From Physorg and the “if we can just figure out how to conceal the taste with sugar” movement.
Context is king when advocating for renewable energy policies, according to political science professor
June 30, 2017 by Sonia Fernandez
Credit: University of California – Santa Barbara
The first rule of advocating for climate change-related legislation is: You do not talk about “climate change.” The term has become so polarizing that its mere mention can cause reasonable people to draw seemingly immutable lines in the political sand.
“In some ways, it functions as what we would call a ‘dog-whistle’,” said UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, referring to a term or statement that while innocent-sounding enough to most people, encodes deeper and more specific meanings to certain audiences. And it’s true: For many conservatives, the idea of enacting climate change-related renewable energy policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes. For many liberals, on the other hand, not enacting such policies is fraught with fears of economic loss and major lifestyle changes. It’s a tug-of-war that began at the start of the century and continues today.
“Trump is president right now and therefore we’re really unlikely to see new federal laws trying to support climate change legislation or renewable energy policy, or dealing with environmental problems,” Stokes said. States will likely become the leaders in pursuing renewable energy policy to maintain progress and deal with potentially damaging environmental effects, such as sea level rise and air quality problems, she said. But levels of support for action vary across the nation, and the challenge will be to avoid triggering knee-jerk reactions that are less about the issue and more about partisanship.
“We try to understand what kinds of messages would work with the public and how that would translate into more states actually doing something about these issues,” said Stokes, who with Christopher Warshaw of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted research into how people connect (or not) with the hot-button issues related to climate change, such as renewable energy legislation. Their study, “Renewable Energy Policy Design and Framing Influence Public Support in the United States,” is published in the journal Nature Energy.
The good news from the results of their repeated survey experiment: Public support for renewable energy in the U.S. is very strong. According to their baseline figures, the vast majority of people in the country support renewable energy portfolios in their states, in which a certain amount of the states’ electricity comes from a renewable source . The results are what you might expect: States with an abundance of renewable resources—California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Iowa, for instance—top the list and have actual renewable energy policies in play, while the southern and mountain states tend to have little support, and no renewable energy policies.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-context-king-advocating-renewable-energy.html#jCp
HT\ reader gnomish
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
@Rob Bradley
You need to make an effort and produce that deep sucking sound that come with getting your head out of where the sun don’t shine… True to form you appear to think that the US is the only advanced industrial economy on the planet – July the 4th and your current president’s fabulations notwithstanding, not so. And at 32N the deserts in Texas and North Africa have a few things in common.
In fact Germany, the test crash dummy country that prides itself on pushing through a renewable energy revolution [energiewende] has walked right into the fundamental problems I described: entire seasons with no sun or no wind. 10 years and euro 500 billion in subsidies later, during the past 3 winters, just when the juice is really important, solar and wind contributed just over 1% of Germany’s electricity.
Which, said in passing, is why that country quietly – Mrs Merkel’s climate crocodile tears aside – is in the process of bringing on line 16 coal fired plants all the while lambasting the US for walking away from Paris.
Meamwhile the average Germany on-the-grid household is today paying 35c/kWh at the wall. That’s what you get in the real world when you allow greenie ideology to run the show.
To the cars:
3 years worth of CO2 to catch up on a Leaf and 8 for a Tesla S. Where you go off into blue yonder is that there will be no “years 4-10”. That’s because as anyone in that industry with a modicum of integrity would tell you if asked, the batteries in those cars will ne kaput having recharged to death, and everyone of those vehicles will need new ones – so the 3- 8 year CO2 cycle starts again.
So do the math Rob: by the time the Tesla runs through its second set of batteries the Malibu would have done 16×20,000 = 320,000 miles, which is completely unrealistic because it would have been scrapped long before that and therefore stopped producing CO2 – while the Tesla’s CO2 account is still running. See the problem?
Simply facts like that hadn’t occurred to you, had they? Arrogance – which you clearly have in spades – does that – blinds you and closes the mind.
So why don’t you go pound some sand and ponder the reality that talking the talk is not at all the same thing as walking the walk [ask the previous president if you need pointers]…
USA’s private sector wastes roughly $2 TRILLION PER YEAR (about equal to the entire GDP of India) on mostly unneeded and absurd rules and regulation compliance costs.
While the US flushes $trillions/yr down the toilet on regulations, debates which pronouns and bathrooms to use, Leftists’ heads explode over the Russia/Trump/Bigfoot sc@m, and Trump Tweets, China is quietly but aggressively developing Thorium MSRs, which they estimate will be commercially available in about 12 years….
Here is a presentation a Chinese delegation of nuclear physicists made to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) late last year in Vienna:
https://www.iaea.org/NuclearPower/Downloadable/Meetings/2016/2016-10-31-11-03-NPTDS/05_TMSR_in_China.pdf
When Chinese LFTRs go online around 2030, a huge tsunami of Western manufacturing will move to China to take advantage of their: near free and unlimited energy, minimal regulations, low taxes and cheap labor..
And so it goes, until it doesn’t……
In some ways, it functions as what we would call a ‘dog-whistle’,” said UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, referring to a term or statement that while innocent-sounding enough to most people
Those living in ‘safe space’ at least.
What do we know of Leah Stokes?
At a guess, a child.
Why?
There comes a point in everyone’s lives when something rather ‘major’ happens. Be it marriage, divorce, job loss/redundancy, the passing of (both) parents etc. Those sorts of things.
That is the point in time were you (metaphorically) Grow A Pair.
You learn what it is be A Man or A Responsible Adult. Responsible for your own behaviour and responsible for others. A classic example is when you simply cannot anymore dump the kids onto the grandparents when you ‘need’ a babysitter. yeah.
In other words, you learn the futility and the actual harm & damage that can come from telling lies.
Actual outright Porkie Pies or lies by omission.
You also find that it takes a great weight off your mind, you live (esp with yourself, in your own head) that much better.
You gain self confidence, can find it easy to quit habits like smoking & drinking and overeating. You sleep better.
And therein is my impression of (the lovely?) Leah.
Neurotic, guilt ridden, possibly overweight, can’t exist without morning coffee (and hence endless painkillers to fix the headaches caffeine gives you/me/her), white wine in the evenings to go with a low sat-fat tasteless meal and, as a consequence of all that, generally stressed out.
And what causes the stress? Lying.
Now then, how much sh1t have I just dropped myself into…………
Living in the Progressive Capital City of the world (IMO) I was party to a group of them talking about various progressive issues – and one person stood up to warn the people there not to use the term “Climate Change”. That was about six months ago. Language and lies.
We use plenty of renewable energy in Tennessee, it is called hydroelectric. For some reason , hydroelectric power is exempted from the renewables list. it is the only renewable that functions as reliable baseload power, provided we have had enough rain.
Texas is a “red state” that is a leader in solar and wind generation. Liberals show their bias when they make statements like Southern states have “no renewable energy policies”