On the Trail With Barack Obama

On the Trail With Barack Obama

Yes. There are many ways in which this poll is misleading. Unfortunately, ochairball is also misinterpreting the results. Ochairball assumes that none of the respondents noticed that the question seemed misleading, based on the yes/no answer they were expected to give.

Reflect that this may not be the case.

There are more than enough people in this world, who, when faced with a situation presenting a false choice, will give the perverse answer. I, for example, would be sorely tempted to answer this by saying "no", even if it were true that it would significantly lower fuel prices.

"How could this be?" you may ask. Well, I'm pretty comfortable with the notion that humans are causing a shift in climate that may either destroy the ability of the Earth to support human life or will compromise the habitats of most of the other species on the planet. "No more humans" is an unlikely prospect, given our technological capability, but making life inhospitable for 90% of the species that were alive at the start of human civilization is certainly within reach, particularly if we panic in the face of the only tool our political economy will tolerate (if only barely)-- economic pressure on the users of fossil fuels.

It seems we can't bring ourselves to accept that taxes on the emission of carbon are the best and only way government can actively reduce carbon emissions without also choosing a winner among the remaining technologies. Virtually everyone uses it in the US (to pick a random example), so by taxing, we'd force the burden of paying the price of getting us out of the mess on the people least willing to change their ways. Yes, it would be a pretty good idea to use some of the taxes taken this way to fund mass transit, since this would ease the transition for people who would otherwise be unable to feed or shelter themselves. In the end, though, those funds have to dry up and people have to make choices they can afford. This would only happen, though, if the course of the taxes were properly arranged, as those taxes would have long before risen to a level that chokes off all carbon-consuming industry.


So (and I'll bet you were wondering what any of this had to do with the poll), suppose a group of similarly perverse people with an inclination to demand more drilling everywhere are contacted in a poll, and asked exactly the question referenced by ochairball. They, too, know that gas prices won't fall immediately as a result of drilling oil in 5-10 years that would be a tiny fraction of our current needs. Maybe they're also interested in testing the idea gas prices will fall in the face of more drilling in ten years (McCain's argument on psychology). Maybe they just don't care what effect it will have on gas prices. Whatever the motivation, my bet is that more than a few (say 20%) would answer, "Hell yeah! Drill Here! Drill Now!"

I'm just sayin'.