Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO THE SHORT QUIZ – “How The World Really Works” and Climate Change


Question 1

Was the Washington Post Book Review of “How The World Really Works” written by Charles Lane who, per the Washington Post website, is a Washington Post editorial writer specializing in economic and fiscal policy, and a Washington Post weekly columnist?

Answer

Yes.


Question 2

In his Book Review of “How The World Really Works” does Charles Lane make the following statements --

(a) Smil [the author] offers something akin to a timeout for reflection. His goal is to steer climate debate between what he considers equally unproductive extremes of “catastrophism” and “techno-optimism.”

(b) Smil writes more in sorrow than in anger. He is no climate denier. An environmental scientist…. he comprehends and acknowledges the risks posed by accumulating atmospheric carbon dioxide.

(c) Humankind uses 17 percent of the world’s primary energy supply just to make four materials — ammonia (for fertilizer), steel, cement and plastic — resulting in 25 percent of all global carbon emissions. These substances, Smil explains, are “pillars of modern civilization,” crucial to feeding, housing, transporting and — through medical devices or hospital construction — healing billions of people.

(d) Not only are there no readily available substitutes for these materials, but also there are no practical low-carbon ways to produce enough to meet current demand. And the world must actually expand their production as Africa and Asia modernize.

(e) In Smil’s provocative but perceptive view, unrealistic notions about carbon reduction are partly, and ironically, attributable to the very productivity that societies achieved by substituting machine work, powered by fossil fuels, for draft animals and human laborers.

(f) Modern people live “disconnected” from firsthand experience of what it takes to make stuff, especially in the United States, a service-dominated economy where just 13 percent of the labor force is engaged in goods production and a mere 1.5 percent in agriculture.

(g) “The proverbial best minds do not go into soil science and do not try their hands at making better cement,” Smil writes, “instead they are attracted to dealing with disembodied information, now just streams of electrons in myriads of microdevices.”

(h) This argument will no doubt infuriate some readers, as will Smil’s contention that dependency on fossil fuels persists not just because of greedy industries or negligent politicians but also because of the general human “propensity" for short-term thinking.

(i) He may fairly stand accused of failing to counter that propensity: This is that rare public policy book that offers essentially no solutions. Smil shows why one oft-cited idea, capturing carbon from the atmosphere, wouldn’t work but doesn’t really address arguments for a potentially more effective remedy: a carbon tax. “I am a scientist,” he declares, with “no agenda.”

(j) You can agree or disagree with Smil — accept or doubt his “just the facts” posture — but you probably shouldn’t ignore him.

Answer 2

(a) Yes.
(b) Yes.
(c) Yes.
(d) Yes.
(e) Yes.
(f) Yes.
(g) Yes.
(h) Yes.
(i) Yes.
(j) Yes.


Question 3

Is the Washington Post Book Review available, in its entirety, at viewtopic.php?f=698&t=2206&sid=399805d8 ... e1e70cc1c6?

Answer 3

Yes.