Shortly before the Climate Exam starts, I feel a slight nervousness coming over me. Not so much because of the sight of the exam desks in the Utrecht Jaarbeurs, but because I fear an embarrassment. Soon I will have to write this piece after I have failed miserably.
Fortunately, that is not the case, my years as a climate reporter have prepared me well for this test. Although I also learn new things. Did you know, for example, that the earth warms up every second with the force of eight Hiroshima bombs? That is more appealing to the imagination than an energy imbalance of 1 watt per square meter.
Or what about the fact that we could remove 8 billion tons of CO2 from the air every year by returning only 20 percent of all the land we use worldwide for livestock farming and growing livestock feed to nature?
That is a fifth of total global emissions. By replacing one in five glasses of milk and hamburgers worldwide with something else. At least, if we don’t then make parking lots out of the land that has become available.
‘Should be basic knowledge’
The Climate Exam is precisely intended to bring this kind of fact to the attention, says initiator Joost Brinkman. Last year he organized the exam for the first time and three hundred people participated. This year there are already ten times as many. Students and employees at more and more schools, universities and companies can register to take the test.
If it is up to Brinkman, the exam will be much bigger next year. “It seemed nice to me to organize it in the stadium of FC Utrecht. Then we will have a completely different target group.”
At the Jaarbeurs, KNMI director Maarten van Aalst can give the starting signal for this group of exam candidates – and of course he will also take the test himself. The climate scientist calls it a “wonderful initiative”. “It is a playful way to show during the exam period that this knowledge should also be part of the basic knowledge of the Netherlands.”
For an hour it is silent, while about two hundred people try to remember that basic knowledge. What are major sources of methane emissions? What can we do to better cope with the consequences of heavy rain? And what is the CO2 footprint of an average Dutchman actually, compared to the global average?
How do we pass on the world?
In the last ten minutes, everyone leaves the factual questions and it is time for “the most important question”, as stated on the exam paper. We have to write a letter to our future selves or to our children, about what we think the world should look like in ten years and what we are going to do about it ourselves. A question that everyone should think about from time to time.
All in all, with the 35 questions of the exam you make a nice journey through all facets of the climate crisis: from causes to consequences, and for example our own influence on the future. Highly recommended, and as far as I’m concerned, it is indeed full of basic knowledge that everyone should possess.
The physical edition of the Climate Exam is over for this year, but you can still take a shorter online version.