Environmental Quiz – Podcast Episode TranscriptCLARICE: Hello, everybody.  Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of Environmentally Speaking.

MARISA:  Good morning.  This is Marisa Desautel.  I am an environmental attorney.  And who the hell are you?

CLARICE:  I’m Clarice most times.  Sometimes I’m just tired.  Good morning, everybody.  Apologies if my audio sounds a little different.  I am battling a minor cold, thankfully not COVID.  But if I sound stuffy, I am stuffy.  It’s not your headphones.  It’s just me.

MARISA:  Please don’t start in with that vocal fry nonsense.  I can deal with a head cold.

CLARICE:  I’ll suddenly get really Cali.

MARISA:  All right.  So for today’s episode I thought it would be entertaining to engage with you, Clarice, in a bit of an environmental quiz.

CLARICE:  And I can already hear everybody.  She doesn’t even know how to recycle.  What are you going to quiz her on.

MARISA:  There was a recycling quiz that I thought about, but I feel like it’s too soon.  Maybe we’ll do that at a later date.  But besides the entertainment value because you’re funny, I also thought it would be an interesting exercise because you’re becoming more environmentally conscious, but I would say as a layperson I’m interested to hear the extent of your working knowledge of the planet and the environment and –

CLARICE:  All right.

MARISA: ??

CLARICE:  Let’s see.

MARISA:  So you ready?

CLARICE:  No.  But let’s do it.

MARISA:  Do you need to like get in the zone?

CLARICE:  There’s no zone to get into. I already [inaudible].

MARISA:  Do you want to throw on Eye of the Tiger and blast it?

CLARICE:  Yes.  That was actually our high school song, Eye of the Tiger.

MARISA:  Wow.  Maybe we can get a montage going with –

CLARICE:  Oh, yeah.

MARISA:  — Eye of the Tiger in the background and you can be like studying and then –

CLARICE:  Yes.

MARISA:  — get really frustrated when you get the answer wrong.  [inaudible].

CLARICE:  And then just staring at trees and getting the answer.

MARISA:  Yes.

CLARICE:  All right.  Let’s do this.

MARISA:  Okay.  Number one, what is the most common type of waste that litters our oceans?

CLARICE:  Plastic.  Just in general or do I need to be more specific?

MARISA:  Well, you can have options.

CLARICE:  Oh.

MARISA:  Would you like to select from options?

CLARICE:  This is even better.  Still nervous but okay.

MARISA:  Okay.  All right.  Here we go.  Cigarettes, plastic bags, food packaging, or glass bottles.

CLARICE:  I’m going to go with food packaging.

MARISA:  Food packaging.  Let’s see.

CLARICE:  No.  Is it cigarettes?

MARISA:  It is.  It’s cigarettes.

CLARICE:  Damn it.

MARISA:  Oh, that’s disgusting.

CLARICE:  Oh, that’s so gross.  I was thinking what are the two things that you see at the beach and I was thinking the food wrappers all blow away, but, yeah, the cigarettes.

MARISA:  I’m going to keel over.

[0:03:00] CLARICE:  Oh, God.  All of those –

MARISA:  Volunteers for the International Coastal Cleanup removed nearly two million cigarettes and cigarette filters in their most recent effort to clear litter from the world’s oceans.

CLARICE:  Two million?  All of the ocean cancer.

MARISA:  It’s disgusting.

CLARICE:  That’s nasty.

MARISA:  People just throwing cigarettes on the ground, I mean, that’s still an –

CLARICE:  Yeah.

MARISA:  — acceptable practice for some reason.

CLARICE:  No idea why.

MARISA:  I can’t figure that one out.  I don’t care if you smoke, but don’t litter.

CLARICE:  Yeah.  Actually, there are some cigarette companies that are working on creating cigarettes that when you flick the end of it, the bud, there are seeds in it to make trees.  Wild.

MARISA:  Why isn’t this mandatory?

CLARICE:  Wild.  All right.  0 for 1.  We’re doing good.

MARISA:  How much of the world’s water is available for human use, 75 percent, 35 percent, 15 percent, or less than one percent?

CLARICE:  I’m going to go with 35.

MARISA:  Thirty-five?  Bold.

CLARICE:  Yeah.  I think it’s really low.  Damn it.

MARISA:  Less than one percent.

CLARICE:  No.

MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  We just did an episode on drought.  Why do I not know this.

MARISA:  I don’t know.  It’s only about one third of one percent of all water.

CLARICE:  Oh, that’s so –

MARISA:  One third of one percent is available for human consumption.  The rest is either bound up in the ice caps or ocean, you know, saltwater.

CLARICE:  Yeah.

MARISA:  Okay.  Next.  How much of our air pollution comes from motor vehicles like cars and trucks, 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, or 50 percent?

CLARICE:  Fifty.

MARISA:  Correct.

CLARICE:  Oh, thank God.  I’ve never felt so relieved for my job.

MARISA:  Good for you.  Okay.

CLARICE:  That’s so much.

MARISA:  I know.  It’s upsetting, isn’t it.  Rain forests once covered 14 percent of the earth’s land surface.  Now they cover, six percent, eight percent, ten percent, or 12 percent?

CLARICE:  Six percent.  I’m going super low.

MARISA:  Correct.

CLARICE:  Oh, good.

MARISA:  You know, it’s funny.  When I was looking at these questions I was answering them just to see how I would do and for every single question I looked at the possible answers and I selected the most depressing answer and they were right every single time.

CLARICE:  Oh, good.  Now I have a strategy.

MARISA:  Going forward.

[0:06:07] CLARICE:  Oh, goodness.

MARISA:  Okay.  This one is easy.

CLARICE:  Okay.

MARISA:  If you get it wrong, everyone should mock you.  Most of the oil that we use is imported into our country from other nations.  The oil is carried in huge sea-going tankers.  Sometimes these tankers get damaged and the oil leaks into the oceans and seas.  What is such an accidental discharge of oil into water bodies called, water pollution, oil leak, oil spill, tanker leak?

CLARICE:  Oh, oil spill.   I expected that to be a trick question.  That was so easy.

MARISA:  Told you it was easy.

CLARICE:  I also expected you to ask what the best cleanup was and the commercial has told me Dawn.

MARISA:  Yeah.  No.  Oil on ocean surfaces is harmful to many forms of aquatic life because it prevents sufficient amounts of sunlight from penetrating and also reduces the level of oxygen dissolved in seawater.  Crude oil renders feathers and gills ineffective so that birds and fish may die from direct contact with the oil itself.

CLARICE:  Oh, that’s so sad.

MARISA:  Yeah.  Oh, this is a good one.  I got this one wrong, so don’t feel bad if you get it wrong.  How long does it take for glass to decompose, 100 years, about 500 years, 1,000 years, or 1 million years?

CLARICE:  I want to say 1,000 years.

MARISA:   One thousand, final answer?

CLARICE:  Yeah.  Yeah.  I feel like glass has got – it’s not a full solid.

MARISA:  One million years.

CLARICE:  A million years for glass?

MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  A million years?

MARISA:  Yeah.  But it also means that glass can be recycled an infinite number of times which is a pro.

CLARICE:  Okay.  There’s something positive.  I just realized that glass has not been around for a million years, so the first glass has yet to decompose.

MARISA:  It’s still here.

CLARICE:  But just think, that’s going to be a Coke bottle for somebody.

MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  That’s wild.

MARISA:  Well, and for those of us that know how to recycle properly it’s always a good idea to put glass in the recycle been because it can be recycled over and over and over and over, so don’t throw glass away.

CLARICE:  All right.

MARISA:  How many more do you have?

CLARICE:  We are dead even.  I’ve got three wrong and three right.

MARISA:  Okay.  I like that you’re keeping score.  I didn’t even think about that.

CLARICE:  Oh, yeah.  No.  I need to know if I’ve won.

MARISA:  What year did the United States Environmental Protection Agency declare greenhouse gases a threat to public health, 1973, 1984, 1999, 2009?

[0:09:05] CLARICE:  I feel like it’s alarmingly late.  I’m going to go with ’99.

MARISA:  Wrong.

CLARICE:  Is it even later?

MARISA:  2009.

CLARICE:  Oh, no, guys.  Guys, I thought ’99 was behind.

MARISA:  Yeah.  Yeah.  2009.

CLARICE:  Oh, Jesus.

MARISA:  You know what, that’s fairly shocking.  I would have gone with ’84, definitely not ’73 but ’84 at least.  Remember when chlorofluorocarbons were the hot button issue and you couldn’t use Aqua Net because it was –

CLARICE:  Yes.

MARISA:  — contributing CFCs –

CLARICE:  Yes.

MARISA:  — to the atmosphere?  I thought that that was in the ‘80s, right, because that’s when we used to tease our – oh, you’re too young, but when I was in high school –

CLARICE:  See, in my mind I thought it was the ‘90s –

MARISA:  — you teased your hair.

CLARICE:  — because that’s when the hairstyles started to change.  In the ‘80s it was too popular, but in my mind in the ‘90s it was like, all right, everybody’s realized how terrible this is.  Flatter hair.

MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  My God.  2009.

MARISA:  2009.

CLARICE:  I’m pretty sure it was common knowledge by that point that this was not a good idea.

MARISA:  The government is reactive and not proactive.  All right.  What’s the score?

CLARICE:  All right.  I’m down four, won three.  We’re not doing good.

MARISA:  Let’s do three more.

CLARICE:  Okay.

MARISA:  Do you have an opportunity to win if we do three more?

CLARICE:  Yes.

MARISA:  Okay.

CLARICE:  I have to get two out of the three right.

MARISA:  Don’t mess this up, Clarice.  What is the leading source of energy in the United States, oil, coal, nuclear power, or natural gas?

CLARICE:  I’m panicking.  Natural gas?  In my mind it’s a toss-up between that and coal.  No.  What is it?

MARISA:  Oil.  Oil provides the U.S. with about 39 percent of its energy.

CLARICE:  Oh, Jesus.

MARISA:  Yeah.  Okay.  Which country currently emits the most greenhouse gases, Russia, China, the USA, Germany?

CLARICE:  China.

MARISA:  Yes.

CLARICE:  Yes.  I felt good about that one.

MARISA:  China surpassed the U.S. in 2006, 2007.

CLARICE:  I felt good about that.

MARISA:  So it looks like we’re in the number two spot.

CLARICE:  Yeah.  My dad goes to China on business and hearing him talk about just the pollution and emissions and how there’s such a strain on the power grid in some areas that are particularly heavily industrialized areas that they switch off on who gets power sometimes.

[0:12:09] MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  Wild.

MARISA:  Yeah.  I mean, there’s a finite amount of power and electricity available, so makes sense if you can’t supply it to everyone.

CLARICE:  Yeah.

MARISA:  Yeah.  Okay. [inaudible].

CLARICE:  Just depressing.

MARISA:  Approximately how much of global electricity output is produced from renewable sources, one percent, five percent, eight percent, 20 percent?

CLARICE:  Five percent is already really depressing.  I hope that’s the answer.

MARISA:  Five?

CLARICE:  Yeah.  If it’s one I’m just going to be even sadder.

MARISA:  If it’s one just shut your computer off like immediately.

CLARICE:  Is it one?

MARISA:  And just end the podcast without any kind of conclusion.

CLARICE:  All right.

MARISA:  Okay.

CLARICE:  It’s one?

MARISA:  No.  Eight.

CLARICE:  Oh, okay.

MARISA:  I just was making a face because you got it wrong.

CLARICE:  Well, yeah.  I mean, I didn’t come into this with high hopes.

MARISA:  Yeah.  The remaining 92 percent of global electricity output comes from nonrenewable sources like oil, coal, and natural gas.

CLARICE:  Okay.  Eight is better than five.

MARISA:  It is.

CLARICE:  Certainly better than one but there’s more that we can do.

MARISA:  What’s your final score?

CLARICE:  Not good.  Six wrong, four right.

MARISA:  All right.  I mean, that’s not terrible.

CLARICE:  No.  It’s not terrible, but I’m a cohost on an environmental podcast, so, you know.

MARISA:  Yeah, well.

CLARICE:  Please keep listening even though I get these wrong.

MARISA:  Well, you know, I know you like to win, but it didn’t work out for you today.  And if I can add, I didn’t get all these right either.  I mean, percentages are a very precise way to answer questions.  You did well on the questions that were more narrative in form, less math, more English kind of thing.

CLARICE:  That tells you a little bit about law school background.

MARISA:  Agreed.

CLARICE:   We don’t do well with numbers.

MARISA:  No.  If we were good with numbers, we’d have gone to medical school.

CLARICE:  Absolutely.  Well, on that note, I hope you guys learned a lot.  I hope this was something a little bit lighter even though the answers weren’t always light, but, yeah, something fun, something different to mix it up.  And if you were playing along in your car or at home, let us know how you did.  Did anybody get all of them right?

MARISA:  I’m dying to know how people do.

CLARICE:  Yeah.  If you did get them all – if you did get all of them right, write in.  Maybe we should be interviewing you.  [inaudible].

MARISA:  We could set up a whole game show.

[0:14:59] CLARICE:  New dream realized.

MARISA:  I have to practice my Alex Trebek.

CLARICE:  That would be amazing.

MARISA:  Yeah.

CLARICE:  All right, everybody.  Thank you for listening.  Thank you for tuning in.  If you want to reach out, let us know what your score is on the socials.  We’re at DesautelESQ.

MARISA:  Dot com.

CLARICE:  Oh, no.  I was talking about our socials.  You don’t put dot com into Twitter.

MARISA:  [inaudible].

CLARICE:  You know where we are, guys.  It’s like episode 40.  You know where we are.  Watch this is episode 39 and I said –

MARISA:  Yeah.  And do you want to give the e-mail address incorrectly?

CLARICE:  No.  I want to give it correctly.  It’s Help@DesautelESQ.com.

MARISA:  Dot com.  Very good.

CLARICE:  So hit us up.  Send us your stuff.  Have a good one, everybody.

MARISA:  See ya.