Climate Change USA
Oh, please forgive me - too much time behind the wheel this week.
I’ve had too much to do, and too little time. It’s included two days in my role as a stand-up rabble rouser (7 1/2 hours of briefing a company’s staff in groups of 5-9 on a new initiative kicking off in January), and a day doing a workshop on machine utilisation for a food company some 60 miles down the road.
Basically I couldn’t ride to any of these - either because of the distance, or a combination of the physical drain from the day’s work & risk to the data projector, which I’m sure would not enjoy being bounced around in the pannier bag.
So, given that I was going to be stuck in the metal box for five hours, I downloaded some new podcasts, including some episodes from New Scientist - one of which was “Climate Change USA”. No, this wasn’t just another lets-all-bash-Uncle-Sam story, but included a summary of results of an in-depth US survey on climate change issues. It turns out that . . .
- People are in favour of the government making people and industry do something to tackle the problem & reduce greenhouse gasses by 5% by 2020 - rather than carbon trading & cap schemes
- There’s an acceptance of the fact that there’ll probably be costs passed on to consumers.
- But they’d rather these were on electricity prices, rather than vehicle fuel.
- People weren’t in favour of carbon taxes per se - they preferred command and control to just allowing market forces to act as the great leveler. America’s leadership may be interested in the free market, but the public aren’t so keen, when it comes to this problem.
- Ultimately 19% (43M adults) are passionately concerned about climate change, while more than 80% are in favour of government intervention to make industry change in order to limit global warming.
- On the down side, most Americans do not rate climate change as the #1 issue for government to tackle though - education and crime come higher in their list of priorities. I guess that’s a reflection of the immediacy of the perceived problem.
The podcast also included some detail on myth-busting of issues around climate change. They include a scientifically-based Guide to Climate Change for the Perplexed. If you’re in any doubt . . . go and have a look.
Workout:
- Type: Swim
- Date: 12/14/2007
- Time: 14:53:43
- Total Time: 00:12:30.00
- Distance: 500 m
- Average Pace: 2:30.13/100m
