Climate news quiz: Australian wildfires and garbage
Climate Solutions All right: Time to see if youve been paying attention to The Posts climate-related coverage. If you have, this quiz should be an easy A. Answer: A . The fires started ravaging the Australian bush in October 2019 and continued through January 2020. In all, the fires affected up to a billion animals and killed more than 25 people, destroyed thousands of homes, blanketed the country in smoke, and scarred an area larger than Portugal . Answer: B. By making its jets more efficient and investing substantially in carbon offsets (projects such as conservation of forests, which absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere), JetBlue may set a new bar for the airline industry . Answer: A. T akeoff is t he most fuel-intensive part of a flight . That means longer flights are more fuel-efficient than shorter ones, and flying direct is a greener option than having stopovers. (Even with these hacks, though, trains are still a much more eco-friendly choice.) Answer: B. Copenhagens ambitious target is a full 25 years before that of other major cities, including Washington. Answer: C. Cows need twice the land per gram that chickens and pigs require and 20 times more than whats required to grow the equivalent amount of protein from beans. Making matters worse: C ow burps send methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Answer: False. Unfortunately, that percentage is closer to 50. And scientists say that if global warming hits the critical 2C mark, we could lose more than 99 percent of the E arth s coral . Answer: D. The blue crab population is likely to increase because of shorter winters, which will make their young less likely to starve. The rest of these scenarios are likely to happen if we surpass the critical 2C mark, scientists say. Answer: C. MOSAiC researchers have found the Arctic landscape to be far less stable than expected. We are teetering on the edge of feasibility, said atmospheric scientist Matthew Shupe. At the Arctics current rate of decline, year-round ice there could vanish within a couple of decades . Answer: True. In the United States, transportation generates the equivalent of 1.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. We still rely, as a nation, almost entirely on fossil fuels . Answer: D. Americans generate 262.4 million tons of waste each year, from food containers to broken toys to plastic bags. Thats more than 10 percent of the 2 billion tons that the entire planet produces annually. Finding a use for garbage has been a decades-long struggle, but some innovators have made recent breakthroughs . Climate novice: 0 to 3 questions correct Youve still got a lot to learn about climate change. But thats okay: Weve got you covered. Got a question? Ask us here. Climate curious: 4 to 7 questions correct Hey, not bad! You know a thing or two about climate change. But theres still more to learn, and weve got you covered. Got a question? Ask us here . Climate expert: 8 to 10 questions correct Well done! Youre super climate-literate. You probably already know that one of the most important things you as an individual can do to combat climate change is to spread the word? Go ahead: Brag a little, share this quiz with your friends, and find out who knows the most about climate change.