The future of the clean energy transition is cloudy. It’s well-known that there are disagreements—wide disagreements—between Republicans and Democrats about our energy future. [emphasis, links added]
But less well-known is the bedrock of public opinion on America’s energy supply, the importance of a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, and the general salience of the climate change issue.
Findings from a new YouGov survey indicate that most voters’ views differ quite a bit from those of rapid energy transition advocates.
These views constitute an ineluctable reality that any transition, on any timetable, will have to deal with. At the same time, there is a political opportunity here to better align policy priorities with voter preferences.
This survey is part of a broader study conducted by Roger Pielke, Jr. and Ruy Teixeira of the American Enterprise Institute that seeks to compare scientific understandings of energy and climate with dominant public narratives on these issues and how both compare to the views of actual voters.
The full study and polling data will be released after the election but here we present ten of the most interesting findings from our new survey that shed light on the current debate around climate and energy issues.
1. An “all of the above” approach to energy policy has by far the most voter support and shows remarkable stability and common support across voter groups.
When presented with a choice among three options—a rapid green energy transition, an “all of the above” energy policy, and emphasizing fossil fuels—American voters across demographics and partisanship strongly prefer an “all of the above” approach to energy policy including oil, gas, renewables, and nuclear.
Less than a quarter support a rapid transition to renewables, which drops to under a fifth for working-class (noncollege) voters. Even among Democrats, support for a rapid transition is only a little over a third.
2. On extreme weather events, most voters have not accepted the apocalyptic reporting found in the media and pushed by climate activists.
Most people hold views of trends in extreme weather events that are consistent with the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
They do not say they have personally observed an increase in hurricanes, floods, droughts, or tornadoes, which is consistent with the current state of scientific understanding.
The exception is heat waves where, consistent with the IPCC [High confidence in tropical regions where observations allow trend estimation and in most regions in the mid-latitudes, medium confidence elsewhere.], a majority report that they have observed an increase in such events. [see chart above]
3. American voters are reluctant to pay even a small amount to support climate action and this willingness drops quickly as the proposed small costs increase.
When asked if they would support just a $1 monthly fee on their electricity bill to fight climate change, only 47 percent said they would while almost as many (43 percent) are opposed. Even at this level, opposition is greater than support among working-class voters.
When the proposed fee is increased to $20, overall voter support plummets to 26 percent with 60 percent opposed. At $40, it is 19 percent support to 69 percent opposition; at $75 it is 15 percent vs. 72 percent; and at $100 it is 7:1 against (77 percent to 11 percent) paying such a fee to combat climate change.
4. Voters expect an energy transition away from fossil fuels to lead to unexpected problems.
About two-thirds think problems are likely. A follow-up question indicates that voters are most worried about the impact on the prices of energy and everyday goods and about the impact on the reliability of the electrical grid.
Voters are most positive about the impact of an energy transition on job opportunities in the energy sector and on air and water quality.
5. Overall, the public is much more favorable on both solar and natural gas than on wind, suggesting that the concept of “renewables” masks some important differences.
Solar energy tests the best among five energy sources that voters were asked to rank. Thirty-eight percent of voters ranked solar first. Natural gas did the second best, picked first by 26 percent of voters. Nuclear energy came third (15 percent ranked it first) followed by wind (10 percent) and coal (six percent).
Coal is clearly the least preferred energy source with 38 percent ranking it dead last among options. Wind and nuclear also have strong opposition with, respectively, 19 percent and 29 percent ranking the technology their least favorite option.
6. In terms of the energy they consume, cost and reliability are way, way more important to voters than possible effects on the climate.
Given four choices, 37 percent of voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them and 36 percent said the availability of power when they need it was most important.
Just 19 percent thought the effect on climate of their energy consumption was most important and six percent selected the effect on U.S. energy security.
7. In terms of proposals to mitigate the effects of climate change, getting to “net zero” as quickly as possible is relatively unimportant to voters.
Asked to consider proposals to reduce the effects of global climate change, voters were least likely to say “getting the U.S. to net zero carbon emissions as quickly as possible” was very important to them personally (29 percent), fewer than [those who] said “limiting the burden of regulations on business” was very important (32 percent).
Voters were most likely by far to say keeping consumer costs low (66 percent) and increasing jobs and economic growth (60 percent) were very important aspects of climate mitigation proposals.
The split was wider among working-class voters: 71 percent thought keeping consumer costs low was very important, compared to 26 percent who thought rapidly getting to net zero was very important.
8. Climate change as an issue has very low salience to voters.
Voters were asked to evaluate a list of 18 issue areas and rate their priority for the president and Congress to address in the coming year.
As a “top priority,” dealing with global climate change ranked 15th out of these 18 areas, well behind strengthening the national economy, fighting inflation, defending the country from terrorist attacks, and keeping Social Security financially sound—and also behind reducing healthcare costs, dealing with immigration, improving the educational system, keeping energy costs low, reducing the budget deficit, reducing crime, improving how the political system works, improving the job situation, strengthening the military, and dealing with the problems of poor people.
The climate issue only ranked above global trade, drug addiction, and issues around race.
The Honest Broker is written by climate expert Roger Pielke Jr and is reader-supported. If you value what you have read here, please consider subscribing and supporting the work that goes into it.
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Top photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash
This article highlights the failure of democracy. Clearly a strong majority does not support renewable energy and its associated high cost. Yet, the elites have successfully pushed a number of such projects through.
Net Zero Policies Will Have a Trivial Effect on Temperature, But Disastrous Effects on People Worldwide.
It CHANGES EVERYTHING.
References.
(1)“Net Zero Averted Temperature Increase”: by Drs. R. Lindzen, W. Happer and W. A. van Wijngaarden, Dated June 11, 20
(2) Methane and Climate by Drs. W. A. van Wijngaarden and W, Happer.
(3) co2 coalition: Expert Opinion prepared for The Foundation of: “The Environment and Man” The Court of Appeals, The Hague, Netherlands.
(4) Nearly 140 Scientific Papers Detail The Minuscule Effect CO2 Has On Earth’s Temperature. By Kenneth Richard on 13. January 2022.
Authors
Dr. Richard Lindzen Professor of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. William Happer, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Princeton University. He is a specialist in modern optics, optical radiofrequency spectroscopy of atoms and molecules, radiation propagation in the atmosphere, and spin-polarized atoms and nuclei.
Dr. W. A. Van Wijngaarden is a full professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York. His research specialties are: high-precision laser spectroscopy, laser cooling and atom trapping, ultracold atoms, Bose-Einstein condensation. pollutant monitoring, and climate change.
Dr. Steven Koonin, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute.
Approximately 140 Independent Scientific Teams (Sponsored by the NO TRICKS ZONE BLOG) – Detailing The Minuscule Effect CO2 Has On Earth’s Temperature. An update of a previous paper: “Extremely Low CO2 Climate Sensitivity”.by Pierre Gosselin. Associate Degree in Civil Engineering. Vermont Technical College and a BS Degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Nota Bene; This paper is forwarded to ensure Governments and Citizens are fully informed of this important Scientific Analysis and its consequences.
The Issue. The issue is the assumption that climate change and extreme weather are caused by CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels by humans. This however is contradicted by the “scientific method” and only supported by the unscientific methods of government opinions, consensus, peer review, and cherry-picked or falsified data.
Carbon dioxide’s ability to warm the planet is determined by its ability to absorb heat, which decreases rapidly as CO2’s concentration in the atmosphere increases. This scientific fact about CO2 changes everything about the common view of CO2 and climate change. It means that the common assumption that carbon dioxide is the “main driver of climate change” is scientifically false.
Currently, carbon dioxide is a weak Greenhouse Gas. At today’s concentration in the atmosphere of approximately 420 parts per million, additional amounts of CO2 have little ability to absorb heat and therefore is now a weak greenhouse gas. At higher concentrations in the future, the ability of future increases to warm the planet will be will be even smaller. Thus, to repeat, the common assumption that carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change” is scientifically false.
In short, more carbon dioxide cannot cause catastrophic global warming or more extreme weather. Neither can greenhouse gases of methane or nitrous oxide, the levels of which are so small that they are Irrelevant to climate.
In addition, referring to additional atmospheric CO2 as “carbon pollution” is complete nonsense. Quite the contrary it does two beneficial things for humanity .(1) it provides a slight increase in temperature, much less than natural fluctuations. (2) it creates more food for people worldwide.
What Does All This Mean?
First – Net Zero Efforts Will Have a Trivial Effect on Temperature. More of the atmospheric greenhouse gas CO2 will increase temperature, but only slightly. How changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases affect radiation transfer are described by precise physical equations that have never failed to describe observations of the real world. Application of these formulas to the massive efforts by the US and worldwide to reduce CO2 emissions to Net Zero by 2050 are contained in a paper that is recommend to those with a technical background. They show that all efforts to achieve Net Zero emissions of carbon dioxide, if fully implemented, will have a trivial effect on temperature.
For North America, it only avoids a temperature increase of 0.02 deg. F with no positive feedback and only 0.06 deg. F with positive feedback of 4 that is typically built into the models of the United Nations international Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Worldwide, it only avoids a temperature increase of 0.13 deg. F or 0.50 deg. F with a factor of 4 positive feedback.
Second – Net Zero Policies will Be Disastrous for People Worldwide. In Canada, the United States and worldwide, Net Zero regulations and subsidies will have disastrous effects. Chief among them would be the proposed elimination of fossil fuels which would mean doing away with internal combustion engines for transportation and other uses, the power plants that provide most of the world’s electricity, gas space heaters, furnaces, cooking stoves and the feedstocks for nitrogen fertilizers that enable the feeding of nearly half the global population. The resulting economic devastation would include massive job losses, which already has occurred in places where Net Zero subsidies and regulations have diverted capital away from investments into productive assets and into ineffective technologies such as wind and solar energy as has already been indicated by the Governor of the Bank of Canada.
Those hostile to fossil fuels ignore overwhelming evidence that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from their combustion has significantly greened the Earth and boosted crop production.
In addition, various countries will require electric vehicles (EV’s). heat pumps and electric appliances be purchased. They will require companies to report information on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. However, since more carbon dioxide causes trivial and beneficial warming, this data is immaterial, misleading and very expensive in managerial time and dollars. It should not be required.
Third- More CO2 Means More Food. Contrary to common reporting, more carbon dioxide increases the amount of food available to people worldwide, and is particularly helpful in drought-stricken areas. Doubling carbon dioxide to 800 ppm for example will increase global supplies by approximately 60%.
Thus, carbon dioxide emissions should not be reduced, but increased to provide more food worldwide. Moreover, there is no risk of catastrophic global warming or extreme weather because carbon dioxide is now a weak greenhouse gas. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions will reduce the amount of food available to people worldwide and produce no benefit to the climate.
Fourth – Fossil fuels must not be eliminated. Net Zero requires that fossil fuels be eliminated because they account for 90% of human-induced CO2 emissions. However, the elimination of fossil fuels will have no effect on the climate since carbon dioxide is now a weak greenhouse gas. The use of fossil fuels must not be eliminated. Rather it should be expanded because they (1) provide more carbon dioxide which makes more food (2) are used to make nitrogen fertilizer that enables the feeding of about half of the world’s population, and (3) provide reliable and inexpensive energy for people everywhere, especially for the two-thirds of the world’s population without access to electricity.
Conclusion – All Net Zero carbon dioxide regulations and subsidies in the United States, Canada and worldwide must be stopped as soon as possible to avoid disastrous effects on North Americans and people throughout the world especially in developing countries.
—30—
Sincerely Submitted, Alastair Allan Former Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal Government, Science and Engineering, Military Procurement (Retired).
An all-the-above energy solution should be limited to reliable energy sources which would preclude wind and solar as sources of electricity. There are reasonable uses of solar with a battery are those electronic signs with a small solar array and battery to power the signs w/o the need to run power lines to them. But installing large arrays of solar panels and “forests” of wind turbines requires the installation of backup (read: reliable) energy sources that would be idled when these unreliable sources are actually generating–solar will always fail every night and wind turbines production varies by the minute and can go down to near zero when it is really needed–bitter cold front and heat waves when the wind is frequently very still.
So the reliable sources are nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, hydro-electric.
Wind and Solar cant be relied upon we need Nuclear as well as Fossil Fuels and those Useful Idiots from Just Stop Oil, The Extinction Rebellion, The Sunrise Movement, Etc. and strand them in the Wilderness without a shelter but a Tent