Last spring, the fossil fuel-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute hired KellyAnn Conway’s old polling company to put out a fantastically misleading poll that, unsurprisingly, only the most gullible reporters picked up. Specifically, Valerie Richardson of the Washington Times carried it uncritically, even though a quick look at the findings totally undercut CEI’s rhetoric, and showed that a majority of the public was concerned about climate change and willing to spend their own money on it. Even though, as we've noted, it should be on the fossil fuel industry to clean up their pollution, not the public.
Well they’re back, and it looks like Richardson was yet again an easy target for CEI’s pitch. And while CEI once again tried to spin their own findings to downplay climate concern by pointing out that despite 71% of registered voters expressing concern about climate, 39% of people don’t want to pay more for electricity and gas and “one-third of voters [are] unwilling to spend anything to counter climate change.”
Now, the geniuses at CEI and the Washington Times might not be aware of this, but if one-third are unwilling to spend anything, doesn’t that mean two-thirds of people are willing to pony up?
Sure enough! Comparing this poll to the old one from last spring, it turns out that CEI’s own crooked poll shows a 5% increase in the number of people “very concerned” about climate change, from 36 to 41% of registered voters. While “somewhat concerned” remained flat at 30%, and the somewhat/not very concerned set shrunk by 4%, down to 28% of registered voters they polled.
We want to be very clear about this: CEI is bragging about a poll that shows their own ongoing failure to persuade people to not care about climate change.
CEI wants you to focus on the 39% of people who don’t want to spend any extra on electricity and gas (which, again, they shouldn’t need to because the industries that lied and heated the earth for profit should). They neglect to mention, however, that tallying up the responses for those who are willing to pay a decent amount, starting at $91-$100 (10%) and working all the way up to the 1% willing to spend $9,000-$10,000, shows that 39% of registered voters are willing to spend significantly on climate change.
There are just as many people willing to pay $100 as there are people unwilling to pay anything. Why isn’t that a headline? And, factor in the respondents willing to pay more for electricity or gasoline in increments of $1 to $51-$60 (20%) and it turns out that 59% of people — a majority(!) — are willing to pay their own money to clean up the fossil fuel industry’s mess.
Speaking of fossil fuel industry messes, the ongoing energy price surge continues to be a talking point for right wing bozos and industry hacks intent on blaming Biden for global energy prices, like Holman Jenkins Jr. at the Wall Street Journal (which also just ran a column from Lomborg making the same dumb point CEI does, but with different data.)
But the fact that fossil fuels are expensive and unreliable is so obvious that even other conservatives are balking at the bad-faith “Blame Biden” Bandwagon. George David Banks, energy advisor to the right’s beloved failed businessman turned reality TV star turned (former) viral social media influencer turned one-term President and insurrection leader Donald Trump, told the conservative Washington Examiner that “no objective person is going to blame the [Biden] administration for the current global energy crisis.”
A Trump guy, in a stalwart and far-right approved outlet, just pointed out that every so-called journalist and columnist straining to ignore the reality of a global pandemic’s impact on energy are not objective people.
Apparently the schoolyard taunt still rings true: it takes one to know one!