By Jo Nova
Nobody believes the Experts
Four thousand climate scientists have cried about climate change on TV. Weather maps are red-hot. And every fire, flood and dry weekend is caused by climate change, yet somehow, half the country doesn’t want to pay a cent to stop these catastrophes and most of the other half just want to pay one or two dollars a week, which is practically nothing — not even a coffee. It’s so low it might be “go-away” money — as in, they hope the pollster will go away and stop asking more questions about climate change. None of these people take carbon emissions seriously and this is 90% of the country.
The IPA asked 1,027 Australians how much they would personally be willing to pay for the nation to reach Net zero by 2050, and half of them said, nothing. Another quarter said “$50 a year” which is one pitiful dollar a week. Most of the rest said “$2” a week, which leaves barely 7% of people ticking the boxes $500 or more per year, which everyone is already paying and has been paying for years. They just don’t know it, because the cost was hidden in their electricity bills.
Could there be any more skeptical position than “zero dollars”?
I guess the surveyors could start asking how much money people would need to be paid to believe in “Net Zero”, but that wasn’t an option. So we are left to interpret the “zero money” for Net Zero as people who don’t think the world is warming, and people who like warming, and people who think the UN is a basket of nematodes.
Whichever way we look at it, it’s clear, none of the 48% who said “nothing” believe what the CSIRO, NOAA, NASA and the Bureau of Meteorology are selling. These are the die-hard skeptics. Since we live in a democracy I have to ask — which side of politics speaks for them? (Looking at you Liberals and Nationals). And which journalists at the ABC ask the questions this half of the country are thinking? Obviously, not a single one.
The few small sane political parties that do speak for half the population (or more) are treated like anti-matter, so most voters have no idea who they are.
And lets not forget the 45% who said they’d spend a tiny one or two dollars a week. Clearly, they have no idea the government is helping themselves to so much more. If conservatives could suck up the courage to explain what the costs are, and how pointless they are, 93% of the votes are there for the taking. Most of the country are skeptics, men and women, young and old.
After 30 years of climate agitprop (or perhaps because of it) it’s a rather devastating testament to the loss of whatever prestige university professors used to have.
And worse, it’s a bit of a cluster bomb on the idea of democracy. The Blob has been siphoning off this money for years, and 93% don’t want to spend it, and yet the money keeps flowing.
IPA Poll: Attitudes towards Net Zero, Daniel Wild, May 15th, 2025
Image by taiga_valley_media from Pixabay