Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991                   TAG: 9104060385
SECTION: NEWSFUN                    PAGE: NF1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TAMMY POOLE NEWSFUN EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SEE IF YOU CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT EARTH CORRECTLY

1. By how many people had the world's population increased between the first two Earth Days?

2. What is the most common kind of sea litter?

3. In terms of protecting fish and wild birds, name the single plastic item that should never be discarded outdoors.

4. Which of the following consumes the most water in American households - showering, dish washing, toilet flushing, or laundering?

5. In what U.S. city do the board of education and the county medical association sometimes issue warnings over the radio that children not run, skip or jump inside or outside?

6. In Bombay, India, simply breathing the air is equal to smoking how many packs of cigarettes a day?

7. How many days a year is it impossible to see across the Grand Canyon because of air pollution?

8. It is estimated that 10,000 years ago rain forests covered about 3.7 billion acres. How many acres of rain forest remain - 900 million, 1.2 billion or 1.7 billion?

9. Which country uses the least oil: the United States, China or the Soviet Union?

10. What foreign city is almost entirely heated by geothermal (natural underground) steam?

Answers to Earth quiz

1. The Earth's population had increased by about 1.7 billion people between the first two Earth Days.

2. Plastics, because they float and are not biodegradable.

3. The connected plastic rings that hold six-packs of soft drinks and beer. Birds get them caught around their necks, fish around their bodies. If this happens when the bird or fish is young, it will eventually strangle to death as it grows or the ring may eat into the flesh, causing dreadful and eventually fatal deformities.

4. Forty-five percent of household water use is consumed by flushing the toilet. New low-flow toilets can cut this about by 40 percent.

5. On smog-alert days, Los Angeles authorities issue these warnings to protect children's health. On such days the carbon monoxide alone in the air is enough to lower the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity by 20 percent.

6. The air is so polluted that it's like smoking 10 packs a day.

7. Pollution obscures the view across the Grand Canyon about 100 days out of the year.

8. 900 million.

9. China derives 80 percent of its energy from coal. The United States and the Soviet Union are the highest oil consumers, in that order.

10. Reykjavik, Iceland.