Jo Nova reports on an OECD survey that finds that most people don;t think global warming is a big enough deal that they should spend their tax dollars on it. Interestingly it is Labor's misreading of this kind of information that has got them into all kinds of trouble three years later.

Australian skeptics outnumber believers say OECD. Globally, 63% don’t want their dollars spent on the environment…

The bottom line is that a third of people are concerned enough to be willing to act,
a third say they are concerned but are only paying it lip service, and a third are openly skeptical.

What matters is that 63% of people around the world don’t want their governments to take any money from them to address environmental issues.

There is constant media spin that skeptics are a tiny fringe minority. (See Al Gore deny a third of the population. See the BBC call them mavericks and say they give too much weight to “fringe views”.) The marketeers pushing the meme know that many people are swayed away from “extreme” views and towards the dominant paradigm. Life is just “easier” if you follow the herd, so the big-scare campaign scores a free kick if the public believe that skeptics are rare. If the media reported the situation accurately, more people would be happy to sit in the “skeptical” camp as it would be perceived as equally valid.

As usual, those who believe in man-made global warming use every deceptive trick to push their policy, while skeptics simply benefit if the truth is told.

While skeptics just outnumber believers in Australia, around the world about a third of the population is openly skeptical and more say they believe. Campaigners may pool the 46% of people who are are “environmentally motivated” with the 20% who are “technological optimists” (who believe technology will solve environmental problems) to get 66%. That would make two thirds of the population “believers” — but what does “believer” mean when 63% of the population does not want government policies to cost them a cent? It means they don’t believe very much.

Read the full article here