Are superheroes bad for the environment?
The question was too much for the set of “Fox & Friends” Wednesday, who dug into a Stanford University lecturer’s study which asserted that notion.
“A Stanford University geologist, his name is Miles Traer, he has done a study to figure out, he has determined that superheroes, they use too many fossil fuels and Earth would be better off without them,” said “Fox & Friends” co-host Pete Hegseth almost unable to contain his own laughter.
“A commenter said the Batmobile is definitely not a hybrid,” he added while looking at his phone.
“Let’s dig into this research, it’s really riveting,” Hegseth continued. “To run the speed of light, The Flash would need to consume 59 billion calories per second, the rough equivalent of a 12-foot tall hamburger every week. That adds up to nearly 90 million pounds of carbon dioxide per year.”
“This is an unbelievable display of why academia is not relevant at all,” said fellow co-host Leland Vittert.
There was more joking about Spider-Man using recycled web — or something like that — before the show invited viewers to email them their thoughts.
It’s unclear what Traer thinks about the network’s treatment of his work. The geologist did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap.
The actual paper appears to be a tongue-in-cheek piece from Traer originally penned in May of this year.
“Given the global environmental crisis underway, shouldn’t we examine superheroes more thoroughly? As fellow inhabitants of Earth, don’t we owe it to ourselves to question how many pounds of carbon dioxide the Batmobile releases into the atmosphere? Or how much Ironman and his rocket boots contributes to global warming,” he asks in “The Carbon Footprint of Superheroes.”
“Of course we’re still grateful that our superheroes are protecting us from terrifying threats. But when it comes to climate change, we’re all in this together, and you don’t have to be a superhero to help save humanity,” he adds.
Watch above.