Our Readers Speak: On Energy
OUR READERS SPEAK: ON ENERGY Our March poll was on energy policy. Predictably, it elicited less response than our earlier poll on attitudes towards intermarriage, but the several hundred...
...Finally, we have sufficient resources and know how to create our own supplies, so what is all this nonsense about "detente" except political mumbo-jumbo...
...More effort should be spent in the area of learning to live within the budget of our energy income (i.e., renewable resources) rather than finding new ways to spend our energy capital...
...74%-yes 26%-no 6. Do you feel that environmental considerations have played too large a role in preventing the development of alternative energy sources, such as coal and nuclear power...
...readiness to pay higher taxes in order to fund the development of alternative energy sources (between 70 and 80 percent of each group expressed such readiness...
...Thus, we find that a quarter of the group report household income of less than $20,000 per annum...
...Several respondents used some of the space to say some things about moment, and while we usually don't call attention to ourselves in this manner, we were especially pleased with the fourteen-year-old who chose to write, "This has nothing to do with energy...
...Government's role should be to let the business sector do its thing...
...We were not comfortable, but we managed...
...March Poll 1. Should energy sources (and/or distribution) be nationalized...
...We don't need gas rationing...
...Because that is so, the responses are often interspersed with elaborate comments...
...We feel that Orthodox Jews who are shomer Shabbos are serious violators of our energy resources...
...We need (1) a centralized government energy department to push a crash program on exploration of many methods of producing energy...
...The Comments: I am convinced that our society is structured in such a way that corporate profits can't be cut or limited...
...the balance (17 percent) have household incomes of over $60,000 (including 3 percent over $100,000...
...for their role in maintaining the concept of fuel shortages when, in reality, their profits were the only thing they wanted to maintain...
...3) t.v...
...We should peg the price of food to OPEC countries to the price of oil...
...20%-yes 40%-no 40%-Don't know 5. Would you be prepared to pay higher taxes in order to permit the government to invest in more rapid development of alternative energy sources...
...Cars should be only for pleasure on weekends, intimate dates and emergencies...
...49%-yes 51%-no 7. Would you favor the expansion of nuclear power facilities under present safeguards...
...It's time the U.S...
...39%-yes 61%-no 2. Have you personally changed your behavior in any significant respect (e.g., lowering thermostat, car-pooling, etc...
...Inconvenience re: technological facilities is a price you pay for preserving wilderness (I live in Minnesota where this is true...
...And we need more battery operated cars, not big gas guzzlers...
...or even keeping an oven on for 24 hours saps needed energy...
...Read Milton Friedman, not Gal-braith...
...on the question of whether there should be more stringent controls on oil company profits, agreement declines as income rises, but even in the highest income group, 69 percent do support such controls...
...an inclination to support the expansion of nuclear power facilities under present safeguards (between 53 and 68 percent of each group was so inclined...
...As always, the comments that many respondents added to their checked answers are quite interesting...
...83%-yes 17%-no 3. Do you believe that the oil producing countries are entitled to the high prices they now charge...
...The U.S...
...Living in a finite world requires tradeoffs...
...More power to you...
...Sure, prices will rise, but the marketplace will make the most efficient and orderly allocation...
...For whom did you vote in the last election...
...Getting up to put them out (she was busy serving), I was stopped and told not to bother as "it is free in this apartment house...
...Predictably, it elicited less response than our earlier poll on attitudes towards intermarriage, but the several hundred responses we did receive are certainly of interest...
...is responsible for allowing the Arab countries to reach their present position in controlling oil...
...as a result of the energy crisis...
...program to Arab oil concerns...
...The hostess showed us around the five rooms...
...These questions were included in order to provide some basis for ordering the data, for determining whether differences on so volatile an issue as energy policy were related to income or to political preference...
...Suppliers will be encouraged to develop new sources...
...stopped letting itself be held up by pirates...
...74%-yes 26%-no 10...
...Some people—rather few, as it turns out—either left the income question blank, or were somewhat cryptic in their response...
...and radio programs to point up how to do (2) would be a great help...
...It's not as reliable but it does blow at night...
...The only solution is to break up oil companies and have the U.S...
...we're too fat and lazy...
...You are the most interesting thing to come around since "Sixty Minutes...
...Our favorite is the respondent who wrote, simply, "more than adequate...
...I have been cracking down at home, but do not know how to affect others...
...I just thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you how much I love moment...
...60%-yes 40%-no 8. Would you be prepared to accept rationing of gasoline as a way of reducing consumption and preserving resources...
...recycling should be mandatory, and wasteful packaging eliminated...
...If not, I can't sympathize with all the handwringing...
...the lowest group splits 82-18 in favor (reflecting, we think, its heavier reliance on public transportation), and the highest income group splits 67-33 in favor (reflecting, perhaps, its greater capacity to withstand the inconvenience of rationing...
...another quarter fall between $40,000 and $60,000...
...Likewise, the American oil companies are getting away with murder and should be nationalized...
...The U.S...
...However, we do have one resource more valuable than oil: food...
...I have been associated with the oil industry for 25 years...
...The comments reveal an unusually well-informed and concerned population, and we include a representative selection...
...2) policies to force everyone to conserve energy...
...government take over all negotiations with OPEC on oil pricing...
...The Arab connection also needs to be exposed— American oil companies pay for Arab students to come to American universities as part of the oil companies' "goodwill" (bribery...
...Whoever you are, thanks—and it's not power we're looking for, but new subscribers...
...Thus, if we are truly interested in the future for our children re: energy, fuel, etc., we have got to change our attitudes and lifestyle...
...When we finally got back to the dining room for a snack, I noticed she had left all the lights on in the five rooms...
...The oil companies need to be exposed...
...We need drastic changes in our behavior...
...Whatever his actual income, we envy him...
...group by group, we find that 19 percent of those with incomes under $20,000, 32 percent of those with incomes between $20 and $40 thousand, 28 percent of those with incomes between $40 and $60 thousand, and 30 percent of those with incomes of over $60,000 voted for Ford...
...Thus, except for a jump in the lowest income group, our respondents voted two-to-one for Carter, confirming the well-known fact that Jewish voting behavior is pretty much independent of income...
...While I do not wish to return to this austerity, my family and I would manage to live on a fraction of the energy level we use at present...
...There is a tremendous waste of energy in our neighborhood, in schools and shops, in traffic, etc...
...I spent the first years of my married life in Israel, without hot water, refrigerator, or stove...
...The most striking example of this is the voting behavior of our respondents...
...They did nothing about it except blow a lot of steam...
...People who want to live without heed for the future should simply recognize this and stop the parlor talk about issues of energy and environment...
...I think too much emphasis is being placed on finding new sources of energy to burn...
...Don't believe in blocking development of resources for exotic reasons (i.e., to protect reindeer in Alaskan wilds) but do believe in practical, serious conservation (i.e., penalizing large cars, whose proliferation today is shameful...
...This is ridiculous and needs to be exposed...
...There is no gas shortage—the oil companies have kept wells capped since 1968 when they lost the Permian Basin Rate case decision to increase prices...
...On the contrary, the only way out of the energy situation is to pay corporations to develop "exotics" such as solar heat...
...Perhaps we can rethink our ha-lachah—consider energy conservation a branch of a broadly defined kashrut...
...we can only say that these are the answers provided by those of our readers who are among the most interested in the subject...
...We lost the opportunity to take proper action when OPEC first raised the price of oil...
...Something has to change...
...But they are also interesting in and of themselves...
...still has the cheapest fuel in the free world...
...dissatisfaction with the Carter policy on energy (bearing in mind that the poll happened in March, before the administration had had much to say about energy, over 40 percent of each group expressed dissatisfaction, and better than a third withheld judgment...
...The point here, however, is that the major income groupings are reasonably well-represented in our sample—and that, on most questions, income is irrelevant to attitude...
...were split 50-50, while only a quarter of the two upper income groups endorsed nationalization (still, it seems to us, a rather surprising level of endorsement...
...64%-yes 36%-no 9. Would you support more stringent controls on oil company profits...
...We cannot generalize from the results...
...It can be done...
...on acceptance of gasoline rationing, the two middle income groups (between $20,000 and $60,000) are split 60-40 in favor...
...It's time we turned to solar power...
...Income differences appear to have been relevant on the following items: on the question of whether energy sources (and/or distribution) should be nationalized, the lower two income groups (with incomes of up to $40,000...
...As always, it is important to remember that these responses are not, in any sense, a scientific sampling of attitudes...
...An example of waste which I saw recently: we visited a cousin with a new apartment in a coop building with gas and electricity included in the monthly carrying costs...
...We drive cars instead of walk or bicycle, and we watch television instead of read or think...
...28%-Ford 72%-Carter The Answers: While the poll dealt with energy policy, it also included two unrelated questions: voting choice in the last presidential election, and household income...
...we need cars that get better mileage per gallon...
...On the following questions as well, income appears largely irrelevant: personal change in behavior as a result of the energy crisis (about 80 percent of each income group reports such change...
...You have to pay some kind of price...
...moment's readers are a select group, and those of our readers who answer any particular poll are still more select...
...Keeping lights on for 24 hours, using a timer to regulate the electric needs of the household...
...Almost invariably, those with incomes of under $10,000 added an explanation, and the explanations were almost always that they were either students or retired...
...Our questionnaires are necessarily brief, and respondents are sometimes dissatisfied with being cramped into a simple "yes" or "no" posture on a complex question...
...on whether environmental considerations have played too large a role in preventing the development of alternative energy sources, two-thirds of the bottom income group answered "no," while the other groups were split about 50-50 (reflecting, we think, a decided anti-business sentiment in the bottom income group...
...A total of 29 percent voted for Ford, the balance (71 percent) for Carter...
...21%-yes 79%-no 4. Are you satisfied, so far, with the response of the Carter administration to the energy crisis...
...Take note what unrestrained trade union action fostered by Marxists-Leninists has done to U.K...
...Americans must realize that there is no such thing as a free ride...
...Take off controls on prices...
...Higher taxes and higher prices will automatically reduce consumption and reduce waste...
...on the question of whether the oil producing companies are entitled to the high prices they now charge, about one in five respondents in the bottom three income groups (incomes of up to $60,000) agreed that they were...
...We might also consider wind power...
...We may run out of uranium, coals, petroleum or wood, but the sun will be here as long as we are...
...Gasoline rationing would be a dreadful mistake...
...Gas rationing would only create another governmental bureaucracy, and we need to avoid that at all costs...
...a third, an income of between $20,000 and $40,000...
Vol. 2 • May 1977 • No. 7
