By Roger Caiazza
On January 12, 2021 Resources for the Future (RFF) announced the release of their Working Paper: “The Climate Decade: Changing Attitudes on Three Continents”. The survey by “an international team of experts finds that the decade between 2009 and 2019 has seen increases in support for climate action in China and the United States, with support remaining high in Sweden.” The report includes willingness to pay estimates and what caught my eye was that those numbers were in dollars per ton of emissions reductions. If presented in more relatable terms I believe the costs are too much to expect any willingness to pay.
Report Findings
The announcement for the report summarizes the findings. The abstract states that:
“Using identical surveys a decade apart, we examine how attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate policies have changed in the United States, China, and Sweden. All three countries exhibit an increased willingness to pay for climate mitigation. Ten years ago, Sweden had a larger fraction of believers in anthropogenic climate change and a higher WTP for mitigation, but today the national averages are more similar. Although we find convergence in public support for climate policy across countries, there is considerable divergence in both WTP and climate attitudes within countries. Political polarization explains part of this divergence.”
For the United States the key findings of the report noted:
- Opinion in the United States has shifted toward a more positive attitude toward climate policies; however, these views are increasingly polarized.
- Belief in human-caused global temperature increases has increased in the United States by 10 percentage points since 2009.
- In 2019, 60% of US respondents are willing to prioritize the environment, even at the expense of jobs—significantly more than in 2009 (40%).
- 78% of US respondents think the US should reduce emissions, even if other countries do not—up from 68% in 2009. This view increased primarily among Democrats.
- Willingness to pay for emissions reductions has increased in the United States across Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters. However, there has been an increasing political polarization between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the group of voters who are not willing to pay anything.
Of particular interest to me were the conclusions for the Willingness to Pay:
“Swedish citizens are willing to pay the most to reduce emissions relative to their country’s carbon footprint: They’re willing to pay $129 per ton of emissions reductions, far more than people in China ($44 per ton) and in the United States ($31 per ton). In the 2019 survey, Chinese citizens were willing to pay a greater share of their income—as much as 0.9% for an 30% reduction in emissions, compared to 0.8% in Sweden and 0.6% in the United States. The average value all three countries place on reducing a ton of CO2 increased from 2009.”
I believe that this report will be used as bait and frequently referenced as proof that the pubic believes that there is a climate change problem and is willing to pay to fix it.
Willingness to Pay
There is plenty of material in this report and the methodology to critique. I cynically believe that the format and questions included in a survey can be tailored to provide any answer desired. In this survey there was the obligatory survey summation of the climate change problem that suggests that we are all doomed and that GHG emissions are the control knob for climate. For example, the summary states that if there is only a 60% reduction in emissions the global temperature increase will be 30F and “most coral reefs die”. After presenting this information, the survey included “a set of attitudinal questions about how the respondent’s own country should decrease CO2 emissions and whether it should reduce these emissions even if other countries do not.” The willingness to pay questions asked respondents how much their household would be willing to pay for a three reduction levels (30%, 60% and 85%) compared with no reduction at all and the other reduction levels. For these questions,” total monthly and yearly costs were shown to the respondents to make sure that they understood the consequence of their answers.”
In my opinion framing the willingness to pay as total monthly or annual costs does not relate well to my willingness to pay. I want to know how much the price increase affects the price of transportation fuel, residential natural gas, or electricity. The RFF results claim people in the United States are willing to pay $31 per ton and that they are willing to pay 0.6% of their income. I translated the $31 per ton of CO2 reduction into different cost metrics for transportation and residential use below.
The Environmental Protection Agency has a summary of emission factors for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) that can be used to convert the dollars per ton rates to cost per gallon of gasoline or diesel fuels. I converted the emission factors from Table 2 in that summary to metric tons and multiplied by five different social cost of carbon estimates including the three willingness to pay levels quoted in the report the Integrated Working Group 2021 value and New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act 2021 value for CO2. For diesel fuel the cost per gallon ranges from $0.32 and $1.32 and for motor gasoline ranges from $0.35 to $1.13.
I used a similar approach to estimate the effects of residential use of natural gas and electricity. I only considered natural gas and not all the other fuels used for residential use. Table 1 in EPA’s emission factor report provides the emission factor for natural gas. There is an American Gas Association report that lists national residential gas use (71.2 MMBtu per year). For the range of the social cost of carbon values used previously, the monthly natural gas bill would increase between $9.76 and $40.61. I used Table 6 from EPA’s emission factor report to calculate electric impacts. The EPA table incorporates fuel types used for electric generation to come up with emission factors for the country and for 26 eGrid sub-domains. It is also necessary to include an estimate of fuel use. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. residential customer uses approximately 909 kWh per month of energy. For the range of the social cost of carbon values used previously, the monthly electric bill would increase between $12.11 and $50.38. Remember that many people use both electricity and natural gas so their bills would equal the sum or a monthly utility bill increase between $21.87 and $90.99.
Conclusion
The Resources for the Future study will undoubtedly be used as proof people are willing to pay to reduce GHG emissions. However, after taking that bait the public will be switched into these commodity price increases that I believe are non-starters for most people at all but the lower values. Given that energy use is inelastic these costs will certainly put more people into energy poverty impacting those least able to pay dis-proportionately.
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Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
Sorry, I have no such belief and am not “willing” to pay for someone else’s religious belief, not willingly anyway.
It is indeed the dominant religion of our day. Asking if you believe in Climate Change ™ is essentially asking if you want to be considered part of the culture, or choose to self-identify as an outcast. So most people don’t want the hassle of telling the truth, and will pay a tithe if necessary to avoid conflict.
It’s not much different from my childhood or a bit earlier, when 90% or more claimed to believe in God. Yet today the churches stand empty or have long since been demolished or converted to condos.
If the public feels that they have permission to be heretics again, they will also abandon the Green cult just as quickly.
People have just switched from one organized religion to another one. Indeed, climate change (and now COVID-19) has become a well-funded religion.
Wade you are correct but Climate Change and COVID are just 2 tenets of The Church of Progressivism. Congregants worship Central Authoritarian Government as their God.. Central Government is run by a Board of Elders, faceless Cultural Elite, who run the bureaucracy through K Street Lawyers.
I have absolutely no (or zero) WTP.
And I also hate acronyms, such as the one above!
WTP?
WTP, I’m guessing willingness to pay?
Thanks I feel foolish now, but at least I illustrated why Jon is right about acronyms.
My WTP is negative. Every time my utility company caves to the Wokesters to implement one of these travesties, they better send me some money to make up for how much my power bill will increase!!!!
And similarly across all of my life, cuz every time the Wokesters demand a different fuel mix for my vehicle, my overall cost of living goes up. Every time the CAFE standard increases, my cost of living goes up, because the cost of a new vehicle is higher that means the cost of used vehicles (to me) increases as well (supply and demand, get it?). Every time the cost of transportation fuel rises, the cost of my groceries increase, because it costs more to move that product from the factory or field where it originates to my house. The VAT ain’t got nothin’ on these clowns!
Putting a (pointless) price on a “ton of carbon” (because it’s not the carbon they’re after, it’s allegedly the CO₂) is not just an additively regressive penalty, it’s exponentially regressive!
I am a climate heretic, I am expecting the inquisition to knock on my door anytime soon.
Well there you go. You’re safe because
NO ONE EXPECTS THE INQUISITION
On a (somewhat) more serious note, does U.S. government enforcement of the climate religion violate the 1st amendment’s no establishment clause?
Ah but the important frame of reference that you have not considered is how much of other people’s money are you willing to spend in order to siphon money into climate ponzi schemes that enrich leftist politicians and their cronies? If you don’t want this then you are just selfish and hate clean air. Why is it so hard for you people to empathize with leftists, and instead of using your heads, simply virtue signal and hand over your money for political redistribution?
The difference is a decade of public school and academic indoctrination.
All pols are garbage propaganda.
They are anymore. All things “numbers” (vote-counts/pols are obviously “numbers” things) are controlled by the commies now. Science too in general is very much a numbers thing.
Figgers may not lie, but liars sure do figger!
How did their “survey” account for the fact that the people least willing to pay, or who like me have a negative “Willingness To Pay”, don’t answer the phone? The people most willing to answer phone surveys coincidentally happen to be the people most willing to spend OTP on pointless Virtue Signalling™. That has got to skew the results, and I don’t have the time to peruse their methodology to blow holes in that aspect.
Does Resources for the Future state anywhere in this report what they hope will happen to the climate if all their proposals are put into action?
No and now that you mention it does anyone know of any jurisdiction or entity proposing this kind of thing that has mentioned that little detail.
No, of course not. Predictions are dangerous. We need to keep it all non-falsifiable.
If temperatures level off or decline (due to natural climate change of course), then they will proclaim that their policies are working (three cheers for our hero politicians!). Incidentally, the fear that natural cooling is coming, is the reason for the current frenzy that urgent action must be taken NOW!! It would be difficult to explain significant cooling if there has not already been a reduction in CO2 emissions.
If temperatures continue to rise at the same rate or higher, despite reduced emissions, then we will be reminded that they always told us that our past sins of emission would “bake in” dangerous future change. We have no choice but to redouble our efforts, lest the baked-in disaster should get worse.
The deeper we get into this insanity, the more certain it becomes that the politicians can’t admit error, and the more vested interests will be dug in, opposing any change in policy.
I am in a pessimistic mood I guess.
You are pessimistic because you are a realist about human nature.
I’m reading Dominion by Tom Holland, basically the evolution of christian thought not a chronological history.
The current climate scientologists are easily explained in terms of human nature
When you are presented with a choice, there is the implicit assumption that all other things remain the same. In economics, it’s called ceteris paribus. That’s a dangerous assumption because it usually doesn’t apply.
The trouble with fossil fuel reduction is that the alternative is often unavailable when you most need it, like the middle of a winter night in North Dakota. When given the option of reducing CO2 at the cost of freezing to death or having your food rot in a non-functioning refrigerator, not so many people would support getting rid of fossil fuels.
I did a telephone survey about a subject on which I am an expert. There were serious problems with the questions. When I asked for clarification, it only frustrated the poll taker. She, of course, had no clue and could only demand that I answer one of the choices given. I politely told her the interview was over. I’m guessing that poll takers find ways to keep people from actually thinking about the answers they give, and anyway they’ve probably never heard of ceteris paribus.
The polls are usually designed with responses with a desired outcome/conclusion already formulated. This is frequently seen in the academic arena of the soft social sciences.
“the soft social sciences.”
Is there any other kind?
There are also what is known as the “silly sciences.”
Yes these polls are a variety of push polling.
Why don’t they ask a direct question like: how much are you prepared to pay to stop the climate from changing?
My SOP when I receive a survey request, in use for the last 7 years.
(If I appear to have volunteered to do a survey, by, for example, failing to tick the “no” box when asked if I am prepared to provide further information, then I will admit to this error)
[if there is no unsubscribe tab]
“You might like to consider adding “unsubscribe” or similar to your standard registration message. This is mandatory under Australian law.” [The unsubscribe tab is usually so small that it is easily missed.]
“I am not interested in doing surveys. My reasons are:
1. Estimates of time taken are usually wrong. $5 for an hour’s work is not an inducement.
2. These days, it seems no one, including yourselves, have any survey design skills. Surveys are full of logical errors, ambiguity, and leading questions.
Recently I tried to do a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper for Woolworths Australia. Big companies, big $$$ ? Ought to know what they are doing ??
It was utter rubbish. As well as the above errors, there were inadequate options, eg “How often do you visit [name of store eg Masters]”. Options were in the range of “seldom” to “more than once a week”. There should have been “never” or “not applicable” when the nearest store is hundreds, maybe thousands of kilometers away. Duh ….
I have designed, supervised and analysed a number of surveys during my career.
Never thought of myself as an expert on the subject, but I am amazed by the poor standards that seem to prevail.
I am willing to audit draft surveys for gross errors like the ones above. My standard consultancy charge is $100 per hour, minimum charge $25.”
No takers. I occasionally get the the autogenerated “thank you for your enquiry.”
My minimum consultancy charge is 2 hours, and I charge $(US)135/hr. You might want to raise your minimum! 🙂
I always tell the pollsters the opposite in the stupid hope that one day they will give up because they are so useless.
It is not that more people are willing to pay for “climate mitigation,” it’s that more people are for someone else to pay for climate mitigation. The real question is how much are you willing to pay? What are you willing to forgo in the name of “saving the planet?”
This is similar to the persons approving of the riots until the rioters have an immediate effect on them.
If I recall correctly, there was a US mayor who only complained when the rioters were in his suburb and, notably, the US congress getting all hot and bothered when demonstrators entered their building.
I suggest the plumbers who service the waste disposal systems in all seats (pun intended) of government go on strike. How long would it take for those in power to realise that they are not really in power.
The problem is when you read what people are willing to pay it is a very small amount of their income. I’m sure they don’t also expect to pay 2x electricity rates, who knows how much more for gasoline. All kinds of products like food and manufactured goods will also increase. I suspect most folks think they can simply donate a small sliver to the government and that will be the end of it. The government will solve the problem with no more bother to the citizens. Ha, Ha, Ha. What dolts.
After spending some US$300 billion on covid (for 35 million people) so far, the governing Liberal party has promised a CO2 tax of US$130 (C$170) per tonne by 2030. We’re already at US$30.
The government increased the tax on what it calls “carbon pollution” on January 1st of this year and it will increase every year till 2030. Canada’s CO2 emissions are about 1.6 percent of the world’s total, and if we all stoped using fossil fuels tomorrow, just the annual increase in emissions from the rest of the world would negate the CO2 savings in nine months. The government promises that most Canadian families will get back more in rebates than they pay in CO2 taxes.
I’m so embarrassed to be canadian when I see how stupid so many of us really are. Trudeau is just being himself but what excuse do many others have?
As pointed out, we are 1.6%, our 2030 reduction is supposed to get rid of the 0.6 part of current emissions.
But as part of the same Paris agreement China is allowed to increase their current 1/3 of total emissions by 50%.
In real tonnage that means China is allowed to increase its emissions by 30 times the amount we are supposed to reduce.
And I’m supposed to believe there is an emergency?
Trudeau is a master at virtue-signalling. I seriously doubt he knows the difference between C and CO2 when he refers to “carbon pollution”.
If you’re getting back more in “rebates” than you pay in “taxes,”
(1) it’s because the “taxes” you can directly identify are NOT the entirety of the actual costs you will pay; or
(2) it’s because they are just printing money and virtue signalling, which means you are also paying a “hidden tax” called inflation; AND
(3) IF you were really “given” more than they “took,” the complete lack of any purpose would quickly become apparent – who would actually reduce their “emissions” when they are being (supposedly) “rewarded” for them with “rebates;” AND
(4) you can count on the “rebates” being quickly “disappeared” once the “taxes” are in place.
Just another tax scheme to generate revenue, on grand scale. The climate aspect of reduced emissions is in reality a secondary goal for politicians pushing carbon emission taxes. Any such tax on energy is highly regressive in nature, affecting lower income families the hardest in higher utility, food, and transportation costs. These are costs the wealthy easily bear. Some of the tax money is then doled back to selected, politically-favored groups to buy votes, but most of the money just goes to grow government, provide pols with more power of tax and spend, and make government more intrusive. It also results in money grubbing institutions like the Vatican climbing on board the climate gravy train and hoping for a piece of the action, the multi-trillion dollar redistributions promised down the line for playing along now.
The real effect of such carbon taxes imposed on western nations will be to continue the push of manufacturing out of Europe and North America and send it to countries not subject to emissions limits, per international agreement. From a policy standpoint, this push of jobs couldn’t be more clear in the real impacts of agreements coming out of the politicized UN Confernce of Parties (COP) process agreements like the disastrous Paris agreement that nothing substantive regarding CO2 emissions on a global scale.All the COP scams just off-shores the emissions to countries heavily reliant on coal to produce electricity.
The sooner people wake up to the reality of the climate scam as simply a policy to redistribute wealth and grow government, the sooner we can end this nonsense scam and adulterated science supporting it.
It also off shores the environmental impacts of mining the rare earth elements needed for the “green” energy solutions
The whole survey is a total nonsense. All it does is to measure the success or failure of the CAGW concept propaganda, which is taken as a given in the questions and is a falsity in itself.
How these sorts of survey get through the so called peer/pal? review process and get published beats me.
After the Doran/Zimmerman and Lewendowski/Cook “scientific” poll fiascos that would drive first year stat students into a laughing fit, it is obvious anything that supports the “narrative” gets a free pass.
The success of propaganda supported lies that manipulate voters to act against their own self interest is crucial to the causes of the left, so measuring it would make sense so they can see if it’s still working. They must be on top of this since once the propaganda stops working, and it always does, only harsh oppression can save the agenda.
That’s why the U. S. Capitol needs 25,000 National Guard <b>Troops</b> (not just reserve police officers, but <b>Troops</b>, complete with loaded sidearms and rifles, HumVees (some with .50 caliber machine guns), M-4s, etc.) with roadblocks and checkpoints all over the f***ing place for the inauguration in <3 days. Once an insurgency takes over a government through blatant insurrection, they must deploy conspicuous force to hold onto it!
You have to wonder who they’re so afraid of and trying to influence. An easily identifiable and manageable handful of extremists willing to use violence to achieve their anarchistic goals or the 75 million people who voted for Trump and feel disenfranchised by a dishonest press and corrupt big data whether or not there was enough fraud on election day to flip the results.
They’re so paranoid now, they’re questioning the commitment of National guard troops based on their political beliefs. AOC wants to ‘deprogram’ anyone who has a different opinion than hers. Big data is trying to rewrite history as they purge other opinions from cyberspace. Our dystopian future has arrived.
Anyone who isn’t concerned as freedom is rapidly being eroded is the most dangerous kind of useful idiot. These are the people who need to be deprogrammed.
Garbage. Asking people how much they would be willing to pay is asking them how much virtue they want to signal. People will say all kinds of things. What they will do is completely different. Asking them if they want some policy even if it will cost jobs is meaningless. What will happen when the policy stakes away their job? probably riots.
We already know what they will do. The rich and connected will continue to fly around the world in their private jets, live in big energy-using houses (how many houses does Obama own?) and eat in fancy restaurants while everyone else can’t dine out if they could afford it. Then they will lecture us on doing our part.
And meals of bugs for the rest of us because raising then getting meat to our tables produces GHG.
A while ago, South Africa’s busiest metropolitan highway was refurbished and tolled. The contract to administer the tolling was given to a company demanding R4 billion per year, on a 40km highway. To put that into perspective, the annual budget for the Revenue Services that administers the entire nation’s taxes, is just over 30 MILLION. So we kicked back. Two things then happened:
An e-mail campaign made the rounds, “surveying” us with the question: “Do you think 4 cents per kilometer toll is to acceptable?” Against my advice, my colleagues agreed. Shortly after, a massive, R200-million campaign was launched to thank all South Africans for agreeing to paying tolls on the N1. At the moment, it is over R7 a kilo! (700 cents)
At least they were prosecuted for their fraudulent “thank you” campaign! The fight against the tolls continue…
You are describing exactly the same technique, but aimed at people who have no idea how winter changes into summer, never mind absorption frequencies and methane breakdown.
Ignorance has been weaponised!
That really does not make sense, or I’m not understanding your numbers….
I’ll build you a highway for $2,500/ft (and i’ll get extremely rich doing it).
The toll (supposedly to pay for the highway) will cost $25,000/ft to administer?
This is the decade of desperate and dangerous leftist political climate fraud. Because global temperatures are set to plummet, they must enact draconian laws now before the unthinking masses catch on.
I was recently involved in developing a willingness-to-pay survey for an environmental issue. The experts I was working with were very careful not to signal what the focus was by not giving any background information. The intent of a real survey is not to inform but to find out what honest opinions people have. Any information given is a slant in the survey.
And you can see the slant in the results posted in this article. “Climate Change Deniers.” Need I say more?
For whar do you need the money, for building a giant tower to be able to speak with Gaia?
The outcome of this survey appears to be two-fold.
Fisrt, it suggests that propaganda works if applied consistently for long enough time.
Second, that countries diverge internally in their views simply shows that one group expects to benefit while another expects to be burdened with the cost.
Since neither result is surprising, this survey doesn’t reveal anything we could not have predicted long ago.
And I wonder about just how a valid survey of the populace of China was accomplished.
good point.
the survey should be able to provide demographics of the polled.
I wonder how, on average, the Uighurs responded?
I keep buying ‘stuff’ – to satisfy what few vices I have left
One of them is big loud amps speakers AND 4-to-the-floor musix to put through same
I’ve suffered this affliction for 45 years now…
About 8 months ago, I got some loudspeaker cross-overs, from China via ebay.
The 400Watt rated pieces cost ‘only’ £7 for a pair.
I lost, as you do in your Golden Years, the paperwork and have just now been retracing my steps to find their specs.
What I did find tho was that the price of them had gone up to, between, £6 and £9 EACH.
They’ve easily doubled.
OK. Is that Brexit?
Or, look at the price of copper.
(To see even more siht, the website of the London Metal exchange crashed when I first tried to check. sigh. just call me ‘Midas’ from now on)
The only significant thing in these components I got = A Hefty Inductor = copper wire
8 months ago when I bought them, copper was £4,800 per tonne.
It is now just over £8,000 per tonne
Nothing to do with wind turbines and a plethora of big phat Intercontinental Interconnectors I imagine, Shirley not.
Meanwhile, the BBC is full of its usual self (i.e. BS) and raving about how Joe is promising to undo ‘most everything Donald did.
Oh well.
Turkeys Will Be Turkeys
Then I got to wondering, in view of the flagrant mendacity going on in this story..
Why was a “Medieval Battle” not only allowed to start at the very heart of US Democracy, but allowed to run (for hours) before it was stopped? or did it just fizzle out?
I see 2 possibilities, neither especially ‘bright’
1) Did ‘someone’. obviously trapped in their own hideous world of magical thinking, so despise Mr Trump that they allowed it to run?
To make doubly triply or even super massivly sure he was personally and probably financially ruined by it.
If so, how many more are In The System, thinking like that.
scary stuff indeed.
2) Or was someone actually, if you like, ‘On Our Side’
Was The Battle of the Capitol allowed to run as a re-run of the Storming of the Bastille?
is history repeating?
It won’t be the first time.
[hahaha oh dear, did i just say that]
Just for you Peta…. £7 for a pair…. that’s cheap as chips. ! 🙂
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/goertz-12-awg/goertz-cf4.7-12-awg-copper-foil-inductor/
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/supreme-caps/mundorf-22.0-mfd-supreme-caps/
Quote:
“Using identical surveys a decade apart, we examine how attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate policies have changed in the United States, China, and Sweden.
***********
First of all, and from the sound of it, the survey givers here appear to be deciding for the survey takers what is and what isn’t true about the climate. It is assumed by the survey givers that the climate is in some sort of a state that requires a government policy. What science background do the survey givers have?
Secondly, it is assumed that the survey takers are able to trust what the survey givers and alarmist scientists are saying about the climate and that there is no monkey business going on. The survey takers likely have little or no background in or understanding of science, the history of science, or how scientific discourse is supposed to work. Asking them their opinions that involve a subject they likely know little or nothing about is perhaps a little like asking the cleaning lady at a hospital her opinion on how to do heart surgery.
It is obvious to me that he survey givers’ intent here is drive a climate activist agenda with the survey. It is not hard for me to see right through it.
I’ve done both commercial and academic surveys. It is well-known and widely acknowledged by people doing either that you can get anything you want to hear from respondents through questionnaire design.
Over a decade ago I received a rather lengthy survey in the mail. It included a $2 bill and a letter that said I’d agreed to do it.
(I might have via a phone call, but I didn’t remember doing so.)
After going through 6 or 7 pages width pretty straight forward questions and answers about consumer preferences, TV shows etc., I hit a section on religious beliefs.
I couldn’t honestly choose any of the available answers and there was no “None of the Above” option.
I skipped that section and eventually reached a section that had to with CAGW.
The available answers were even worse than the religious beliefs section!
I didn’t continue and never sent it in.
For a few months I’d get emails saying I’d agreed to do it and trying to guilt me into sending it in because they’d sent me $2 whole dollars.
I’d wasted much more that $2 of my time before I got to the stuff they were really after.
Aside from the occasional, short, straightforward surveys such as we see WUWT put up at times about format changes and such, that was the last survey I’ve ever attempted to answer.
The social cost of carbon is close to negative infinity. Without carbon based fuels, our free and productive society would collapse.
+ 1000% !!!
Not one single “climate believer” would EVER forego all the benefits that fossil fuels bestow on society.
This finding is extraordinarily depressing:
“78% of US respondents think the US should reduce emissions, even if other countries do not—up from 68% in 2009. This view increased primarily among Democrats. ”
However the last sentence ‘splains a lot. Also suggests to me an oversampling of Democrats.
Yes, the politicization of climate science in a pox on all legitimate science. Goebbels’s was right and if Biden and his comrades have their way, history will remember Biden as the idiot who was able to leverage obviously flawed science to support an insane ideology whose goal is to destroy the free world in order remake it in the image of China.
For the United States the ALT key findings of the report should be noted:
… asked the respondents … a wellknown cause of bias. If you don’t ascribe to the idea of manmade climate change or if you do not care woukd you respond? The survey is based on input from people who are predominantly believers.
The price elasticity of demand for all forms of energy is extremely inelastic. Therefore, as taxes increase making energy more expensive the amount of energy used will not decline much at all. Does anyone really believe that the government will use the taxes collected to make a substantial cut in CO2 production? Or is that unrealistic and therefore the “climate crisis” is just a scam to raise taxes and promote more spending on a political idealogy?
The survey is simply a push poll
Polls, of dubious reliability, are being used as propaganda to convince the public to “go along to get along,” and try to get people to question their beliefs if they appear to be a minority.
Yahoo has been suppressing reader comments during the election cycle. I don’t expect them to start allowing comments until after the inauguration, and they will probably censor comments they don’t want to be read by others, with threats to prohibit some individuals from making future comments, as The Conversation has done.
Free speech is slowly being strangled, and I fully expect pressure on Anthony for this site in the not too distant future. Never did I expect to see this happening in my life time!
So since I used the word “insurrection” in my earlier comment, Anthony is in trouble?
The only people who will be in trouble are those who tell the truth, question contradictions, and dare to discuss that which is settled.
People may “say” one thing, but let’s see them follow up with actions that affect them personally
You know, like NONE of the climate glitterati do. !
From what I have seen, being a “believer” means they have the “right” to burn a whole heap more fossil fuels than normal people.
How about Thorium power generation.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086P6GSNC/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc
This report can best be used to show the lack of knowledge of the responders regarding science and economics. The more serious the person thinks the threat is, and the more willing to pay is inversely correlated with their mental capability. Another way of thinking about it is how deeply into the cult they have willingly gone.
Bait and Switch.
I remember seeing the local news around the 4th of July showing a cheery bomb blowing up a watermelon and then warning the public how dangerous an 1-1/2 was.
I also remember on a national new channel when Bill Clinton was promoting his “assault weapon ban” showing a military AK-47 on full auto blowing away a watermelon. Yet, after it was passed (no thanks to John Kasich), the full-auto military version of the AK-47 they showed could STILL be legally purchased. (The permits were expensive but it could be purchased.) It was only the semi-auto civilian version that became illegal along with any other semi-auto rifle that had those scary extra tubes on the it.
Bait and Switch.
Show cell phone footage of some climate disaster and claim is due to Man’s CO2 causing “Global Warming” and ignore the fact that such things occurred before cell phones were invented.
Has The Storm Channel that likes to name winter cold fronts and reply past hurricanes and such when there is no present “action”, EVER done an episode on the 2 blizzards in ’78?
I didn’t think so. No cell phone footage of flurries in somebody’s back yard.
Uhh… that should be “cherry bomb”, not “cheery bomb”!
(Maybe we could do with some of the latter!)
There are other typos such as “reply” instead of “replay” but, you probably know what I meant.
Bring on the next Michael Moore project – RFF and Me
RFF has been distorting energy policy for most of my professional life with no apologies for their costly chants. They and Jimmy Carter of course walked away with no ill effects for themselves and no apologies offered.