The theme for December/January was: 'Environmental doomsdays & utopias'
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Question 1: |
In a 1956 novel by British author John Christopher (made into a movie in 1970) human civilization is thrown into barbaric chaos by a new strain of virus. What does the virus kill? |
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Answer: |
All grass species (The Death of Grass aka No Blade of Grass). |
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Question 2: |
What 1975 novel (set in 1999) follows the journey of a senior journalist with the Times-Post newspaper as he travels through an eco-feminist, utopian nation supposedly located in the north-western corner of the United States? |
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Answer: |
Ecotopia: The Notebooks & Reports of William Weston (Ernest Callenbach).
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Question 3: |
What well-known Sydney crime-writer wrote an apocalyptic novel depicting Australia in 2075, with the landscape devastated by salinity and global warming, and society collapsed into civil war, despotism and cannibalism? |
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Answer: |
Gabrielle Lord (Salt).
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Question 4: |
Which apocalyptic movie about rapid climate change, filmed mostly in Canada, was screened to a select group of Australians ahead of its official premiere in Mexico City on 17 May, 2004? |
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Answer: |
The Day After Tomorrow (was shown to contestants on Big Brother Australia before its official release)..
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Question 5: |
What bleak movie, set in 2022 in a world wracked by over-population, pollution and starvation, revolves around a police officer's investigation into the murder of a food industry executive? |
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Answer: |
Soylent Green.
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Question 6: |
Which US science fiction author wrote a set of three books looking at different alternative futures for California's Orange County, the last of which depicts an ecologically sustainable future? |
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Answer: |
Kim Stanley Robinson (The Three California's trilogy – 'The Wild Shore', 'The Gold Coast' and 'Pacific Edge'). |
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Question 7: |
What 1972 movie features a space-faring botanist who murders his shipmates to save the Earth's last plant species from extinction? |
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Answer: |
Silent Running.
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Question 8: |
In what novel by Ursula K Le Guin – set in a 21st century Earth wracked by greenhouse warming and over-population – does a psychiatrist try to use his patient's power to dream "effectively" to solve the world's problems? |
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Answer: |
The Lathe of Heaven. |
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Question 9: |
What 1977 movie, starring veteran western actor Clint Walker, tells the story of a farmer fighting off hungry city people in a world driven to starvation by climate change and overpopulation? |
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Answer: |
Deadly Harvest.
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Question 10: |
In what movie, set 800 years in the future, does a garbage-compacting robot on a pollution-ravaged Earth discover a plant growing in a wrecked rerigerator, ultimately triggering the return of humans to the planet? |
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Answer: |
WALL-E.
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