75% OF DEMOCRATS OPPOSE NUCLEAR FISSION

[kristopher]

75% of Dems oppose nuclear.
Posted by kristopher on Sat May-14-11 08:21 PM

“Strong” opposition outstrips strong support, 47-20 percent. Opposition is up from 53 percent in a 2008 poll, and strong opposition is up even more, by 24 points.

This ABC News-Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone April 14-17, 2011, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points....

Still, there are differences among groups; opposition is higher among Democrats (75 percent, vs. 59 percent of Republicans and independents combined), women (73 percent, vs. 53 percent of men) and liberals (74 percent, vs. 60 percent of moderates and conservatives).

http://texasvox.org/2011/04/21/nuclear-power-poll-shows-a-spike-in-u-s-opposition-after-fukushima /

[demosincebirth]

1. I don't think many democrats, or americans, know the difference between fusion and fission

[LAGC]

2. MAYBE IF YOU YELL AND TYPE IN ALL CAPS PEOPLE WILL HEAR YOU BETTER.

You might want to inform President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other pro-nuclear elected Democrats of your findings.

I'm sure they'll change their tune right away.

:rofl:

[kristopher]

6. They know.

[Speck Tater]

3. 75% of everybody doesn't have a clue what fission is!

Nobody who knows what it is would oppose it. This is yet another example of the rampant ignorance that is dragging us into another dark age.

[caraher]

4. That's a demonstrably false statement

"Nobody who knows what it is would oppose it."

You want to tell me Michio Kaku doesn't know what fission is? (And I'm not even trying very hard here - just the first physicist I thought of with a known public stance on the matter.)

(I have to say, I'm a bit tickled by the notion of being in favor of or opposed to a fundamental physical process. Yes, I realize "fission" here is shorthand for using nuclear fission to generate electricity... but it still sounds odd to me!)

Ultimately, though, I don't really care one way or another what a poll says about support for fission among members of any political party. The more one equates positions for or against particular kinds of energy with political views, the easier it is for half of us to mindlessly dismiss good solutions as the politics of "the other side" and accept bad solutions as the revealed truth of "our side." I'd rather see the development of an energy future that serves us all proceed on the basis of facts (which include all relevant social, environmental and economic factors) than strive for a self-satisfied ideological purity as the political system undergoes its usual mood swings.

[kristopher]

5. It is a matter of values and getting something done

For the same reason I post it, I can assure you that the fission industry certainly cares. They've spent hundreds of millions over the past decade to move policy-makers to their side of the fence; and a large portion of that was aimed at the constituent base of those politicians.

The poll numbers have next-to-nothing to do with ideological purity and everything to do with how we prioritize our values and apply those values to the selection of solutions we want to implement. You cite "relevant social, environmental and economic factors" as being relevant "facts" by which to judge our energy policy and that is precisely why your comment misses the mark.

To enable a decision to be arrived at there must be in each individual calculus a set of values by which we assign priorities and establish goals. Without that, interpretation of the data is meaningless. For example the fundamental difference between the "sides" on energy policy isn't political, it is how the values related to energy security, trust in established institutions, and are prioritized and then reasoned. Since most of the people who support widescale deployment of fission technology also support more drilling for oil and building more coal plants, it is clear that they value energy security highly and are willing to trust established cultural practices that support that goal.

If rallying people to their party isn't appealing to you, then perhaps you can think of and share a better way to get something done in today's political environment.

[Speck Tater]

7. My bad! A senior moment. I read "fission" and thought "fussion".

Clearly I'm among the 75% who don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

:shrug:

[kristopher]

8. Pssst....

not to add to your slip-up, but that would be 'fusion' not "fussion".

No spell check in the header often gets me too.

[kristopher]

9. Today on NHK

Japan polling on nuclear:
3% want more nuclear power
32% say present level acceptable
43% want reduced level of nuclear
14% say abolish all nuclear

Percentage who want fewer power plants increased by 11 points from last month.

[FBaggins]

10. Well... not they've GOT "fewer".

So only 14% need more cuts.

[kristopher]

11. I doubt that made sense even to you