Story submitted by Eric Worrall
A UK government study has concluded that people concerned about global warming, on average, use more electricity than climate skeptics.
Some highlights from the study follow.
On the “benefits” of switching off appliances;
“There is some link between households’ stated behaviour towards switching off unused appliances and electricity use, but there is seldom a statistically significant relationship (p-value 0.05 or less) between stated and actual behaviour. This means that policy-makers cannot rely on stated behaviours alone in assessing how often householders turn off unused TVs and desktop computers, or how much hot water they use for showers.”
On the (inverse!) correlation between environmental belief and energy use;
“Taken all together, householders who strongly agreed they were not worried about climate change because it was too far in the future in fact used less electricity rather than more, counter to the hypothesis that households concerned about climate change use less electricity.”
The study noted however that this was largely due to the fact most climate skeptics were older and poorer than people who expressed strong feelings about green issues.
“However, we found this was largely due to the effect of age, as older households were much more likely to agree with this statement, and also had lower energy consumption.”
Peter Lilley, a Conservative member of the Commons Energy and Climate Change committee, said:
“The survey exposes the hypocrisy of many who claim to be ‘green’: the greater the concern people express about global warming the less they do to reduce their energy usage.”
The study is available here:
If the hypothesis of AGW is valid, and the Hypocrites believe that Un-Green lifestyles is destroying the climate and dooming humanity to death, famine and pestilance, and those hypocrites continue to engage in those lifestyles that doom us, then what kind of monsters are they? At least the deniers honestly think that the past warming was predominately due to natural cycles and any anthropological input is self-limiting so if they destroy the world it’s through ignorance instead of malice.
Belief in CAGW is clearly a ritual which improves chances of entry into the socioeconomic elite.
It shows that you know how the game is played.
This report is all wrong. The study did not find that ‘greens’ used more electricity than ‘sceptics’. It explicitly said it could not determine that. It only found a difference between age groups. In order to come to a conclusion wrt green vs sceptic, it would have had to find a difference between them that could not be caused by some other factor, for example by finding a green-sceptic difference within the younger group or within the older group.
Mike Jonas
This report is all wrong. The study did not find that ‘greens’ used more electricity than ‘sceptics’. It explicitly said it could not determine that. It only found a difference between age groups.
In order to come to a conclusion wrt green vs sceptic, it would have had to find a difference between them that could not be caused by some other factor, for example by finding a green-sceptic difference within the younger group or within the older group.
I disagree. The older more skeptical group is clearly demonstrating by their example that it is possible to be frugal with energy. The younger, “greener” group are demonstrating they’re all talk – they don’t make any effort to practice what they preach.
If we follow your reasoning, we would have to give an “allowance” to richer younger people to burn more energy. After “adjustment”, richer younger greens who made some effort would appear frugal, even if they burned more energy than an older skeptic who made a lot of effort to keep the bills down. This, with respect, would be utterly absurd.
Read the study. People’s views are confounded with age and income. Skeptics are older and poorer.
Siberian Husky: You cannot draw that conclusion from this tiny poorly designed study. The sample is way too small and, skeptics, if they are anything like me, are more likely to decline to respond to such surveys.
Eric Worrall – What I’m trying to say is that the study doesn’t distinguish between greenness and scepticism within each age group. It’s perfectly possible that older greenies and older sceptics are equally frugal, while younger greenies and younger sceptics are equally profligate.
The idea of having to give “allowances” is way beyond the limits of my argument.
@pbft
From the study: “When we separate the pensioner households from younger ones there was no significant relationship between this statement and energy use in the pensioner group, and only a weak trend among the younger households.”
In other words, even when controlled as you suggest, they don’t practice what they preach.
Mike Jonas
Eric Worrall – What I’m trying to say is that the study doesn’t distinguish between greenness and scepticism within each age group. It’s perfectly possible that older greenies and older sceptics are equally frugal, while younger greenies and younger sceptics are equally profligate.
The idea of having to give “allowances” is way beyond the limits of my argument.
Older greens and skeptics using the same energy seems likely, from the study – nevertheless, the point stands; Greens are not practicing what they preach.
The older generation are using less energy than younger people, despite a higher proportion of younger people claiming to be concerned about the environment.
So clearly younger people, even if they think they are being green, are not reducing their personal energy use in line with their stated beliefs, as much as the older generation demonstrates that they could. It could be down to ignorance of possible means of saving energy. More likely its due to hypocrisy.
“””””…..Brian says:
July 15, 2014 at 4:34 am
I have spent most of my adult life working in HVAC and energy. I wish i could say I was even a little bit surprised by this……”””””
So since I don’t tinkle or titter, nor do I text, just what is HVAC ??
I’m torn between “High Voltage Alternating Current”, and “High VACuum”, which I presume is similar to HV.
Whatever happened to the rule of defining your buzz words the first time you use them in a document ??
@george
Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning – not a field I work in and I’ve never really thought it to be a buzz word – it’s the header those services are listed under in the yellow pages.
“bernie1815 says:
July 16, 2014 at 4:40 am
Siberian Husky: You cannot draw that conclusion from this tiny poorly designed study. The sample is way too small and, skeptics, if they are anything like me, are more likely to decline to respond to such surveys.”
Yes Bernie- that’s kinda my point- you can’t draw any conclusions from this tiny poorly designed study. I’m not the one who’s doing so.
But Siberian Husky, you appeared to have done just that: “Skeptics are older and poorer.”
For this issue the demographic comparisons are irrelevant, because any adult in the developed world makes innumerable choices about how to live, how much energy to utilize etc. Those “younger, wealthier” greens could choose to lower their energy and resource consumptions to levels well below “older, poorer” skeptics, but that would require efforts and inconveniences that few hypocritical greens wish to suffer.
Far easier to preach to others, work to employ increased state controls and taxes against us, and then jet off to Bali or Rio when the stress of being Green becomes too intense.
I know people who think nothing of demonstrating against globull warming one day, then jetting off to Bali the next for vacation.