Expert: Richard J. Raridon - 8/29/2005

Question
A cubic model for the yearly worldwide carbon emissions is
W=-0.054x^3+289x^2+739x+1576
where W is the weight of the emissions in millions of tons and x is the number of years since 1950.  Use synthetic division to evaluate the model for the year 2000.

Answer
I don't know what synthetic division has to do with it.  You can just put in x=50 and evaluate W = 754276.  The value is dominated by the x^2 term. I find it a little hard to believe that carbon emissions have increased a factor of 479 from 1950 to 2000.