As a supplement to Paul’s post, I thought it was worthwhile posting derived tables of the breakdown by partisan affiliation, gender and age, courtesy of Possum. As he says, “Those results are pretty interesting in and of themselves!”… particularly the variance by age and, to a lesser degree, gender.
Well as an aged hippie who was introduced to the concept of peak oil by geophysists in the late 1970s I take global warming as fact, less disputable than Christ was crucified and resurrected.
Mark,
That also could be interpreted as proof that as we get older we get more cynical about the latest “The world is gonna end!” theory as we have seen it all before.
Not much of a drop off between 18-34 and 35-49, though, Andrew.
How about you form your opinions in your 20s and it will take a cataclysmic event to change your mind!
Pardon? Oh. You are looking at the polling results
.
It takes time to go through several “we’re all doooooomed” scenarios. Give it time.
Check out Shanahan in the Oz this morning for some savvy analysis if you want a laugh.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/opinion/protest-poll-flags-rush-to-coalition/story-e6frgd0x-1225831138571
The guy never learns.
Yeah, Shanahan is more and more coaliton presss officer than journo. He appears to have not concern for professionalism or reputation. Once again, he’ll look like a total goose when Abbott flops, as all the data told him – but on he plods dutifully. Hilarious!~
Anyway, the figures are in: a whopping 69% find scientists more credilble than hopelelssly compromised carbon industry muppets (what a surprise…not); including a sound majority among coalition supporters – with the only substantial demographic redoubt among those who will, statistically, go ‘permanently carbon neutral’ first.
Not difficult to see which way this will trend over time!
Well Glenn Milne was burning his Midnight Oil CDs on Monday, which has got to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Why doesn’t he just break them like everyone else? Perhaps he can be made to pay a tax on the resulting carbon emissions.
Linked text
Well, according to ABC2 Breakfast Show, (Who, as we know are utterly impartial when it comes to allocating blame to the ALP for anything
) their morning e-mailers are bitterly divided. %0% blame Garrett, 50% don’t. (I suppose its a bit like a Channel 9 phone poll.)
Daubt it. he’s got form, remember the narrowing?. To the rusted on readers as well as the conservative punters Denis is on message.Further, the buzzy bees at the Oz are not there to conscientiously report and analyse, but to gather honey for Rupert. Comedy and drama sell, the monotonous grinding of the mill and deep reflective stuff turns the average punter off. Such is the lot of a consumer democracy
As for Glenn, gosh he is slow. I hung my Oil CDs as a scarecrow against the Cockies in the Mandarine tree, when our Garret approved the infamous mill in Tassie. It seems to work!
The data shows a fairly rapid fall-off from the 35-49 cohort to the 50+ cohort. It would be interesting to see a further breakdown of CC beliefs with age beyond 50; e.g. 50-59, 60-69, 70+.
My informal assessment, from a show of hands of a group mostly 60+ was that they were overwhelmingly of the opinion that “climate change is a load of crap”. Perhaps as much as 60-70% of them were of that opinion.
Maybe constipated thinking accelerates with advancing age, for most people?
I prefer that the word “belief” not be used when is relation to CC. Belief has nothing to do with it. There is no point for anyone to “believe” in CC. Use “persuaded” or “accepting”, etc.
David @12, Yep, totally agree! Accept is more appropriate.
I mused on using that term at the time of writing, but figured it was common parlance rather than specific meaning for most on LP. It certainly wasn’t intended to be understood in the way that denialists apply it.
Recently, someone accosted me after giving a strong comment at a ASA meeting that people who thought that “climate change was crap” should put a little time into looking at the data, rather than listening to the likes of Monckton.
This man and his mate proceeded to inform me that it was like religious belief, and “those who believed in climate change had religious zeal…”, etc, etc. I retorted that I was talking about data, not beliefs – belief means that you hold a view in the absence of any solid evidence.
“But it is still your belief…”.
“NO, I am talking about looking at the data…”
So it went, until my eyes glazed over and they changed tack to “peak oil is a load of crap”. Those old codgers had their perspectives well fixed.
What is the difference between a reasoned assessment based on data and a “belief”? Maybe a mirror might have helped them? Assuming they were capable of introspection?
Perhaps we could workshop an ARC Discovery Grant application on the topic of “The Ontological and Epistemological consequences of Human Ageing”.
I don’t think it’s just aging, Paul @ 14. I’m well into the 50+ demographic, and I still live in the real world. I think it’s more to do with being a particular type of blinkered, and probably poorly-educated, conservative.
PN @ 14,
On good days I think I’m Trotsky. 
Definitely not aging. I’m 65 and sometimes I still think I’m Vladimir Ulyanovitch Lenin.
PB said:
Ok … that would be Vladimir Il(y)ich Ulyanov. Lenin was his party name and technically ought not be collocated. I know it commonly is, as is Trotsky’s name (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) = “Leon Trotsky”, and even more commonly Josef Stalin (Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili) but this is untidy, IMO.
I think that the numbers highlight confusion and denial of a different kind. For the older generation to accept human induced climate change must involve the acceptance of direct responsibility. Can it be that their lives have diminished the lives of their offspring? to this their is more disbelief than denial. And for this generation there is also a less solid scientific knowledge base (belief) with which to assess the swag of informed environmental study reports filling the news. These people prefer to rely on the government and their politicians of choice to offer guidence. And this is where the whole story becomes dismally distorted, because what a sorry lot our leaders (politicians) are. In my opinion they have all sold their soles (with perhaps the exception of some greens) to the devil of their choosing, and are preparred to lie and cheat their way forward. Our older generation live with the memory (impression) of strong decisive governments that people would willingly go to war for, but today’s cressiendo of political double speek has got to be leaving them confused and untrusting. So when a unnaturally clean cut Australian boy politician comes along selling a system (CPRS) that even the “experts” are confused by to solve a problem that even the policians cannot agree exists, they naturally default to a safe “no” answer. This is, surely, not surprising to any one.
What is the answer? More honesty and less political intrigue. A straight message which does not include absolute contradictions such as “clean” “coal”, or “safe” “nuclear” (the subject group remember the connection of “nuclear” and bombs that can annihilate all life 100 times over). And a solution that even the government can understand.
SPeaking seriously, and leaving aside all the tropes about the psychology of youth and age, I think one likely explanation is that members of the older age cohorts formed their views at a time when the conventional industrial model of economic growth and development was seen unproblematically as a good thing, whereas younger generations have formed their views in a different discursive environment in which that conventional model of growth and development and the values underpinning it have become problematised.
I think we can safely say we will be hearing less and less about the CPRS from the government as the election draws closer, and more about the “Great Big New Tax” from the Abbott & Barnaby show. The CPRS is now a dead weight around the government’s neck, and climate change as an issue has become a net negative for the government — its more likely to lose votes for the government and than win votes.
Australians have woken up to the fact that reducing carbon emissions will cost them money, and they don’t like it. Rudd can either shut down the issue completely (which will be difficult with Abbott banging on about the GBNT) or change the policy. The failure of Copenhagen gives him an excuse to dump the CPRS — he should take it and move to something like Garnaut’s $20/tonne carbon tax on the top 1000 polluters, with the proceeds paid out equally to all Australians as a “climate change dividend”. That would be much more palatable politically.
It would certainly be interesting politics for the government to switch from cap and trade to a carbon tax in the face of the GBNTOE scare campaign. Certianly removes the sense of trying to hide the tax part. Not sure it’s Rudd’s style to go head-on like that though.
As an aside, that Newspoll had the Coalition leading the ALP on ‘economic management’ 40-35. WTF?
CS@20
‘he should take it and move to something like Garnaut’s $20/tonne carbon tax on the top 1000 polluters, with the proceeds paid out equally to all Australians as a “climate change dividend”’
What th……?? what on earth would that achieve?
The whole debate has diverted off into fantasy land. All we need now is for someone to seriously propose the existence of a “carbon fairy”.
PN@19,
There is a lot of substance in your comment here.
Yes, BilB. Speaking from personal experience, as a child, whenever our family went to the Bellarine Peninsula for a holiday, I’d wander across the rocks on the headlands picking mussels and eating them raw. When I was about 10 my father told me I had to stop doing this because of concern that the mussels were contaminated by industrial pollutants in Port Phillip Bay. THat sort of message makes a bigger impression on a 10 year old who is now, er, on the cusp of a certain age cohort, than on a 30 or 40 year old who would now be about 70 or 80.
My mother proudly recalls me saying my first big word, pollution, at the age of she thinks about three, coming from nowhere. I’m shocking for indoctrination*, my poor kid is already very aware of pollution and where it comes from, readily able to express his dismay at truck exhausts etc.
* hey if you don’t do it openly, you still do it.
Fran @ 17,
Ooops. I knew I shoulda looked it up.
BilB, that $20 carbon tax is what the Greens are negotiating with the Government at the moment.
This is slightly off-topic, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately in regard to polling, and I’d be interested if anyone here knows the answer. Is all polling survey still done via the telephone [landline]?
With an increasing tendency of people to ditch their land-lines in favour of mobile technologies, will polling increasingly ‘self-select’ a certain proportion of people who are change adverse?
I mean a quarter+ of certain demographics not believing CC is happening at all…..? Even the 16-19% of the other demographics seems quite high.
Sure, Josh, but taxing 1000 companies and handing it back to the public is a pointless exercise. This simply increases the price of every thing and partially compensates for the increase, while not actually guaranteeing any improvement in the emitting industries.
It really is scary to take a peek into the mind of a Coalition voter. They seem to take a perverse delight in ignoring evidence. Now they seem to think that scientists are members of the PC “New Class” (New Class is a term Tony Abbott is particularly fond of).
Despite overwhelming recent evidence to the contrary, most would refuse to accept that Keynesian economics has worked in this country. So what hope is there that they’ll “believe” in man-made global warming? I wonder if they believe in gravity or that the earth revolves around the sun?
Not exactly BilB
Firstly, not everyone is equally compensated. If, for argument’s sake the total take is $500 per year per Australian, it will propbably be the case that the biggest payers will be the wealthiest, so if everyone gets an even share, it’s an income transfer.
Secondly, it is a bit like the opposite of a loyalty program. A loyalty program rewards you with dsicounts or prizes for continuing custom. A tax rewards you for taking your business elsewhere, since you only keep the money if you don’t counsume the service, or consume it less, aming it a disloyalty program.
oops …
making it a disloyalty program
Er, it would put a price on carbon and targets compensation at low income earners and welfare recipients. i.e. The big polluters pay (and pass on their costs) but the compensation is equal. If you use a lot of energy you pay more, but get the same dividend as someone who uses very little energy. The tax would be revenue neutral, and very simple, unlike the CPRS.
FYI: Garnaut is proposing the $20/tonne carbon tax as a transition to a full ETS when an international agreement is in place (like that’s ever gonna happen)
BilB @ 28: The CPRS does the same — increases the price of everything and compensates (mainly) low-income earners. Are you proposing the government keep the entire proceeds of a price on carbon?
They believe that the sun revolves around the earth and that fluctuations in its orbit around the earth are the real cause of global warming, not CO2 emissions.
Fran30, we were talking about Carbonsink’s casual proposal of
“with the proceeds paid out equally to all Australians as a “climate change dividend””
, not the CPRS. However…
Carbonsink32,
I am saying just what I have always said, and that is that the CPRS proceeds should be put entirely to building the new infrastructure. To that the Frans will say “but only the market can decide how that should be done”. To that I say “the markets have had decades to get this right but have only served to exagerate the problem”. We are now in a time critical phase which requires certainty. To that the Frans will say “the market does provide certainty, and efficiency”. To that I say “only in your dreams, kiddo. The reality is that the CPRS, and for that matter every other market like ETS, provides massive scope for dishonest dealings”. How does that work? The CPRS as applied and guided by bodies such as IPART and its other state equivalents, give lisence to the electricity industry to increase prices to accrue the monies needed to both pay for permits and to accrue monies to build infrastructure required to comply with the future environment of reduced carbon emission permit availablility ie they are required to have funds available to build new infrastructure, these funds can only come from the product user sooner or later, there is no “carbon fairey”.
This is the territory of the asset stripper. With the massive amounts of monies that have been stripped from the world’s economies into private pockets in the buildup to the eventual global economic crisis now sitting in accounts available to, and seeking to, fund new “high profit” ventures, opportunities such as a regulated requirement to accrue large sums of monies will be all to tempting for the “Enron” mentality. What? You don’t believe that that could happen? Well….
BilB @28: “Sure, Josh, but taxing 1000 companies and handing it back to the public is a pointless exercise.”
Firstly two questions, if I may, about this $20 carbon tax on the top 1000 polluting companies:
1. Does this include the trade-exposed companies AND the power generators?
2. Are they taking the simpler, cheaper route based on carbon content of fuels consumed, or are they taking the bureaucratically complex route of trying to audit all the effluent streams in the system for varying volumes and concentrations of carbon dioxide?
Assuming that the $20 carbon tax is implemented, better half and I were musing about what impact that would have on people’s behaviour. Based on our observations of behaviour for electricity consumption and petrol consumption in the face of increasing prices, we don’t think the average citizen will change unless the cost becomes very large and a cheaper alternative blindingly obvious.
Most people make even financial decisions on the basis of a lot of emotional and image-conscious bias. For example, those people who buy a PETROL 4WD but never go bush, never go camping, don’t own a boat and use it to drive around town. That is not a financially sensible decision, and nor is it a case of needing the capability of a 4WD for anything specific.
On the other hand, companies are definately in the habit of making decisions on a cost-efficiency basis. They WILL respond to increasing costs of operation, by investigating ways to reduce costs to their bottom line.
As such, aiming at the 1000 biggest consumers of carbon-based fuel probably will have an impact on those biggest polluters.
Compensating the average household seems counter-productive, except if you are a politician aiming to get re-elected.
You need to address those questions to Carbonsink@20, Elise.
BilB @36, sorry about the misdirection.
I was basically agreeing with your point about the pointlessness of a big circulating load of money.
However, the idea of directly addressing the source problem, which is carbon-based fuels, seems to have merit. I just wondered how it would be implemented.
BilB @ 34:
RE: spending carbon tax proceeds on infrastructure: Nice idea, but completely unsaleable to the electorate, and smacks of central planning. Rudd needs to neutralise Abbott’s GBNTOE attack by returning 100% of the proceeds to citizens.
Elise @ 35:
Dunno what the Greens and Garnaut are proposing but my answers would be 1. Yes, and 2. tax the carbon content of the fuel.
As for changing behaviour, if your electricity bill increases from $1,000/year to $1,500/year but that is offset by a $500/year “climate change dividend”, there is still a considerable incentive to reduce your electricity consumption. It changes the game from stick to carrot, when the punters figure out “Hey, I can be ahead if I use less electricity”.
You might think compensating households is counter-productive, but there’s Buckley’s of a GBNTOE getting up without it.
Addendum to @35: “…don’t think the average citizen will change unless the cost becomes very large and a cheaper alternative blindingly obvious.”
Make that “cost becomes very large and a cheaper alternative is both blindingly obvious AND socially very desirable”.
At a tangent, I was watching that show “Grand Tour” (or whatever its called) with the eccentric architect commentator. Someone seems to have told him that he needs to appeal to the common man, so now he is crude and vulgar, with his proper english mannerisms and accent making an odd contrast. Most peculiar!!! I liked him better as an eccentric toff – it seemed more authentic.
Anyway, the toff was saying that every english bloke worth his salt in Georgian times made a beeline for Italy. They bonked themselves silly with the lovely italian ladies, fell in love with pasta and all things italian, etc, and ultimately brought back a love of Italian architecture and interior design.
So then, all the very best houses in england were then done out as knock-offs of italian design. Subsequently, all the middle class houses got to copying what all the toffs were doing with italianate decor, etc. Next thing you know, all of england has a period styling, which they come to think of as their own…
Anyway, returning to the original point, what makes something socially very desirable, such that people take it onboard?
Presumably the original toffs in Georgian england were doing it because it was exotic, novel, exciting, reminded them of the wonderful time they had, and not least a certain brag value? So then, if the rich and well-travelled end of town was doing it, then it was socially desirable for everyone else.
How does one make low carbon technology desirable? Can it be made exotic, novel, exciting, and a certain brag value? Will the top end of town take low carbon on, such that it becomes the thing to do for all the wannabes?
Tesla are on the right track, I reckon, more so than Prius (which isn’t exciting enough, even though it is novel and practical). Nonetheless, Prius are first movers and have the volume production which Tesla can’t match. Toyota’s current problems might provide a window for others like Audi and BMW to showcase their sexier electric models in now?
How does one make other low-C technology exciting and desirable? How cool is a household BluGen unit and a bunch of solar panels? Any ideas?
Tochter aus Elisium:
Where we live, it became pretty d*mn cool last year when the subsidies on solar hot water (Fed + State + local council) covered very close to the whole cost.
In this street we had already halved our gas bills by going from bottled to town gas. Because the street had town gas, we had to have our electric HWS removed and a gas back-up water heater installed. Even without solar, the gas heater (instant heating) is far cheaper than the electric (overnight off peak). By a factor of 5, roughly. Lower greenhouse emissions by a factor of 4.5 I think.
Win-win.
It was word-of-mouth in our street: very powerful.
The news is getting around very swiftly, I reckon. As joe2 said recently, thousands of citizens are way ahead of the politicians.
By the way, the architect is knowledgeable about history. I think Palladio won, not just because of petty fashion. His work was elegant. And the improved design of public squares was a public good, not just a bauble of the rich.
I did think he overdid the “Italian/French prostitutes” story.
(Weren’t no bordellos got my street keen on solar panels….)
Latest news? Local Council has ceased its (relatively small) subsidy.
Elise@39: You are right about the elite leading opinion. Which is why, for example, it is smart to start by building luxury model low emission vehicles that the elite will be comfortable traveling in. The TESLA also makes sense in that it excites the revheads but I can’t see a car that needs a major infrastructure change to be more than a toy. Waiting for a comfortable plug in hybrid as the lead here.
Gosh Ambi @40, first ” Alle Menschen werden Brueder” and now “Tochter aus dem Elysium”.
Now you got me going “Freude, schöner Götterfunken“.
Yes, word of mouth etc., same here, I made similar observation. However, we forget, you and I are probably in better economic circumstances then say somebody renting or retired. It would be interesting to see an economic breakdown of the Newspoll rather then just the party affiliation, age and sex.
Carbonsink38,
Spending carbon tax receipts on infrastructure is EXACTLY what the public does expect and understand. Some examples? Snowey Mountains Scheme, most of NSW electricity infrastructure, buying of NSW coal reserves to support state electricity infrastructure. It has worked very well to date. What hasn’t worked very well is flogging this stuff off into private hands so that investment funds can profiteer at the consumers expense.
That is the reality.
What also hasn’t worked very well is promoting the idea of a hairy fairy, convoluted, market protecting, indirect investment driving mechanism for which the most positive sentiment to date has been “oh well, let’s just get on with something at least”.
Here is a question for you Carbonsink. What is (in your opinion) the cost of eliminating CO2 emissions from the primary energy sectors? And then what is that cost spread over a 30 year period?
Ootz @ 42, it’s “Tochter aus Elysium”. Maybe Ambi is going to go through the whole 108 lines.
Carbonsink @ 20, I tend to agree that climate change as a whole may be seen as a negative by Rudd for Labor. So his best chance to get it off the table might be to do a deal with the Greens and hope to pull in Xenephon and a Lib or two.
Brian,
I perceive that Rudd has lost his early bipartisan zeal, and a “deal” therefore is highly improbable. The price we pay for ego!?.
Apologies Ootz u. Brian
Weak attempt at a pun on the name ‘Elise’. (A friend taught me the song and we used to belt it out together, with Ludwig’s little tunes….)
Ootz: on the solar hot water, at least half of those taking it up in our street are retired. Home owners not renters. At practically zero cost, the householder’s disposable income fades into irrelevance I think.
But you’re right: income levels and power use habits will affect these decisions.
I wonder how many renters have pestered their landlord to install solar hot water or solar PV, to reduce their own costs?? (While some landlords pay water rates, it’d be rare to pay power/gas bills I’d have thought; so there’s no direct cost-saving incentive for the landlord to install solar; plenty of incentive for the renter.)
My accountant friend said last year, “With solar PV, don’t estimate only your annual power bill savings. You’ll also increase the capital value of your home if you install it.”
auf wiedersehen!
I agree entirely, which is why I think a simple fee-and-dividend system is much more saleable politically.
Where we disagree is whether the public would prefer the money returned to them directly or spent on clean-tech infrastructure. In opinion polls they might say they prefer the latter, but I’d bet my house they’d vote for the former.
Carbonsink @47: “Where we disagree is whether the public would prefer the money returned to them directly or spent on clean-tech infrastructure. In opinion polls they might say they prefer the latter, but I’d bet my house they’d vote for the former.”
Why not kill two birds with the one stone/scheme, carbonsink?
That is, return the money to the households directly, for use on low-C technology? Instead of a Green Loan (or as well as the loan facility) have a Green Dividend to use on low-C technology?
Perhaps this could include anything that a Green Audit deemed to be a method of reducing carbon emissions, including replacing old inefficient appliances, installing solar HW, solar PV, BlueGen, etc?
Would that push adoption along a bit, or what???
Carbonsink,
Where we really disagree is in taking money from the public in the first place. This should only be done if it is going to be pt to some good purpose, such as building alternative energy infrastructure or improving some significant industrial or agricultural processes with a view to permanently reducing CO2 emissions from same.
Elise @35: A tax of $20/tonne CO2 adds about 6 cents/litre to the price of fuel or roughly $2/week to the cost of running a car with average fuel consumption (11 litres/100km) – So hardly enough to drive any change. It also adds a bit over 2 cents/kWh to the cost of power. (Which would add about 30 cents/day to my bill.) Neither are large enough to drive much domestic action although the aluminum industry would be screaming if their power cost increased as much as that.
The increase in power cost would also be too low to drive investment in clean power. so what exactly is it going to achieve apart from minor irritation?
Well put JohnD
Interesting data for lots of reasons, but I don’t think the age factor is quite as significant as may seem to some.
My first take on those figures was that they showed how much more intelligent and well informed we are on the left of the political spectrum! And next how much better informed and more receptive to new ideas are women than men!
If you then extrapolate the likely higher survival rate into old age for the wealthy (more Coaltion supporters there) than for lower income people it’s not surprising that there is less acceptance of climate change reality amongst the elderly. Even so the figure of sixty per cent is very substantial and not that different from other groups.
My other immediate response to the tables was I felt the lumping together of every one of 50+ was very distorting. Much better to have that group consist only of those beyond retiring age, say 60+, preferably 65+, since that seems to result for some in not just a retirement from work but from the national discourse on many issues.
On a more personal note DI(nr) you seem not to have got my earlier message chiding you for describing yourself as soon to be among the aged more than once on this site. If you do that now at 59 how will you describe yourself at 69, then a decade on at 79. That’s a lot of living left to do! You do yourself a disservice, and as well others of us who are otherwise happy to be upfront about our d.o.b. We shouldn’t have to hide that to resist the stereotyping encouraged by the idea that 60 is the beginning of old age and decline.
Sorry DI(nr) you didn’t deserve that this time! Perhaps that’s what joe2 meant by describing me as ‘squibby’ – easily set off! Just saw your name and remembered the last time I chided you and you didn’t respond! Sorry again and mea culpa, since that’s all the rage these days!
I still think 50 is not a valid cut off point for that age grouping in the Newspoll.
JohnD @50, I know, I know, John. I have argued this point myself a few times on here already.
However, if they are determined to bring on a carbon tax or ETS, then the money would be better returned as a rebate on low-C investment for households or businesses.
Do you not know of people who will do next to nothing about an increase in prices, but will drive across town for “free petrol”? People who assiduously collect frequent-user stamps or participate in flyer points, for “free” rewards? That was the mental trigger (“bargains” and Red Light Specials) I was thinking about.
Marketing types are experts at finding these foibles in human thinking. Perhaps we need their help for identifying paths to rapid adoption?
The results here are unsurprising, especially in the light of a recent SSRN paper on cultural cognition I discuss here that delved into the way people view evidence: if the evidence implies action that would disagree with a particular world view, then the evidence is significantly discounted.
All of us have this tendency – it’s just that the left and right discount evidence about different subjects. From my simplification of the paper: “Libertarians hate the science of climate change because it demands action involving regulation, and supranational concerted action, while lefties, viewing big business as intrinsically untrustworthy, will not credit any evidence that nuclear waste can be managed.”
Dave Bath @55, what lies between your “libertarians” and “lefties”?
A black hole, or a whole bunch of the population?
What if we don’t have a bipolar population as you are implying, but a continuum?
Elise@56:
Re: bipolarism and continuum.
I wasn’t arguing a bipolar problem with Oz politics, they were two illustrative examples from the paper that explored attitudes to climate change and nuclear power in detail.
Where for example there are tendencies to belief in markets and affluenza, economic libertarianism, then climate action is less likely.
What I /am/ saying is that this particular poll on the credibility given to the scientific consensus, split by party affiliation (more to the tradition of the parties than current actualities) is only to be expected if not essentially tautological. It’s a bit like a weak form of the question “Do you believe in socialized medicine” with the responses analyzed by party affiliation.
I’d say that imaginary friendsters, of the more Panglossian and scriptural inerrancy type rather than Manichean disposition, would also be prejudiced against the scientific consensus on climate, simply because it flies in the face of the worldview that the planet was created as the best of all possible worlds (all loving, all powerful, all knowing imaginary sky friend) and/or Adam’s ordained mastery of the world (would the sky friend, all knowing, grant it to an irresponsible creature only a little lower than the angels?).
John D @ 50: If the aluminium industry screams and shuts down or leaves, then something significant has been achieved. The Victorian smelters are the most carbon intensive in the world, and moving them anywhere else would be an improvement. Aluminium smelting is responsible for around 6% of Australia’s emissions and the Victorian smelters currently have their electricity costs heavily subsidised.
If a $20/tonne tax results in the closure of the Victorian smelters it will have achieved far greater emission reductions than whacking households with higher petrol and electricity prices, and at a much lower political cost … and that’s the only costs the politicians are interested in.
Dave Bath @57: “I’d say that imaginary friendsters, of the more Panglossian and scriptural inerrancy type rather than Manichean disposition, would also be prejudiced…”
Would you be kind enough to turn that into plain english?
Thanks.
Patricia @ 53, I’m not convinced that age-cohort is actually a particularly useful indicator of world view. Paul Norton upthread a ways said that people in our age cohorts grew up in a world where growth was seen as an unqualified Good but, in my case at least, I realised quite young that growth wasn’t sustainable. I blame the Psychedelic Left!
BTW, Patricia, I make wry jokes about my age, but I reckon I’ve got at least another 20 years left (I’ll overtake Dad in ten years, and Mum in twenty, and unlike either of them I gave up smoking young). To be frank, I’d rather spend them on the doomstead than working though.
Elise@57
Imaginary friendsters: people with imaginary friends
Panglossian: After the philosopher in Voltaire’s “Candide”, who, understanding that an all-loving all-knowing all-powerful sky-friend would not create any unnecessary evil, tried to spin even the worst disasters as necessary that this is the best of all possible worlds. The cornered-three-ways deity is in the same difficulty with the predicted carnage from global warming as with Noah’s flood.
Manichean: A system of equipotent good and evil forces, a way of explaining why evil exists. It’s a common “heresy”, which (simplistically) holds that Mr Deity was too busy contemplating his own magnificence (because there is nothing more magnificent worth contemplating) and subcontracted the actual creation of the material world to Lucifer. Lots of unnecessary suffering isn’t a problem in this worldview.
Scriptural inerrancy: The idea that scripture is inerrant, completely and literally true. In Genesis 1:26 (And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth), the whole idea of disastrous anthropogenic climate change means that Mr Deity didn’t exactly make a wise choice of steward – a bit like putting dracula in charge of the blood bank or perhaps giving a baby a chainsaw to play with.
So, the idea that Adam (et al) was a dumb choice, or that there will be inordinate suffering of innocents from climate change, poses a threat to those who have less sophisticated Abrahamic beliefs. Admittedly, this can be overcome with intellectual effort and virtue (Mark B would be an obvious example here), just like Andrew Norton (a classical liberal) will sometimes look at the data and point out problems with unadulterated liberalism. But most people cannot be bothered… so they’ll reject evidence or the authority of the scientist according to what the implications are, not look at the evidence and the credibility of the evidence and THEN derive recommendations for action.