Indonesia tries dry ice to battle toxic smoke

Oct. 19, 2026

Q: After using troops, water bombing, and cloud seeding to battle island wildfires spreading toxic smoke across Southeast Asia, Indonesia dispersed 1.5 tons of dry ice over one of its cities last week in a desperate attempt to clear the air. Where is Indonesia?

Circle the area on this map

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Q: Toxic smoke and wildfires are common during the May-October dry season on Indonesia’s 13,000 to 17,000 islands along the equator. What made this year’s fires so much worse?

A. Deforestation

B. Mining

C. Plantations

D. Super El Niño

Q: While a super El Niño intensified this year’s toxic haze, decades of slash-and-burn clearing of Indonesian rainforest for mining and agriculture fed the annual wildfires and smoke. What is the major crop grown on the cleared land?

A. Coconut palms

B. Pineapples

C. Oil palms

D. Olive trees

Q: Peat bogs store centuries of carbon, and burning peatlands releases that carbon into the warming atmosphere. Melting glaciers and warming water are raising sea levels. What Indonesian city is sinking faster than any other big city?

A. Jakarta

B. Jayapura

C. Nusantara

D. Palembang

Q: Most wildfires are burning on Sumatra, Borneo, and New Guinea. Indonesia shares the world’s second-largest island with Papua New Guinea. Which nation shares the island of Borneo with Indonesia?

A. Brunei

B. Myanmar

C. Thailand

D. Timor-Leste

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Answers for this quiz: Click here