In a recent YouGov poll, Britons were asked whether they support the government’s aim to “reduce Britain’s carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050”. A large majority, 70%, said they did. Only 20% said they opposed this aim. Game, set and match to proponents of Net Zero – right?
Not so fast. Asking people whether they support Net Zero is like asking them whether they support increasing the NHS budget or reducing the number of run-over kittens. Of course they’re going to say yes. People interpret the question to mean, ‘Do you generally approve of cutting emissions?’ And since most people do generally approve of that, they answer in the affirmative.
They don’t interpret the question to mean, ‘Do you support the government’s aim to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions to Net Zero by 2050 even though this would impose significant costs on ordinary Britons?’ If you asked the question in this way, you might well get a different answer.
Likewise, if you asked people, ‘Do you support reducing the number of run-over kittens to zero’, you would get a different answer than the one you’d get if you asked them, ‘Do you support reducing the number of run-over kittens to zero even though this would require setting speed limits to 10 mph?’
Indeed, the YouGov poll mentioned above found that support for Net Zero falls considerably when you bring up the costs:
As you can see, the percentage of respondents who support reducing emissions collapses by 44 percentage points when it is stated they may “result in some additional costs for ordinary people”.
Ipsos MORI made the same finding in a poll last year. Support for various Net Zero policies dropped by up to 34 percentage points when considering the financial impact. (Note: the exact financial impact differed from question to question. For example, the item about frequent fliers had the qualifier “if this policy meant that you personally had to pay more to take a flight”.)
Given that almost every Net Zero policy is going to come with sizeable costs, it seems important to mention those costs when gauging public opinion. And in both polls cited here, doing so made support for Net Zero sink like a broken wind-turbine propeller.
What’s more, in neither case did the poll say the costs were particularly large. The YouGov poll merely referred to “some” additional costs, while the Ipsos MORI merely referred to paying “more” for such-and-such, paying “higher” taxes or getting a “smaller” return. Britons didn’t even need to be told they’d have to pay “a lot more” to become much less enthusiastic.
The public likes the idea of Net Zero, but when it comes to implementation they’re decidedly lukewarm.
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When even Tony Blair comes out and suggests it’s futile for us to damage ourselves when China is merrily increasing its emissions, you know the game is up. But, if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it can become accepted truth. It will take time for the truth to permeate, but it is starting.
People will get even more angry when they realise that the Government, lobbyists and commentators have been gaslighting them to believe offshore wind is cheap.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/offshore-wind-new-big-lie
Yes, however the as yet un-endicted war criminal has lied so many times (every time time he opens his mouth in public) that he now brings anything that he supports into disrepute. He has always got an agenda.
“He” is his agenda.
You mean like they are angry about all the lies concerning the fakedemic and death injections?
Yes, and that is precisely the reason why the results, unprompted by the financial reality, came out in favour of net zero – because they have bought into the tall tale that “renewable” energy sources are more efficient (or for that matter, good for the environment!), and they therefore actually believe that their personal finances aren’t going to be hit. Some even believe they’ll be better off, as they take their cue from the JSO nutjobs. Of course a good proportion of that initial 75% that voted in favour of net zero still consider the second conditional question to be hypothetical scenario… “IF this results in additional costs…”
Quite so. There’s an episode of “Yes, Prime Minister” – one of the most informative and subversive series ever permitted on British tv – no wonder they don’t show it now – in which Sir Humphrey shows Bernard just how a pollster can get opposite responses from the same subject. Hence, in an age when media tells us that a ‘flu like disease is akin to the apocalypse, in which the government kills granny by untreated heart disease in the name of saving her from said ‘flu like disease, in which censorship bears down on anyone seriously criticising “the narrative”, in which the instruments of the state spend years hobbling and hollowing out a policy voted for in a referendum – I could go on – we should treat the results of opinion polls with something approaching contempt. These baskets are lying to us – all of them – and in the name of their own, crazy, Utopian agenda.
I’ve got a set of books with all the script in them. One of the other items that I can recall is how Sir Humphrey explained why smoking was good for the NHS, as it reduced the life expectancy of elderly patients, less workload for the service, and revenue up front for the Treasury as well.
Only last night I was biking with 7 blokes, 3 of them had EV company cars. As a consequence their monthly benefit in kind tax bill is £750 lower than it was with their previous car. All 3 of them have solar panels which earn them about £3k per year in feed in tariff payments. All 3 have buy off peak electricity at sub-10p/kWh. All 3 of them are mad for green policies.
Don’t suppose they consider the human, economic and environmental costs of both sourcing, shipping and disposing of the lithium in their EV batteries or their solar panels, do they? Didn’t think so.
Humans respond to incentives.
A few people are very principled, but it’s unrealistic to expect most to act against their own interests for the benefit of others. It runs contrary to human nature.
It’s so important to have the right incentives in place.
I spent the weekend with an old friend who is a Tesla owner, and an engineer by training . He wasn’t able to compute that the term ‘charging infrastructure’ applies to the national electricity generating capability, which is getting worse and would be unable to handle the demand if net zero ever comes even close to fruition. His idea of charging infrastructure was the Tesla charging network which is ‘getting even better’ so his longer journeys are marginally less inconvenient than they were, if he plans things properly.
With two Tesla owners in my family, it seems to me that an unthinking brand loyalty akin to that of Mac enthusiasts possesses them. Maybe it’s because there are so many software updates and notifications of the increasing Charging Network that there’s no time to think about anything else.
“£3k per year in feed in tariff payments.”
Stolen from other consumers who pay for these subsidised tariffs in the tarifs they pay for electricity.
People who are ‘Green’ are grifters.
Hmmm. I think a better analogy to use would be that reporting the results of a YouGov poll is like asking the Government what it is they want to do.
Too true Orwell.. a bit like votes.. it depends whose counting them..
Oh.. and as for Isos Mori.. I’m led to believe that it means ‘They Die’ in Latin.. just thought I’d pass that little snippet on..
I’ve observed a magic number over the past few years.
40%.
It’s the number who supported lockdowns.
It’s the number who support indoctrinating infants with LGBT.
It’s probably the number wanting to rejoin the EU.
etc.
It comprises the politically motivated, the secularists, but most of all, ignorant – those who answer ‘whatever!’ to any important question.
The other 40% is us.
Time to organise, mobilise and fight.
Neil.. I wouldn’t mind betting that 40% is just a number that they pull out of a hat because its sort of middling.. it doesn’t sound too biased or suspicious..
And they only support net zero in the abstract because of relentless climate change propaganda.
Basically identical to covid. After scaring the crap out of everyone with covid death porn, the answer to lockdowns, masks and jabs was yes, please.
They should ask people what they think will happen if we don’t have net zero. I’m sure we’d get preposterous answers just like with covid where people thought that the death rate was thousands of times higher than in reality.
And if there was significant support for it there would be more than 1 green MP in the House of Commons. But there isn’t, and we were never asked anyway.
Isn’t green the new red.. in disguise..
“Asking people whether they support Net Zero is like asking them whether they support increasing the NHS budget or reducing the number of run-over kittens.”
It seems like the author believes Net Zero is such an obviously desirable goal (akin to avoiding killing kittens) that it is only the implementation costs that make the issue politically debateable.
But surely it is debateable at a much more fundamental level. Is climate changed causally linked to man’s use of fossil fuels? Is CO2 emitted by man a driver of catastrophic climate change? If this is not the case to any meaningful extent, we don’t even move onto the question of implementation costs. It is not something that should even be on the table for discussion.
If even someone like the author believes that CO2 is bad, what hope have we got?
I don’t want ‘Net Zero’.
I’d have the NHS broken up and sold off.
And I ‘ate cats.
I’m pretty sure Noah Carl is pretty much sewn up as far as climate and zero are concerned.. controlled opposition..
I think the analogy was used to illustrate that people will always support things they think are good if they don’t have to pay any personal price for it. I seriously doubt the author thinks net zero is as cut and dried as saving kittens.
As for “controlled opposition” – who is controlling him, how, and why? Please cite evidence that he is “controlled opposition”. How do we know that you are not “controlled opposition”? How can any of know any of these things, for sure? One other thing I would point out is that Mr Carl was at one point sacked by his Cambridge college for his research and positions on race and intelligence. If he’s a plant, he is a pretty elaborate one.
My “controlled opposition” remark was a mistake if you really want to know TOF. I thought I was probably being a bit harsh and went to edit it but couldn’t.
However, my initial thinking was based on reading lots of his articles where his soft pedalling on issues and clever word play never convinced me that this was a person I’d call a genuine sceptic. A foot in both camps if you will.
By the way, I am allowed an opinion. You can of course agree or disagree.
As for me personally.. yes I’m both controlled opposition and also subcontracting to 77th Brigade during the summer holidays. I like to keep you sort on your toes..
Of course you’re allowed an opinion. I just come across this accusation quite often and I’ve never found it that useful. My understanding of the term is that it’s someone who is actively being pushed by the enemy to pretend to be part of the opposition. I expect it happens, but would guess it’s rare. More likely is that they are people with different views to us, who are tolerated by the establishment as it damps down real opposition, but it’s all their own work so to speak. That’s more like “not the real opposition” – one could say this about a few of the journalists on the Daily Telegraph for example.
I’ve only read Mr Carl’s stuff on DS and it has usually seemed pretty genuine and sensible to me. As I said, anyone who writes papers on race and intelligence is probably someone prepared to say what they think no matter what.
And there’s the rub.. we can all interpret articles in different ways. You obviously see something in Noah’s writing that I don’t. Maybe I’m being a tad too ‘sceptical’.. haha..
He seems more on our side than not – right now I’ll take that
Three questions the media never ask and Authorities never answer:-
We all know we will spend trillions of GBP for nothing. Possibly less than nothing other than making a few people very very rich.
The sophistry involved in framing the ‘kitten question’ is another version of the Philadelphia Lawyer’s maxim: “Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.”
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636066/signatures/new
Net Zero referendum petition – may be of interest to this readership. Though I did encounter it on a forum dominated by (actual!) conspiracy theorists . . .
This is not really a good idea. One could as well hold a referendum about rivers running uphill in future. It doesn’t matter if a majority should turn out to be in favour of that, they won’t. Net Zero is an equally unachievable and pointless goal. The only real question is how much money will be burnt pretending to try and how many supposed Net Zero Measures (rhymes with Corona Measures) seeking to further all kinds of other political goal the population will have to endure.
Why not ask “do you support production of natural gas within Britain instead of importing from Russia, in order to increase energy security at lower cost. “
or
”should we extract our own clean natural gas to reduce energy costs far below wind and solar power and with 100% reliability”
The ambiguity is their intention. They’ll never ask a clear question, they want a specific answer and their phrases are chosen carefully.
Or… “Do you support your household spending £107,000 until 2050 trying to reduce the UK’s 0.00001% of a harmless trace gas essential for all life on Earth, that’s already at one of the lowest concentrations in our planet’s history?”
Great post.. a few photo’s do a powerful job..
Do Britons Support Net Zero?
I don’t better ask the lady below..
I’ve always liked that one! haha
This one also sums it up I think;
https://twitter.com/JohnTheKnife/status/1688950593585328128
Yeah.. me too Mogs. I thought I’d lost it but dug it out from the depths of a hard-drive..
Marxism.. exactly..
Sorry to drop this Khan-shaped garbage on you. It’s not like he needs further encouragement or fake justification in making citizens’ lives miserable. What he lacks in stature he makes up for in being a massive PoS!
”Worrying: there’s now evidence that air pollution is linked to antibiotic resistance.
This is in addition to stunted lung growth in children and the worsening of chronic illnesses, such as asthma, dementia and cancer. Expanding the ULEZ is absolutely vital to save lives.”
https://twitter.com/MayorofLondon/status/1688933081837658113
A much more interesting correlational study would be Are increasingly hysterical and frequent climate change warnings in the Guardian linked to antibiotic resistance?
Both are surely growing in parallell and there ought to be a reason for that.
‘Emissions’ – if by that CO2 is the emission, then the idiots who want to reduce emission should stop breathing.
Any poll of a population which hid under the bed from a Cold virus, word face nappies and lined up to be jabbed with a dangerous, useless, experimental product are not competent to answer questions on important issues… or to be allowed out of the asylum.
Do you support Wind & Solar even though they rely on taxpayer subsidies, are totally useless and and cause real damage to the environment?
Not loaded question but 100% per cent accurate?
During the boredom of lockdowns I registered with YouGov. They’d have a headline question which you knew how you’d answer, then once you’d logged in you couldn’t get to it. I presumed that they’d already guessed my answer and it wasn’t the one that their client wanted.
I was one of the 20%.
And yes the questions lacked nuance; but then they always do.
I started doing this to make sure some responses didn’t follow the herd.
However I have mentioned before that if if I do several that severely buck the expected sheeple replies I don’t get invited for a while.