German site CO2 Handel here writes about a survey on the sentiment of Germans with regards to climate change and their will to do something about it.
It’s no surprise that a vast majority of Germans believe that man is profoundly changing the climate. The major media outlets feed Germans with a constant stream of climate doom & gloom, and rarely mention science that shows otherwise.
But what is surprising is the number of Germans who say they do not plan to change their lifestyles at all “to save the climate”. They agree that something has to be done to protect the climate, but they are not willing to make any sacrifices. CO2 Handel writes:
Two thirds (66 perecent) in a survey for Hamburg-based news magazine Stern declared that they would not do more for climate protection today than before.”
The survey also shows, despite the media bombardment of dire climate prognoses, that Germans are not afraid of a climate catastrophe.
Only 31 percent fear dramatic consequences for nature and environment (women 36 percent).”
A huge number are skeptical that governments will be able to stop climate change.
According to the Stern survey, 84 percent do not believe the goverments will be able to stop climate change.
And these 84% should continue to believe this, because climate change cannot be stopped. Anyone who claims it can is nothing less than a huge charlatan. That means 16% are completely duped and actually believe that the UN and IPCC can control the climate. Talk about utter ignorance.
If the survey says anything, it is that even if you do manage to convince the population, it doesn’t mean they are going to agree to make sacrifices. So, good luck in implementing climate protection policies in countries with high levels of skepticism. First you have to stop the growing trend of skepticism, then you have to convert their beliefs, and then you’ll have to convince them to make sacrifices, which is the hardest thing to do.
The survey was based on 1001 representatively chosen German citizens on December 1 – 2, 2011 . The margin of error is : ± 3%. The survey was conducted by Forsa, for Stern.
Not surprisingly, the major media outlets buried the survey results.
Yet Red-Green has a majority in the polls… Germans are still a self-loathing lot.
Germans want to be viewed as pious and moral – but they don’t want to make the sacrifices that go with it. Sure they’ll vote Red-Green, as this will generate the desired impression of morality and environmental compassion. But as soon as Red-Green start demanding they sacrifice, they’ll be booted out. Germans want to project that they are green, but they certainly don’t want to live it (unless the sacrifice is not too much). “Green! – but only if it’s painless” is the motto.
Well, who would want to live through a German winter in an unheated shack… eh, sorry, Passivhaus.
I’d say many would do so, as long as it is equipped with conventional heating!
Some Germans don’t even know anymore what “conventional heating” is; it goes so far that they don’t believe me that you can burn a piece of coal in an oven. Not kidding. These younger people have wood pellet heaters or other newfangled crap. “Coal” is more or less an abstract concept to them.
OT/ But: IPCC appoints Anthony Watts as expert reviewer for IPCC AR5.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/16/the-ipcc-gives-me-a-shock/#more-53168
Also: The Spectator runs a rather defensive piece by George Mondiot standing up for The Coming Flood, followed DIRECTLY by a resolutely sk/ceptic one by Christopher Booker.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/7459873/a-question-of-faith.thtml
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/7459868/debate-denied.thtml
(Of course, the Spectator has been one of the few staunchly sceptic papers throughout. They ran Nils-Axel Mörner’s anti-Noah assessment as the cover story on 1 December – which brought Monbiot to the fore.)
Another typical German madness. Wherever you need to fell trees for infrastructure projects you inevitably find these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmoderma_eremita
Even though they are said to be rare, or threatened, they occur simply EVERYWHERE in German forests. Now, after years of violent demonstrations, an election of a Green province government in Badem-Württemberg and a referendum which voted in favor of the railway station project Stuttgart 21, environmentalists have managed to find Osmoderma eremita; and a judge has ordered construction to be stopped.
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,804266,00.html
The bugs might of course be planted by the enviros.
Felling trees! Oh the horror! Like, they never grow back – Never ever. Flatten all of Stuttgart and let them live in a forest is my advice.
I heard recently from Germany that major companies are preparing to evacuate the Green State in favour of more energy-friendly places.
The major car makers (Mercedes Benz and Porsche) won’t need much of a push to shift most of their manufacturing out of Germany. Certainly out of Badem-Württemberg. They all have newer factories and/or shared facilities in e.g. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic; where energy suppliers supply energy.
Similarly for the chemical giants.
Which would leave B-W with at best R&D and financial management arms. More than likely, it’d just be product distribution facilities. Manufacturing and supporting logistics jobs would evaporate in B-W.
And with the manufacturers and the jobs, goes a large chunk of the income of the State. Green policies will more than bankrupt B-W: They will turn it into a basket-case economy like Greece’s.
One clarification: It is unclear whether they really found one of the bugs – often these legal battles are done on a purely theoretical basis, where one expert writes a report arguing that there must be some of these bugs in those particular trees, then an expert for the other side argues against it, without one of the bugs ever being found. I talked to a biologist yesterday who happens to know one of the experts involved in such a battle during airport extension works in Braunschweig. So osmoderma eremita is largely a mythical creature, even where it actually does stop construction.
During my high-school years, we all sabotaged the German lessons, because of what happened in WWII. The teacher was a nice guy but finally resigned to become a full-time poet. After seeing the poll figures, I feel a bit ashamed of this period, and my mastery of German is not as good as it could have been of course.
OT
Anybody heard about this in the UK?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/22/fuel-poverty-protestors-die-in-winter-deaths
25,700 excess winter deaths in the UK in 2010-11
Ike
We have had here a club of misers or skin-flints, whose object was to spend as little money as possible. One of their tips may be life-saving now, the misers-coat. The only thing you need is an old duvet. Cut two strips out in order to make sleeves. In the remainder you make two holes and you have to sew the sleeves there. A zipper completes your misers-coat. Wearing it, you don’t have to fuel your house anymore. Other tips what to do about the AGW fraud:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/14156/Fmr-Thatcher-advisor-Lord-Monckton-to-pursue-fraud-charges-against-Climategate-scientists-Will-present-to-police-the-case-for-numerous-specific-instances-of-scientific-or-economic-fraud#.Tur1pAOVr7Z
Röttgen, envirominister of the German conservatives-in-name CDU: “Climate Change is a matter of Life or Death!”
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/umweltminister-roettgen-zum-klimaschutz-eine-frage-von-leben-und-tod-1.1236452
“The fight against Climate Change is an enormous economic chance.”
Yeah, just ask Solyndra or Solon. Why are all our parties spouting the same BS?
Talk about being cut-off from reality. What a bozo. The guy has obviously never read a single piece of science literature himself.
“That means 16% are completely duped and actually believe that the UN and IPCC can control the climate. Talk about utter ignorance.”
Well, true enough, but look at it this way. There’s 10% on each end of every Bell Curve that are beyond convincing (that’s a total of 20%). Subtract the hopeless 10% who still believe from 16+/-3% and this means that between 3-9% are still convinced that the last thing they ever heard about the subject is still true. Look for a further reduction in hardcore believers come Spring 2012. Temperature has a way of changing even the most obstinant mind that something is in the wind, and that it isn’t a “heat wave” and they better keep their parka on.