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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many of Lackner’s trailer-sized carbon scrubbing units would be needed to significantly reduce the carbon footprint?

2. Where did the house mouse originate?

3. What is NOT one of the problems mentioned regarding cane toads?

4. To keep the temperature increase at a minimum, the world would have to end all emissions by when?

5. How are rodents often currently killed?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are rodents a biological marker of the Anthropocene age?

2. How are geothermal plants clean?

3. How is cutting emissions at once absolutely essential and insufficient?

4. Who are the Odins that Colbert describes?

5. What is usually use to kill rodents? What are the problems associated with this?

6. What does Kolbert think about the genetic engineering home kit that she purchases?

7. What is the widely held view regarding man’s influence on the atmosphere?

8. What is the issue with chemical weathering regarding carbon dioxide?

9. What is an outlaw gene? Why is it important to this book?

10. What are negative emissions? Why might they be important?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What does Kolbert say about man and his relationship with the natural world? Do you agree with her? Why or why not? Has reading Under a White Sky altered your perspective of the environment and what is being done to remedy problems? If so, how? If not, why not?

Essay Topic 2

Kolbert starts off Up in the Air Chapter 1 by mentioning a subscription she paid for that claimed, for a fee, they would scrub the buyer’s carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Would you have paid for such a service? Why or why not? Do you believe others, besides Kolbert, would pay for this service? Why or why not? What might this reveal about the majority of people?

Essay Topic 3

What is the general tone of Kolbert's Under a White Sky? Why? How does this affect the reader? How might this impact a reader's attitude towards the environment and what is being done to preserve it?

(see the answer keys)

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