Are You Smarter than a Gubernatorial Candidate?

From Greg Gerritt, Prosperity for Rhode Island

I was not real happy with the answers gubernatorial candidates gave at the debate on the environment.  So I came up with some new questions that would actually test their knowledge of the environment.

What I am doing is holding a contest.  Answer the 5 questions, email the answers to me.  I will pick the two best set of answers.  One winner will get a signed copy of my book “A Campaign for the Forest,” the other winner will receive a guided tour of the Moshassuck River. 

Questions that Rhode Island's Governor Should be Able to Answer

1. Explain the physics of climate change.

2. Explain what happens to beaches and salt marshes when sea level rises, and what happens if beaches and marshes are backed up by hardscapes. How will you protect tourism in RI if the hardscapes interfere with the needs of a tourism underpinned by healthy landscapes?

3. What role do forests play in alleviating flooding, and how much forest is needed to increase infiltration and alleviate run off?  What program would you implement in order to save Rhode Islanders millions and millions of dollars in flood damages that would also provide for cleaner water and livelier and more abundant wildlife and fisheries?

4. RI receives almost all of its food from places vulnerable to climate change, and shipped here by ever more expensive and climate changing dirty fossil fuels.  What would you do to increase RI’s food security, what are the inputs needed for that task, and how does this relate to your economic development strategy?

5. Ecosystems change over time, with much of the process either explained by Darwinian thought, or mimicking its effects in the physical universe. Pick an iconic RI landscape, beaches, saltmarshes, farm land, forests, river valleys, or another of your choosing, and describe how healing that system might help us make progress both in social and evolutionary terms.  Make specific reference to Darwinian principles in doing so.  Then describe the economic changes that would contribute best to the healing process and the prosperity of the community.