Too appalling to ignore
I’ve tried not to get caught up in taking shots at the way The Australian newspaper interprets Newspoll findings. There are enough other people willing to make comment any time they believe there are flaws or distortions, and there are plenty of other issues for me to focus on.
But today’s effort was just too awful to ignore, given the importance and urgency of climate change, and our dismal long-standing failure to take any meaningful action to address it. The report attempted to use a Newspoll to assert that “fears of the global financial crisis are driving people from the Rudd Government’s carbon reduction plans.”
This from a poll which still shows 72 per cent of people are in favour of an emissions trading scheme, even after the question was framed in a way that highlighted the negative:
Under the carbon pollution reduction scheme, the price of energy sources, such as petrol, electricity and gas may become more expensive. Do you think the federal government should delay or should not delay the introduction of the carbon pollution reduction scheme beyond 2010 because of the recent financial crisis?
These continued attempts to run interference on any proposed actions to tackle the risks of climate change are simply inexcusable, especially when the urgency of having to take strong action now has been severely exacerbated by the failure to take any meaningful action over the past two decades. History will judge this failure harshly, but that will be little comfort to the future generation who will have to bear the brunt of paying the price.
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Hello Andrew,
I am not so sure what is entirely wrong with the Newspoll question. I feel the results accurately show a refocus on the economy, and rightfully so.
The proposed question style highlighted on the link you provided is even worse in my opinion:
“On one hand the carbon pollution reduction scheme will increase the cost of petrol, electricity and gas. On the other hand the scheme will make the big polluters take responsibility for the damage they are doing to our environment and it will safeguard our children’s future. Taking both of these things into account do you think the Federal Government should speed up or delay the introduction of the carbon pollution reduction scheme?”
There is quite a bit of hyperbole in that question, for example: “safeguard our children’s future”. That is exaggeration and push polling to say the least. The fact that it will increase energy prices is an absolutely known fact, another factual statement is that it will put a price on emissions. To push the possible connection between the ETS and reducing damage to the environment as well as safeguarding our children’s future is not appropriate for gaining an unbiased opinion through polling.
Waynekruse, if you don’t get why that was a misleading question I suspect you’ll never get it, but I’ll try to explain politely.
A. there are two questions – the financial crisis is completely separate and confuses things.
B. The cost of inaction is widely recognised by far more qualified people than you, me, Andrew Bartlett or anyone who works at the Australian as far higher than the cost of action.
You are inferring that an ETS is put in place for no positive reason whatsoever.
It’s actually grotesquely humourous to watch ‘sceptics’ twist and spin the global economic ‘crisis’ into a reason to yet again do nothing on climate change. Then once that situation passes they’ll have another reason to do nothing, then yet again another reason to do nothing. If they don’t think anything should be done they should just honestly state their position and let the force of their argument do the talking.
Hello William Blackburn,
Don’t get me wrong, I do not doubt the current scientific consensus supporting anthropogenic climate change and the role of gases such as carbon dioxide in it. If there was overwhelming evidence to the contrary I would no longer support the theory however that has yet to occur.
I think you have read a bit too far into the meaning of my comments and hence my views.
“B. The cost of inaction is widely recognised by far more qualified people than you, me, Andrew Bartlett or anyone who works at the Australian as far higher than the cost of action.”
If the modeling and statistics say so (and they do), I agree with you entirely.
“You are inferring that an ETS is put in place for no positive reason whatsoever.”
I am not a fan of the ETS simply because I feel we could do a similar job without it (if there was more of a political and economic push to do so). This would involve massive investment in geothermal, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear over a period of 30 or so years.
Since that is not really realistic in Australia (I am a pragmatist), I support the goal of the ETS but ideally I would have preferred to see society wean itself off fossil fuels by the sheer economics of supply and demand as opposed to a tax. The problem is that for one reason or another there has not been a viable alternative to fossil fuels explored in Australia especially and to a lesser extent around the world. This means my ideal vision would not function effectively.
Hi Andrew. The Australian newspaper’s poll might be risible if it had been published by a reputable media outlet. It wasn’t though, just our country’s Fox News print affiliate.
Like Quadrant and The Bulletin, The Australian preaches to its converted and not many else. There are a lot better things to do than worry about the contents of their echo chamber.
Given that the ABC has descended to previously unfathomed depths by giving Rupert Murdoch the Boyer Lecture gig (although the lecturers in recent years have hardly been luminous) it seems that we will not be able to escape faux opinion even on RN of a Sunday night.
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