Survey: 42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to ‘stop climate change’
This is the devastating question few surveyors are willing to ask. Survey teams usually use mindless motherhood questions instead, like whether we “believe” in climate change. (Who doesn’t?) Or they ask if we want clean energy… (doh, like I want my energy dirty?) But the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research actually did a nationally representative poll of 1097 adults.
Everyone wants a nice climate, but hardly anyone wants to pay for it:
When asked whether they would support a monthly fee on their electric bill to combat climate change, 42 percent of respondents are unwilling to pay even $1. Twenty-nine percent would pay $20, an amount roughly equivalent to what the federal government estimates the damages from climate change would be on each household. And, 20 percent indicate they are willing to pay $50 per month. Party affiliation is the main determinant of how much people are willing to pay, not education, income, or geographic location. Democrats are consistently willing to pay more than Republicans.
The answer has flummoxed people. Sam Ori in the Wall St Journal can’t make sense of it:
This is despite the fact that a whopping 77% said they think climate change is happening and 65% think it is a problem the government should do something about.
This is an upside-down result. The best available science tells us that Americans should be willing to pay considerably more, because the damages from climate change are so great…
He thinks that people don’t see this as a threat to themselves personally. But the answer is mostly within the survey, at Q20 which basically asks if people are confident that greenhouse gas obligations will be met. Fully 31% of people don’t think the US will reduce emissions, and two thirds don’t think India or China will. So who wants to pay for something that is likely to fail?
They didn’t go on to ask how many people thought that windmills or carbon markets would cool the planet. The answer to that would scare the pants of the lobbyists, and blow the whole charade. The real story is that everyone wants a nicer climate, but most people know it’s a waste of money. That’s why this is a dead topic in the election.
WaPo: Work will be a thing of the past?! ‘Workers around the world are suffering from excessive heat fueled by climate change’
…Scorching heat is driving down economic productivity around the world
An Indian girl splashes her face with water to keep off the heat as her mother works at a nearby road construction project on a hot summer afternoon in New Delhi in 2014. (AP/Saurabh Das)From construction workers in Dubai to farmers in India, workers around the world are suffering from excessive heat fueled by climate change. This heat is leading to huge productivity losses and mounting economic strain for dozens of countries, according to research published Monday ahead of a U.N. forum.
The study builds on research detailing how extreme heat in some places prevents employees from working during the hottest hours of the day. People simply tire faster and accomplish less the hotter it gets. That lost work time translates into significant hits on the gross domestic product in nations across the globe, and it is a problem that could deepen as the Earth continues to warm.
“For certain tropical countries that are not so well-economically developed, they might lose up to 10 percent of working hours during daylight,” said Tord Kjellstrom, one of the co-authors of the research and a visiting professor at Australian National University. “It’s a whole working month that would be lost because it’s so hot you can’t work.”
[Sweeping study claims that rising temperatures will sharply cut economic productivity]
Kjellstrom and fellow researchers found that in dozens of countries, daylight work hours lost to excessive heat have increased since the 1990s. They also estimate that at the current rate of global warming, that trend will continue. For instance, countries such as India, Vietnam and Indonesia could see the number of lost work hours more than double by 2055 and more than triple by 2085.
The idea that heat and work productivity are intertwined is not a new concept, of course. Researchers have long studied whether the high heat in the southern U.S. hampered economic activity there, even as the North benefited from an industrial boom.
‘At war with itself’: Obama Dept of Energy says Obama EPA climate rule to cost 400,000 jobs
Testifying before Congress, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says that the Obama Department of Energy is wrong with its analysis that the Agency’s Clean Power Plan will “reduce economic growth, increase electricity costs, and result in almost 400,000 jobs lost over the next 15 years”. McCarthy: “That is exactly opposite of what we believe will happen based on our independent analysis.”
CONGRESSMAN LAMAR SMITH: “The non-partisan Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy has found that the Clean Power Plan will reduce economic growth, increase electricity costs, and result in almost 400,000 jobs lost over the next 15 years; and all this is with very little impact on climate change itself. So why has the Obama Administration imposed this regulation on the American people?”
[…]
CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “Have you read their report on the Clean Power Plan?”
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “In the past.”
CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “And, you disagree with that?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I don’t know what just you read, sir. I don’t know which one it is. So, I’m happy to take a look.”
CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “Well, again, reduce economic growth, increase electricity cost and cost 400,000 jobs over the next 15 years.”
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “That is exactly opposite of what we believe will happen based on our independent analysis.”
CONGRESSMAN SMITH: “It’s nice to have the Administration at war with itself.”
Hearing: Ensuring Sound Science at EPA
House Science Committee
June 22, 2016…