Thursday, August 1, 2019

Saving the World Chatter

So the public TV crowd in Germany (ARD, Channel One) went out and did a poll over climate change and all this recent chatter about bans, taxation going up, and the effort to save the world.

The positive from this?  Roughly three-quarters of Germans are positive about saving the world.

But here's this odd number....ONLY 15-percent see bans and taxation as something good that should be done.

So what do they want?  They want incentives....to be treated in some way avoiding higher costs and taxation.  The more expensive airline tickets?  The poll was careful not to say the amount that might be tacked on....with around two-thirds of the public willing to accept this to some degree.  I suspect if you came out and said that a 150-Euro R/T ticket would go up 40-Euro, that would probably be seen in a negative way....but if you said it was 12-Euro....they'd grin and pay it. 

The effort to have more research and innovation?  Oh, that was virtually guaranteed....roughly 97-percent of Germans thought that was really great.

What's this all mean?  Public TV, journalists, and politicians have basically failed to make their case on more taxation and certain bans.  If the programs go forward....someone will be getting the public fired-up and go anti-environmental. 

This C02 tax?  Only around a third of the public thought this was positive. 

Everyone seems to have this feeling that after the vacation period....the political folks will return to Berlin, and some type of 'save-the-world' agenda will start up, but with marginal goals (cheaper railway tickets, 3-to-5 percent taxes added on airline tickets, and some push on innovation by German universities). 

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