Quiz (With Answers)

This post tests reading comprehension, logic, and the ability to "weather" cognitive dissonance. Ready?. . . Go!

• Item: CO₂ emissions rose about 3 percent last year.

• Item: It was surprising "that a slowing of economic growth in some places hasn’t blunted the growth in CO₂ output."

• Item: "[I]t was large increases in China, India and other developing countries that spurred the growth of carbon dioxide. Figures released by science agencies in the United States, Great Britain and Australia show that China's added emissions accounted for more than half of the worldwide increase."

• Item: As a result, non-Kyoto countries (mainly the developing world) now produce the majority of atmospheric carbon:



source: Carbon Budget 2007 (page 8)



source: Overview of the Carbon Budget 2007 (page 3)

• Item: "[E]missions are accelerating and are close to the highest scenarios considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year."

• Item: "[T]he world is riding a 50-million-year-long cooling trend."



source: Anthony Watts

• Item: "[T]he British Met Office said last week that 2008 will be the coolest year since 2000."


source: D.H. Douglas & J. Christy, Limits on CO₂ Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth (2008) (accepted for publication by Energy and Environment)


• Item: "The four major agencies tracking Earth's temperature, including NASA's Goddard Institute, report that the Earth cooled 0.7 degree Celsius in 2007, the fastest decline in the age of instrumentation, putting us back to where the Earth was in 1930."

• Item: "[A] study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the next half century."

Questions:

1. If non-Kyoto countries are primarily responsible for emissions growth, why should the United States or any non-participatory nation join?



2. If emissions are increasing, but temperatures steady or falling, why do climate alarmists demand CO₂ caps?



3. If temperatures are falling, why rely on predictions of warming?

Answers:

1. Socialism.



2. Socialism.



3. Socialism. Also acceptable: Pascal's wager, Marxism and mass neurosis. Extra credit: global warming undercuts our ability to predict climate change.

(via Planet Gore)