Inspired by "The Deep Sleep," by David Craig, Columbia magazine, Fall 2008.
Here is a short quiz on climate change, aka "global warming." If you can answer any of these questions, then you are Smarter than Congress. You may open your test booklets now and begin. There is no time limit. Good luck.
(1)What is the ideal temperature for the earth?
(2) If you can not identify a specific temperature, then is the ideal temperature higher, lower or the same as the present temperature?
(3) What is the present temperature of the earth?
(4) What was the temperature of the earth during the Cambrian explosion?
(5) Is atmospheric CO2 pollution?
(6) What is the ideal atmospheric CO2 level? If you can not be specific, then state whether the ideal level is higher, lower or the same as the present level? The present level is about 387 ppm.
(7) Recently, the price of gasoline skyrocketed. Why did Democrat politicians, most of whom claim to oppose the use of fossil fuels, try so hard to find a way to control the prices? One would think they would have been jumping for joy, no?
(8) The rise in gasoline prices has been attributed to evil oil companies, speculators, and OPEC, among others. Yet American and world-wide gasoline consumption has dropped since the price went up. How is that evil?
(9) What were the reasons that Republicans opposed Kyoto? Hint: it was not because they hated Clinton.
(10) Why is there no wind farm off the coast of Chappaquiddick?
(11) If global warming is the most serious problem facing mankind, or even if it is merely a serious problem, why has Congress not facilitated or encouraged the building of nuclear power plants to replace coal?
(12) What happens to the ocean level when the arctic ice cap melts? Hint: "It rises" is not the correct answer.
(13) What are the benefits of global warming? Hint: there are some.
Thank you for participating in this quiz. You will receive your scores in the mail in 6 months. Rush service is available for one easy payment of $29.95.
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1 comment:
So many things......
First of all, nobody smart: democrat, republican, or other, doubts that they are smarter than congress. I completely agree that congress sucks right now (but might suck a bit less once we don't have a president who vetos every non-conservative christian-war mongering-planet unconscious bill that lands on his desk) for its inability to get anything done. This applies to both sides.
Secondly: You used to be a member of the Sierra Club. I remember the magazines that came in the mail every month. What happened? Bill Clinton?
Taking care of the environment should be about much more than gas prices, and "independence from foreign oil." Everybody and everything is unhealthy. There are synthetic chemicals in almost everything we encounter: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the products in our homes. Millions of species have been lost due to human influence. Even the absurd extreme religious side that God gave the earth and its boutny to us, to use as we see fit, doesn't justify destroying it! Resources are limited. Unless we're adequately replacing what we take away, we're going to run out. We replace fertile land with overpopulation. We replace trees with farmed land/ urban sprawl. We replace the oxygen and air-cleansing properties of the trees with man-made chemical runoff. And then what? We're sick. Americans in particular, but it's everywhere. Cancer, obesity, famine, new and incurable diseases popping up left and right. I don't understand why this has to be a democrat issue. Why can't republicans see that this isn't just some hippie bullshit about saving plants and animals, but that it's about saving ourselves?
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