Your Say SA 2020: Bight fight gains support – and who denies climate change?

The fight to preserve the Great Australian Bight has been gaining support over the past 12 months; plus we reveal who the typical climate change denier is in the Sunday Mail’s Your Say SA survey.

• YOUR SAY SA 2020 VISION

• It’s time for South Australia be bold
• You little beauty: The inside word on SA
• South Aussie pollies aren’t listening to the people

Opposition to drilling for oil in The Bight has grown in the past 12 months alongside campaigns including protests.

When the Your Say survey asked: “Do you support the idea of drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight?” the majority said “No – the risk of an oil spill is too high” (64.9 per cent, up from 59.5 per cent in 2018).

Women and young people were less inclined to support drilling than older males.

Concerns included the impact of oil spills on the environment and tourism as well as local business. Many were also dubious about the “Yes” claim that drilling for oil “has the potential to create hundreds of jobs and billions of dollars for the state”.

Oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA last month gave Norwegian company Equinor a key environmental approval, paving the way to drill next summer. Earlier in the year, more than 10,000 people paddled out to protests in the water around Australia and Norway.

REVEALING CLIMATE BELIEFS

Most South Australians (90.8 per cent) believe that the climate is changing and while some disagree on the reasons why, the majority (51.9 per cent) think we should be doing more to combat the crisis.

If the survey was repeated today, University of Adelaide Professor Sarah Wheeler says the result could be stronger still, after catastrophic bushfires across the country.

“Beliefs in the evidence of climate change tend to be influenced by whether individuals perceive direct impacts on themselves and their children,” she said. “That includes financial or health impacts, such as having family suffering from inhaling bushfire smoke.”

Drilling into the Your Say Survey results reveals distinct differences depending on age, gender, lifestage and location.

As Professor Wheeler notes in her commentary, climate change deniers tend to be older, male, less educated, wealthier, caucasian, conservative-leaning and less trusting of the science. This has been established in a meta-analysis of 25 polls and 171 academic studies across 56 nations, which was published in the journal Nature Climate Change back in 2016.

The latest Your Say survey results found young people were more likely to believe that climate change is largely caused by human activity, with the greatest concern shown by the youngest respondents (83.8 per cent in those aged under 25), with the level of concern waning as people grew older.

“Younger people are much more likely to believe in climate change than older people,” Professor Wheeler said.

“They’ve grown up with it, the discussion of the science, they’re more open and receptive to the evidence.”

Country people were less likely to blame humans for the changes than city people and more inclined to deny the climate is changing at all (13.4 per cent in the country compared to 8.4 per cent in the city).

In comments to the survey, many offered alternative facts for climate change in their comments based on natural cycles and solar activity.

This is despite the fact, as Prof Wheeler says, that the overwhelming majority “97 per cent or more of scientific peer-reviewed climate research endorses the view that climate-warming trends over the past century are almost certainly due to human activities”.

“The scientific consensus is that it is happening and has been happening for some time,” she said.

“People that don’t believe tend to be the loudest voices.”

FEAR FOR PLANET SLOWLY SHIFTING

By Professor Sarah Wheeler – The University of Adelaide

The extent to which citizens are concerned about climate change is important because levels of concern encourage or stymie individual action and undermine the political will to implement climate policy.

Polling in Australia by the Lowy Institute has shown that public attitude towards climate change has shifted over time.

Australians (68 per cent) were much more likely to agree that global warming was a serious issue that needed immediate action in the mid-2000s.

University of Adelaide Professor Sarah Wheeler.

This percentage has steadily fallen since, only increasing again in recent years, so that 61 per cent of Australians now agree.

Although questions asked in the YourSay survey differ slightly, it appears SA views are very similar with 64 per cent believing climate change is largely caused by human activities.

A further 27 per cent stated they believed in climate change but that it was not largely caused by human activities, while 9 per cent stated they did not believe in climate change.

Now, if we accept that public concern about climate change is an important precursor for climate change action, then the question of what predicts climate change concern becomes critically important.

Ongoing research suggests that various characteristics are associated with climate change beliefs.

For denial of climate change, some of these characteristics include being older, male, less educated, wealthier, caucasian, having a conservative political ideology and having less trust in science.

The YourSay survey results support these findings, as the respondents who were female (69 per cent of females versus 58 per cent of men overall) or younger were more likely to state they believed in climate change and that it was caused by human activities.

Living in metropolitan areas, especially the eastern or western suburbs, also raised the level of concern over climate change.

Professor Sarah Wheeler is associate director of research in the Centre for Global Food and Resources at the University of Adelaide.

GREEN LIGHT FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Saving money on bills while taking better care of the planet with solar panels, solar hot water systems and rainwater tanks has gone “mainstream”.

Now people are looking to government to provide more incentives for homeowners to invest in these sustainability measures, including landlords with rental properties.

No longer the Alternative Technology Association, the rebranded not-for-profit called Renew promotes Sustainable House Day in September.

This year about 20 homes opened in SA to around 4500 visitors who discovered how to reduce waste, reduce costs and also live more comfortably.

Adelaide branch convener Alan Strickland, 70, of Lynton has been involved in the public event since the beginning.

“It’s now in its 20th year,” he said. “When it started off people were saying ‘why do you do that?’ and now they’re saying ‘how do you do that?”

Comments on the Your Say survey suggest readers expect more from government and want a tougher building code for homes, including passive solar housing design that makes the best use of sun for warmth in winter and shade in summer, better insulation and double-glazing to reduce the cost of heating and cooling.

Solar panels and solar hot water could be compulsory as well as rainwater tanks.

Tax deductions could be given to those households with more environmentally friendly features, or to landlords who improve their properties. Of the 21.4 per cent that said “no, the existing incentives are enough”, comments suggested many would rather see money invested in large renewable power plants and penalties handed out to polluters.

There were also concerns that the existing incentives were unfair or unavailable to renters.