The problem to come with climate change

All the nonsense being talked by the Australisan Federal Government about its efforts to keep down petrol prices is a perfect illustration of the problem to come when it stops talking about the need to curb carbon dioxide emissions and starts doing something about it. Labor keeps telling us that reducing emissions is essential and the best way of achieving that is by increasing the price of things like petrol that causes them. So why all this effort to reduce the petrol price? Logic suggests the Government should be happy that oil companies in reacting to higher crude oil prices are doing the job for it.
Perhaps the answer is provided by some work done in the United States by the polling group American Environics who last year found that voters consistently rated energy costs as a higher concern than global warming, and resisted policies that would increase the cost of electricity and gasoline. The survey, jointly conducted by American Environics and EMC Research ranked global warming dead last of the 16 issues tested, trailing the cost of gas and electricity, dependence on foreign oil, and even "quality of the environment." Voter concern over the cost of gas and electricity was evident in a number of question responses, from both a strong preference for proposals to lower the cost of clean energy (68%) over proposals designed to reduce consumption by making dirty energy more expensive (18%), to a majority opposing a carbon tax (58%) with 39% strongly opposing such an action. The poll also divided the sample to observe the effects of various psychological primes on global warming public opinion, including using specific consequences of global warming expressed by the environmental community such as the movie An Inconvenient Truth.
Telling voters about these consequences did not increase their desire to take action on global warming.
"Telling voters that global warming will lead to environmental disaster did not lead to increased support for action on global warming," noted Dr. John Whaley who conducted the survey for American Environics. "In addition, when voters were told that specific proposals would lead to higher energy costs, support for policies to limit carbon dropped dramatically."