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THE good sense and informed self-interest — the wisdom of (Aussie) crowds — shines through in a scientific poll from Galaxy Research on attitudes to Global Warming (sic).
The poll result can be captured in two conclusions. We don’t believe it’s necessarily happening — to coin a phrase; we are mostly climate sceptics now. And therefore, we sure as hell ain’t prepared to pay real dollars to ‘stop it’.
Sorry, I should have written that Galaxy polled attitudes to ‘Climate Change (in the absence of Global Warming)’.
That’s of course, the missing Global Warming that was predicted as undeniably certain by all the science-is-certain experts — who are now all united in scouring the planet to find where the hell it’s gone.
They seem to have settled on the deep oceans — a theory which, conveniently, can’t be checked, because there’s no historical data.
We don’t know deep ocean temperatures even 50 far less 200 or more years ago. Captain James Cook might have roamed the globe, but he unaccountably forgot to take the temperature thousands of feet below his Endeavour, along the way.
The Galaxy Poll was commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs ‘think tank’. That will immediately have the grasping-at straws warmists dismissing it as denialist propaganda.
But the poll was done by Galaxy, not the IPA. It scientifically and rigorously assesses attitudes. Indeed, if anything the questions should favour the warmist opinion.
The easiest thing in the world is for someone to demonstrate they are ‘right thinking’ by endorsing ‘Climate Change ne Global Warming’.
The second easiest thing is to tell a pollster that of course they would be prepared to spend money to save the planet by stopping it; as opposed to having to hand over real cash right then.
Yet the poll which has been conducted since 2010 has shown very little change; and provides very little joy to the warmist cause, despite its ratcheting up of its ‘end of the world’ and ‘climate change is already here in your street and inside your house and it’s nasty’ rhetoric.
We are getting another dose of that rhetoric right now with the release yesterday of the UN IPCC’s final draft of its fifth report.
We’ve been getting warm-ups of the ‘end is nigher’ in the pages of Climate Central Australia — The Age. This included yesterday a spread across p2-3, warning of catastrophic devastation to be wreaked on your favourite cup of coffee.
No doubt today’s Age will be effectively an edition of the Climate Apocalypse Daily, plus some briefs on the real news.
Yet despite all this relentless (climate) fear and (carbon) loathing, pumped out not just by the Fairfax dailys, their ABC, and indeed also the NewsCorp papers, despite their supposed denalism, the Australian public remained stolidly unmoved.
In 2010, the Galaxy poll showed 35 per cent endorsement of the proposition that “the world is warming and man’s emissions are to blame”. The latest poll showed it had edged up only to 37 per cent.
Yes, this was significantly higher than those endorsing the proposition that “the variation in global temperature is just part of the natural cycle of nature”; which had dipped from 26 per cent in 2010 to 24 per cent now. The really significant number was the unchanged 38 per cent endorsing the proposition “there is conflicting evidence and I’m not sure what the truth is”.
By any objective — as opposed to theologically warmist — assessment, this is the rational attitude. Both in response to the reality of the highly, at least, conflicted evidence; and the huge costs of doing something to stop a problem that might not exist.
And in the specific Australian case, we could not stop anyway. Cut our emissions by 100 per cent; that is to say, close the country down; and we would cut global and indeed Australian warming — sorry, ‘Climate Change’ — by effectively zero.
So the poll shows a clear majority of 62 per cent of Australians are either sceptical or denialist. As a consequence, we are increasingly unwilling to throw money at ‘the problem (sic)’.
In 2010 some 15 per cent of poll respondents were prepared to pay $1000 or more a year in higher taxes and utility charges to fight global warming. Now only 11 per cent are.
There is a very, very clear plurality of 41 per cent that are willing to pay nothing, zero, zip — who, my comment, presumably want the carbon tax to go; and that it should be followed quick smart out the door by the expensive rort of wind and solar power.
This is up from 35 per cent in 2010.
Now true, about a similar number — 43 per cent — were prepared to pay between $100 and $500 a year. But that was down from 48 per cent.
And 25 per cent were in the clearly token category of being willing to pay $300 or less. That’s to say, they would be prepared to give up just one coffee a week to avert the very climate catastrophe that, among other things, The Age has warned us, will wreak such havoc on their coffee drinking.
Is The Age surprised by the lack of public enthusiasm? It shouldn’t be, on its ‘don’t mention the war’ approach to the symbolic pointlessness of the latest “Earth Hour,” of which it and its Sydney sibling used to be so enthusiastic about.
The IPA poll was conducted over the weekend. It was also the weekend of ‘Earth Hour’. Yet there wasn’t a single mention of it in either The Age or the SMH yesterday. Not even in one of the other global warming stories.
The Age had room for a largish pic of naked bike riders aimed at, well, showing a bunch of exhibitionists — and indeed, a portfolio of pics online.
But it couldn’t find room to celebrate and encourage those prepared to go without light for one whole hour on a Saturday night of all nights, to save the planet.
