From Fake News to Fake Polls

The media blob is making much of a Washington Post/ABC News poll that finds the public by a 2 to 1 margin opposes President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord:

Most Americans oppose President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, with a majority saying the move will damage the United States’ global leadership, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Opposition to Trump’s decision outpaces support for it by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, with 59 percent opposing the move and 28 percent in support.

Gee: I wonder where anyone might have got the idea that the move would “damage America’s global leadership.” Maybe from relentless news reports last week that all omitted to mention the salient fact that the U.S. has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions more than any other nation?

You need to click through to the actual poll questions to see what a crappy poll it is. The poll only asked five questions. This is the headline question:

Q: Do you support or oppose Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the main international agreement that tries to address climate change?

Talk about virtue signaling! Let’s try this for a poll question:

Q: Do you support grand sweeping gestures in favor of sugar and spice and everything nice?

Conspicuously missing are any questions about whether people support appropriations for wealth transfers from the U.S to developing nations that the Paris Accord included (and into which Obama tossed $1 billion)?  No questions, also, about whether people are willing to pay higher energy costs for an agreement that will make no difference to the planet’s temperature 80 years from now, according to the EPA’s own models.

When you actually put such measures to a vote, rather than a treacly poll question, the results turn out rather differently. Take Washington state, a deep blue state these days, which voted down a carbon tax ballot initiative last fall by 58-42 margin. Everybody’s for “saving the planet” if it doesn’t cost them anything, and stupid polls will find that out every time. Maybe the Post/ABC News pollsters should include just one question about how much they’re willing to pay next time. Jeff Bezos wasted a lot of money on this one. The Post should stick with straight fake news. It’s cheaper.

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