Yet again, it’s another mindless apple-pie-survey produced to fog the debate
Most Australians don’t want to pay anything more for renewable power.
“Four in five (78%) said Yes: the Australian government should introduce a new Clean Energy Target to encourage the construction of new clean energy sources in Australia.” — The Australia Institute
If we ask people if they’d like free/cheap/clean stuff, they say “yes”. If we ask them how much they want to pay for renewables, 62% say “N.o.t.h.i.n.g”. Which is why the Australia Institute didn’t ask them.
They also didn’t ask whether voters would change their vote on this issue, because we already know, time after time, that voters rate climate change last on their list of priorities. You can bet the Australia Institute would have asked that question if they thought the public would give the right answer, instead they surely know that people vote for jobs, to lower the cost of living and to have a strong economy instead of shipping our manufacturing industry to China in a sacrificial quest to change the weather.
So many other, better, surveys show the lie behind this one
Fully 54% of Australians are skeptics of man-made global warming, and 80% don’t donate to environmental causes or change their votes for it. Even a sympathetic Lowy poll showed 55% of Australians don’t want to pay for the environment. Most Australians say that mankind is not main driver of the climate. Online, skeptics rule the polls. Which country has the most skeptics? Australia tops that survey. Why are most Liberal politicians such patsies for this debate?
All over the world voters don’t want to pay
In the UK half of Brits don’t want to pay a cent on changing the climate. In the US 42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change — that’s one piddling dollar a month. (Has anyone seen a Canadian, New Zealand or EU survey? Please let me know.)
So instead of useful information, we get headlines to pressure Turnbull into thinking that 78% of voters want him to introduce the Clean Energy Target that he is considering backing away from. Will he be fooled? My bet is that he will wipe the words “Clean Energy” out of the title to get his “backbenchers” off his back and to avoid igniting boiling fury among Coalition voters. But Turnbull will find another way to subsidize the Green Blob to keep them from calling him names. That’s how he works. He brought in an emissions trading scheme and carbon tax by stealth — calling it a “safeguard mechanism” buried in fine print. The “environment” is so toxic for voters who are not part of the eco-religious left. A supposedly centre-right leader has to hide the money and power behind innocuous language.
The problem for Turnbull is that Australians have been systematically misinformed about the costs of the forced renewables transition, so at any point, a ticking time bomb could go off when they find out how much intermittent, unreliable wind and solar panels cost.
We need a survey to ask Australians how many cents per kilowatt hour wind and solar are subsidized? What percentage could say 8 – 9c KWhr? How many would also know what the wholesale price of coal fired electricity is? (It’s 3 – 4c/KWhr). Those surveys would demonstrate how immature, underdone and pathetic our national debate has been on this topic. Those surveys, and the ignorance of the public on such basic questions, would also show the true value of the ABC.
From The Australia Institute:
Respondents were also asked what kind of generation should be supported by a new Clean Energy Target. Respondents could select all that applied.
- 81% said the CET should build renewables like wind and solar.
- Only 27% selected gas fired power and only 16% selected coal fired power.
- Respondents selected 1.33 on average.
- Amongst voting groups, 79% of LNP voters selected renewables, more than double gas (37%) and triple coal (24%), while 68% of One Nation voters selected renewables, again much higher than gas (24%) and coal (23%).
BACKGROUND INFO
- The Australia Institute publication:
Polling Brief Sept 2017 CET.pdf - 62% of Australians don’t want to pay even $10 a month for renewables
- Secret deal: Australia already has an ETS – carbon tax – starts in 5 weeks
- Public are terminally bored with climate. Anderegg denies devastating Climategate damage
- Australia: more skeptics than believers, and few really care about “Climate change”
- Only 3% of Americans name “environment” as top issue.
- 46% of 70,000 Australians say they don’t believe humans cause global warming
- Gallup poll: Voters rank “climate change” last
- Big lesson for Australia from US voters. Climate change is over as an election issue.
- Nine poll shows 69% of 100,000 Australians “don’t believe” in man-made global warming
- See all the posts on Climate Change Polls, and Global Warming Surveys