The most egregious recent example is Mark Watson - one time stand-up comedian, now full-time climate bore - whose book 'Crap at the Environment' was Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 last week. His extensive research on the subject of global warming consisted of reading a book by Mark Lynas (history graduate) and George Monbiot's latest (hey, at least he studied zoology). You could tell Watson did no actual research because he felt guilty about eating New Zealand lamb when it is well-established (and even acknowledged by the deep-green Sustainable Development Commission) that it uses less carbon to fly prepacked juicy lamb joints from the other side of the world than to eat lamb from Wales. He also subscribed to an organic vegetable box scheme - which produce at least twice as much CO2 as an equivalent amount of veg from Kenya.
So, here is a short quiz to test your climate bore friends if they rant in the pub about the imminent danger of planetary collapse under the weight of carbon. It includes a few basics about climate science with some even more basics about general science ... to expose the ignorance of eco-fanatics:
1. Which atmospheric gas has the most impact on the climate?
-- Water vapour. Gaseous H2O causes more vastly more variation in the Earth's temperature than all the others put together - one reason why computer models of climate are so crappy. No one really knows what warming will do to cloud cover.
2. Assuming there's no wind: if you dropped a ping-pong ball from a tall building, when should you drop a golf ball to ensure they hit the ground together?
-- The same time. See Galileo, Newton etc. Light objects fall at the same rate as heavy objects.
3. If a pint of beer represents the whole atmosphere, how much beer represents carbon dioxide?
-- One and a half drops. Most eco-warriors think CO2 is about 50% of the atmosphere instead of less than 0.04%.
4. A few years ago a heat wave was blamed for 20,000 extra summer-time deaths in Europe. If the climate warmed by 2 degrees C how many additional temperature-related deaths would there be in Europe?
-- None. There would probably be 80-100,000 fewer deaths. (See Rob Lyons interview with Nigel Lawson on Spiked-Online for the reason.)
5. You shoot a high-powered sniper rifle at exactly horizontal. How can you tell exactly when the bullet hits the ground?
-- Drop a bullet from the same height as the rifle. The bullet may be travelling horizontally at 500mph but gravity still pulls it down with the same acceleration as a dropped bullet.
6. Roughly how many extra hurricanes will result from global warming of 2-4 degrees C?
-- None. According to the IPCC, for at least the next 80 years, global warming will cause fewer and less intense hurricanes. Hurricanes are caused by hot air (from the equator) meeting cold air (from the North Pole). Their intensity is related to the difference in temperature between the air masses. Global warming has more effect at northern latitudes so the cold air will be less cold - hence the hurricanes will be less intense (no matter what the BBC weatherman says).
7. Does the Sun revolve around the Earth or the Earth revolve around the Sun?
-- I know it sounds like a silly question, but on the French version of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' recently, half the audience got the answer wrong (!!).
8. Did dinosaurs hunt humans or were they totally vegetarian?
-- Despite what eco-warriors saw in 'Jurassic Park' or hear from Creationists, dinosaurs were extinct more than 60 million years before humans evolved.
9. If you looked through a book of cricket or baseball (or anything) statistics, how many numbers would start with 1? Or 2? Or 3? ... up to 9?
-- If you thought 11% of numbers would start with each of the nine numerals, think again. In any collection of statistics about 30% of numbers start with 1, about 17% with 2, about 12% with 3, about 10% with 4, about 8% with 5, about 7% with 6, about 6% with 7, about 5% with 8 and about 4% with 9. This is Benford's Law and even applies to expense claims - so be aware when faking receipts; it's one easy way forensic accountants can tell if data is invented.
10. If the "Tipping Point" of global warming is coming in 5-10 years and will cause the collapse of human civilisation why aren't the eco-doommongers digging caves, stocking up on tinned food and learning to shoot? (Like "survivalists" the U.S.?) Why are they still living comfortably in Hampstead and writing for the Guardian?
-- That's, largely, a rhetorical question.
You can be almost certain that the worse someone thinks global warming will be, the fewer questions he (or she) will get right.
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