A Quiz for getting through the Fog

A Quiz for getting through the Fog

A friend stopped by the other day. He wanted to talk, and was obviously upset. 

He began by saying he was frustrated by people who wouldn’t discuss climate change, especially young members of his family.

It was as though they were catatonic. Their eyes would glaze over when he mentioned facts that contradicted the media’s constant harangue about catastrophic climate change.

He was frustrated because he couldn’t elicit a simple conversation when he said the world wasn’t coming to an end because we used fossil fuels.

He felt it was necessary to confront them with something dramatic … something to get through the fog, as it were, to get them to begin a simple conversation on the subject.

He wondered whether using a simple YES/NO quiz might force them to think … and then to respond. 

With that observation he gave me his proposal for such a quiz, with the idea that others could also use it when they confronted friends and family who wouldn’t discuss the issue.

Here is his quiz, with his introduction. The answers are grouped separately, so that the test can be printed separately from the answers.

Follow the science. Let’s start by agreeing that:

  • Consensus is the business of politics.
  • Science requires only one investigator who has results verifiable by reference to the real world

Question

YES

NO

  1. Is climate change or global warming caused by greenhouse gasses an existential threat of the highest priority?
  1. Are major changes in life-style or standard of living necessary?
  1. Is the Paris Accord necessary?
  1. Fossil fuels provide over 85% or our energy. Should they be abandoned and renewables substituted?
  1. Can the climate threat be eliminated if the United States stops emitting CO2?

Next, the answers:

Answers

YES

NO

  1. Dr. William Happer, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Princeton University has shown that doubling greenhouse gases will not significantly increase temperatures. The gasses include CO2 and Methane. For proof: Dr Happer Explains Effects of CO2.

X

  1. If doubling of CO2 won’t substantially increase temperatures, there is no reason to do anything that will reduce our standard of living.

X

  1. The Paris Accord is based on the premiss that Greenhouse gases (GHG) will cause temperatures to rise more than 1.5 degrees C, compared with pre-industrial levels. Since greenhouse gasses will not significantly increase temperatures, even if they doubled from today’s levels, the Paris Accord is not necessary. The Paris Accord is, in fact, harmful, especially to developing countries that already have terrible living conditions and short life expectancies.

X

  1. Fossil fuels are essential to modern living standards, including longer lives and healthy living. Nuclear power could replace some fossil fuels today, and new research may develop economical and workable new technologies in the future that may also be able to replace additional fossil fuels in the future. Germany has spent billions on trying to cut CO2 emissions, and has only cut its GHG emissions by 31% since 1990.  Reference http://bit.ly/301PVqq  There are additional large hurdles to cutting CO2 emissions. For example, producing steel emits 7% of the world’s CO2 emissions, while making cement produces 4% of the world’s CO2 emissions. Eliminating these two sources of CO2 is extremely difficult and very costly. Reference http://bit.ly/3jxOoTb

X

  1. China already emits twice as much CO2 as does the US, and, with China’s CO2 emissions continuing to increase, will replace all of the CO2 no longer emitted by the US (if the US were to cut its emissions to zero) within the next ten to twenty years. Reference http://bit.ly/2RoOT2B

X

Perhaps this quiz will be helpful to you.

. . .

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8 Replies to “A Quiz for getting through the Fog”

    • Thanks.
      I’m interested in seeing whether the quiz gets people to actually discuss the issues.

  1. I doubt a quiz will produce a better response.
    I suggest asking which is preferable:

    1) Unknown amount of future global warming and its unknown effects developing over future decades;
    or
    2) Reduced living standard, loss of jobs, restricted mobility, suffering, similar to what the Covid-19 pandemic has produced over the past 9 months, and for those changes to last continuously for years or decades into the future.

    This approach does not argue against what alarmists “know” to be true about warming, but makes them consider about what price is to be paid for pursuing current thinking about mitigating that envisioned warming.

    Nothing persuades like the threat of an immediate decrease in a person’s present and future lifestyle. As Clinton said: “its the economy, stupid”.

    • Thanks.
      I’m for any approach that will get people to react and think, especially the young folks who have been indoctrinated in high school and universities.
      A discussion on various approaches would get the ball rolling.

  2. Hi Don,

    Nice quiz with relevant questions. Unfortunately, I do not think it will change minds of many people because facts do not affect people’s beliefs.

    When a large number of people experience personally consequences of the nonsense that is being promulgated for the last 15 – 20 years, such as lose their jobs, freeze themselves in the winter, have their mobility restricted, and standard of living decreased, maybe then some will realize there are consequences for their actions (such as voting) or inactions (complacency and silence), and hopefully then things will begin to change.

    Until then, we will live in the “Post Science Period”, “The Age of De-enlightenment”, or as I call the the Age of Unreason.

    • Thanks for your comments.
      So far you are being proven right. I can’t but hope that some people will revisit the real science and see that the hype about climate change is only leading to a lowering of living standards. Actually hurting the poorest and most vulnerable around us.

  3. I wish people could understand THIS IS THE GOAL for the Climatistas:
    “The Paris Accord is, in fact, harmful, especially to developing countries that already have terrible living conditions and short life expectancies.”

    HUMAN BEINGS are their enemy. And as such reducing human beings by maintaining short life expectancies is perfectly fine by them.

    Thus – Paris Accord is a GOOD thing to these people. They hate humanity. Just listen to their words. It’s just evil.

    • I agree the actions of climate advocates are evil. They are denying billions of people the opportunity to get out of poverty and live a fruitful life.