Friday
Mar142014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Energy poll
Mar 14, 2014 Energy: gas Energy: wind Greens As a measure of how successful the likes of Friends of the Earth have been in misinforming the public, take a look at Ipsos-Mori's latest poll on public attitudes to science, and in particular the section on energy (p.31 here):
- 76% of adults support offshore wind, 36% support shale gas
- 58% think that offshore wind will have a positive effect on the UK economy (about the same percentage as for shale gas)
I wonder how much of UK industry will be shut down before we see those figures change.
Reader Comments (36)
It's a well known fact that 97% of the public haven't a clue how our electricity supply system works and why electricity bills are rocketing.
I'm amazed that the percentage favouring wind is as low as it is considering that the media, particularly the BBC but most of the MSM as well, transmit warmist propaganda almost to the exclusion of any other reportage on energy and environmental matters.
Q1 When I talk about “science”, what comes to mind?
Climate Change/ Global warming never came to anyone's mind. Zero responses in all surveys!
So if nearly 80% of people have heard feck all about CCS then how can over 50% of them have a positive view of CCS?
Mailman
You see this as incompetence. It isn't. Politicians see the coming collapse as a good thing. It will be a 'beneficial crisis' for them. They can point out how the free market (ha! If only!) hasn't worked, and have angry support for nationalisation.
If you think cuts and shortages are bad, wait for a few years of Milli's Venezuala-lite approach to UK economy. If I was younger I would be getting the hell out now.
As many others have said, this issue is essentially political: which is what makes the BBC's stance so contemptible.
I had the misfortune to hear an item on Radio 4's "You and Yours" last week, highlighting the huge cost of energy faced by (in this case) Sheffield Forgemasters. There was an interview with one of its directors, and good points were made: but there was no mention made of the fact that much of the rise energy costs is deliberate.
The people at large do not understand that energy policy is a weapon aimed at the foundations of our society by the environmental lobby in Brussels and London, its appeasers, and its money-driven allies.
As long as the BBC continues to be a propagandist for environmentalism, rather than the politically impartial body its Charter requires it to be, none of this will change.
'Friends' of the Earth ≣ Enemies of Mankind.
I wonder where Stuck -Record would go to escape this nonsense?
Thanks very much for posting this Bish. The polls on whether climate/global warming is important have been going our way. These findings on energy are a disaster. Showing the need to adopt Guenier-style arguments, as an education. Much food for thought.
That opinion poll seems to be evidence of the truth of the saying that we get the government that we deserve.
There is a wealth of data here that can be interpreted in many different ways. Polling seems to have come on since the 60's but the questions can still be loaded depending on the "issue du jour". During H.Wilsons' first administration a poll showed that only 35% wanted "more nationalisation" but 55% supported more "state ownership".
Conflating parts of Q22 & Q23D in this survey suggest 25% of respondents believe "scientists adjust their results to get the answers they want" but that they trust them anyway!
Plus sa change.........
I would like to see a control question posed prior to any other polling questions, the answer to which should aid quality-control of all the answers recorded. It is this:
When I see stuff like this I am glad I moved to a southeast Asian country where nobody is interested in climate at all.
It's warm all year round and the monsoon comes and goes more or less regularly and people have got their eyes on a prosperous future.
Few give any thought to the tents of the Judeo-Christian guilt trip about affluence now morphing into Gaian pantheism with the guilt trip intact..
It doesn't surprise me.
Reporting on renewable ("renewable" at a colossal price that is) sources of energy is almost always technically and economically illiterate and hopelessly optimistic. Yet fairly prominent in the media. The theme is broadly along the lines that converting potential sources like wind and waves to usable energy is somehow "free" . And who wouldn't want something that is free?
The general amnesia about the many passed deadlines of when we'd all be using "renewable" energy and oil would run out is aided and abetted by the media who either don't know or don't care to revisit past predictions.
Meanwhile, 99.99% of the population knows next to nothing about hydrocarbon extraction, except that it's Evil And Must Be Stopped, and had never heard of "fracking" until swamped by the tsunami of anti-fracking propaganda.
mailman: To be fair, the question of whether CCS was a positive thing was only asked of the sample of responders who said they'd actually heard of it. It was instructive that of these, many seemed to think CCS was a positive thing for the economy!!
The other shock for me was how more than half of people asked, who had heard of fracking, thought the biggest danger from it was earthquakes!!
Harry Passfield (11:23 AM): Ha. Barraco would be proud of you. (Please note the correct spelling!)
Reasons for the lack of support for shale gas is found in Q55 on page 32
"And what would you say are the main risks, if any, of fracking to extract shale gas?"
43% cited earthquakes
15% pollution of water supplies
The misinformation campaign is working. At worst fracking may cause minor earth tremors. Mention earthquakes and people imagine the scenes of Haiti, New Zealand or Japan.
I have said it many times. The VAST majority of the general public are not sufficiently educated to either want to understand AGW or be capable of understanding.
Until such time as their world collapses around them they will not be bothered.
Do you guys really think it's a valid poll ?
Or just gathering data and twisting it to say what the funder wants ?
Clearly, the majority of those responding have no clue whatsoever as to how MASSIVE the electricity distribution and supply industry is...
I think wind pretty well hit zero output last night - do people really think it doesn't matter that the government is relying on the WEATHER for a significant part of our generating capacity..?
That's understandable - shale gas drilling first hit the headlines through the tremors recorded in Lancashire or wherever.
The Greenies and general anti-hydrocarbon crowd saw their chance and found they were pushing against an open door with the BBC et al. Suddenly anyone spouting any old crap about the evils of drilling for gas or oil, and "the controversial process known as fracking" had a platform to say pretty much anything, unchallenged. Social media went nuts on it.
Meanwhile, anyone who saw the headline and thought they would google this new word "fracking" is hit with page after page of shrill alarmism. Never mind that they're all repeating the same few ridiculous claims - it appears like an accumulation of evidence to the naive enquirer.
As I have stated here before, I've been in drilling for 35 years now. All my friends and family know this but never had any interest in anything beyond the simplest cartoon depiction of what goes on. Now, thanks to all this rubbish, many are "experts" who shout me down and demand I answer their list of fantastical and seemingly random allegations.
They are not in the least bit interested in my explanations of what really happens (nothing changed there I guess) but disturbingly , some people I like and care for have started to view me as some creature controlled by some dark force like "the fossil fuel industry" or whatever. It's really quite distressing at times and I can only hope the fog of ignorance and hysteria gradually recedes.
I'm irresistibly reminded of the American comedian George Carlin. "Think how dumb the average person is... Half the people are even dumber than that!"
I sympathise with Kellydown as a medic who thinks the NHS is unsustainable and a poor way of providing health care and that GPs in their present form shouldn't exist plus many more criticisms of the the belief system.
As with CAGW, hydraulic fracturing etc the majority are ignorant in the true sense of the word.
kellydown
Presumably they all drive clean electric cars, and use solar power to cook and heat their homes?
97 Percent of Prehistoric Cavemen surveyed thought collecting branches from the forest and striking stone flints to ignite it and using the fire to heat and cook Sabre Toothed Tigers and light their cave homes was the most modern efficient economic use of energy.
93 Percent of Prehistoric Cavemen surveyed have considered installing Smart Meters in their caves to improve their Energy Consumption and Cut their Environmental Carbon footprint .
PS what is the latest with WUWT and the Cannibal Lobsters (Why did that make me think of Jayne Mansfield and Derek and Clive)
The next time a prominent Green is interviewed on a major TV channel the interviewer should ask the Greenie if he/she is proud of deliberately misleading the public into thinking that tracking could cause real earthquakes.
A suitable follow up question would be "if you cannot be trusted on the subject of tracking causing 'earthquakes' why should we trust anything you say?"
The poll asks in the initial few questions where the responders get their information, and its dominantly the BBC (69%)
That is the realpolitik of it. The only chance of a serious UK shale gas boom is for the BBC to push it. That would require a Labour administration, and probably another deja vu Tony Benn type BNOC/Britoil (Britfrack?) to participate. To be followed by another deja vu economic Britfrackup.
That is considered an unpardonably cheap shot, and dishonest, since everybody knows they would be using solar power and electric cars were it not for the Evil Fossil Fuel lobby. Actually most of them don't go that far (some do) - they just think all hydrocarbon use is wrong and doing some terrible damage, without any sense of the massive good cheap portable energy brings to the world. And without any idea of just how radically their lives would change without it. Not some hippy idyll but back to the old "nasty, brutish and short" except for the very rich and powerful.
The poll also reveals a lamentable ignorance of the per-capita cost of renewable vs conventional energy. How many people recognise the tens of thousands the decarbonisation agenda will cost each one of them, and that it is all a 'noble' sacrifice without tangible benefit? All they know is that it is promoted as 'greener and 'cleaner', and that it 'tackles climate change'.
There are those who think that a cost of "tens of thousands" would be worth it. But still they underestimate the costs - for a start, it's not a one-off cost but a continuing one. For another thing, it's not just a cost to individuals but to institutions and companies so will result in severe degradation of the infrastructure. The poorest will suffer most from this.
Things that sentimental, rather than just mental, Greenies like, such as preservation and restoration of large heritage buildings, will become untenable - and so on.
It's recognition of truths like this, rather than fossil fuel lobby propaganda (mysteriously powerful, yet invisible! Where is this propaganda?) that keep people using the Evil Fossil Fuels in greater quantities.
The well known natural phenomenon called The Goebbels Effect (TGE). In human behaviorral science, TGE is often found coupled with the Stockholm Syndrome to describe how large portions of the population suffer from the Dunning-Kruger (described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect ). Is it any wonder these folks are preyed upon by the Left?
For those who have not seen it, this YouGov poll (pp4-7) also has a number of questions on shale gas and energy. The evidence of the BBC's failure to educate and inform is quite clear. It's windmills all the way down.
But, less than 50% of the respondents consider themselves well informed about science (Q2).
kellydown, sir, you are fast becoming my favourite driller since Bruce Willis in Armageddon. You do credit to your industry and I always appreciate your sober contributions to this board. Besides, you are the only driller that I know of who can quote Hobbes.
Not sure if I posted this before but here it is again for more fun.
Bruce Willis v Greenpeace
That quote is more famous than its author, sHx. I certainly didn't remember who it was.
A number of drilling service people have scrutinised the Armageddon clips to see whose equipment he was using - Baker Hughes if I remember rightly. Still, it's one of the few positive portrayals of driller in popular fiction. They're usually Evil Incarnate. Even in the bloody Muppet Movie.
Though not a "good guy" by any stretch, I'll credit DD-L in There Will Be Blood for at least bringing some dignity and realism to the role.