Do as I say, not as I do

Interesting survey of the attitudes of British people towards the environment and their actions on the subject. As seasoned observers will know, the most alarmist news articles on global warming come from the two newspapers The Guardian and The Independent. So what do their readers think and do?

While climate change concerns are voiced most strongly among the young, Liberal Democrat voters and Guardian/Independent readers, these attitudes are not translated into personal action.

The poll showed, for example, that Guardian/Independent readers are no more likely to have taken any specific energy saving actions than tabloid readers, and are actually less likely to have insulated their homes.

CEI President Fred Smith often talks about the need for corporations to talk to Joan Citizen as much as to Joan Consumer. It appears that global warming alarmists have the reverse problem:

Dr David Reiner, Course Director of the MPhil in Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and author of the report, said: “There is a real engagement among the British public on questions of energy and environment, particularly over climate change. There is a willingness to support government policies, but even those groups that are the strongest supporters of policy action do not translate this support into their personal energy saving behaviour. They show a clear divergence between their views as citizens and their actions as consumers.”

Once again, as is the case with EU emissions, the people who proclaim themselves most concerned about a problem politically, are the least likely to do something about it practically. Image, it appears, is everything in the climate debate.