It is the public that is illiterate in science and math, a lazy press, and environmental advocacy groups that manufacture fear for misconceptions about energy.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that's made people look to the future in a positive way.
For folks in Washington to believe that they are smart enough to pick the next energy technology is, in my judgment, the height of arrogance. For me or any of my peers to pick energy-technology X as the solution to solving America's energy problems is just a fool's errand.
We can't be anti-everything - we need an energy plan that adds up. But there's a lack of numeracy in the public discussion of energy. Where people do use numbers, they select them to sound big and score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion.
It is fairly well-known what has been behind that climate change denial in America: vast sums pumped into an ignorance industry by the oil and gas lobbies.
Scientists habitually moan that the public doesn't understand them. But they complain too much: public ignorance isn't peculiar to science. It's sad if some citizens can't tell a proton from a protein. But it's equally sad if they're ignorant of their nation's history, can't speak a second language, or can't find Venezuela or Syria on a map.
I have a great deal of difficulty with those who live in a hugely prosperous country telling people in the developing world that they should be deprived of a critical source of energy.
You can't have people making decisions about the future of the world who are scientifically illiterate. That's a recipe for disaster. And I don't mean just whether a politician is scientifically literate, but people who vote politicians into office.
Because we have a society that by and large is illiterate in these areas - science, math and engineering - what we do is a mystery to them, and they find it scary. And because of that, it creates easy opportunities for opponents of development, activist organizations, to manufacture fear.
What I see are people who want affordable energy. They want strong environmental standards - they want a lot of things - but first and foremost they want affordable energy. And if you want affordable energy, you want oil, gas and coal.
The general public has long been divided into two parts those who think science can do anything, and those who are afraid it will.
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