It does not mean that climate change does not remain a serious and dangerous problem, and it definitely does not mean that global warming is not human caused.
The photo below was recently taken by the International Space Station proving once and for all that Earth is flat like a pancake. NASA issued a statement on Thursday stating that Earth being closely spherical in shape is a long standing hoax created by leftwing extremists.
Digital illustration of flat Earth. Shutterstock asset id: 797857906 by Amanda Carden
OK, that isn’t true. It sounds like an April 1st joke, doesn’t it? It is a joke, except it isn’t April 1st. However, a fairly recent survey showed that 10% of the US population believe Earth is flat, not roundish. Imagine you not understanding any of the evidence for Earth being round and imagine that you’ve never stood on a tall hill watching ships disappearing below the horizon and imagine you being surrounded by a lot of people who claim that Earth is flat. It would be easy for you to believe that Earth is flat like a pancake. Wouldn’t it? Trying to understand evidence and science is crucial to understanding the world.
When I was young, I was bamboozled into thinking Earth was 6,000 years old and that evolution was a hoax. Then I got a science education, and I had to abandon those beliefs. Later as a young adult, I was bamboozled again, this time by rightwing media, into thinking that global warming wasn’t happening, well at least not very much of it, but then I learned something about the related evidence and about climate science, and I had to abandon that misconception too.
When you do not know about or understand the evidence, you are easy to fool, and that includes you fooling yourself by misunderstanding articles you are reading. Science is not a well understood topic despite its high importance in today’s world. Conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine propaganda, creationism, anti-climate-science, and other anti-science is spreading fast today, and it is easy to get bamboozled. Anti-science has become a cultural phenomenon.
To us who understand a little bit of the evidence that we are causing climate change, the evidence is conclusive enough that claims that it isn’t us causing it, sound just like the flat Earth claim above. It sounds like an April 1st joke to us because we know something. On the other hand, if you don’t know about the evidence, then you are easy to fool, and you might easily jump to false conclusions. Watch your biases and wishful thinking and pay attention to what the experts in the field are saying, not politicians, not influencers, not Facebook memes.
Examples of evidence that we humans are causing climate / global warming / climate disruption (pick your preferred moniker) include satellites having directly measured our greenhouse gases trapping heat, the upper troposphere cooling whilst the lower troposphere is warming, a phenomenon explained by greenhouse gas emissions, the unnatural speed of the warming, the manner in which the warming happens (explained only by greenhouse gas emissions), and that possible natural causes such as the sun, orbital cycles / Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the current warming. Add isotope studies that show that the added greenhouse gases originate from burning fossil fuels and that volcanoes emit less than 1% CO2 of what we emit.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) being likely to drop the so called RCP8.5 (or SSP5-8.5) scenario in the upcoming Seventh Assessment Report upon the suggestion of the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project has set off a flood of misinformation and misinterpretation. Not the least by politicians, notably our President, who made some very bizarre and clueless statements on the issue.
IPCC and the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project never stated that climate change is not caused by humans, or that climate change is not a serious problem. The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) fundamentally depends on how much greenhouse gases we emit, as can be seen in the graph below. RCP8.5 corresponds to a very extreme scenario of burning enormous amount of coal. It was never a likely scenario to begin with, and it had become implausible due to the successful transitions to clean energy. That is why it makes sense to drop RCP8.5.
It was not because climate scientists were wrong about the climate science, or because environmentalists are exaggerating. In contrast to what many media outlets will tell you it is a vindication or victory for environmentalists. The global efforts to transition to clean energy have made it so that we can declare the worst of the worst scenario as implausible.
Different RCP scenarios result in different predicted greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere (from 2000 to 2100). RCP8.5 would result in the highest greenhouse gas concentration (measured as CO2-equivalents). Efbrazil, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Since there are so much confusion, misinformation and hoopla surrounding this seemingly non-controversial event, I have reasons to consider the rectification of the misinformation a super-fact.
Official Statements on RCP8.5 by IPCC and the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project
It should also be noted that IPCC issues assessment reports based on research done by other organizations such as the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project. The IPCC does not conduct its own research. That is another common misrepresentation across media. It was not IPCC that decided to drop the RCP8.5 scenario, and the seventh assessment report has not yet been released. It was a suggestion by the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project published as a paper in Geoscientific Model Development, which stated “the CMIP6 high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends”. You can read this paper here (and search for the quote).
Notice that the paper by the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project is NOT stating that global warming / climate change is not human caused. It does NOT state that it is not a serious problem. It does not in anyway imply anything like what the President and certain media outlets claim. There is additional reading from the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project here. You can read IPCC’s official comment on the issue here and its statement here. They were published May 20, 2026. The Washington Post and EOS provide some pretty accurate and easy to read explanations of what happened, for those wanting lighter reading.
Super Facts 