New survey shows that lousy surveys are, well, lousy

Another poorly-designed survey (reported in Digital Journal) and so the results are as expected...

Two-thirds of US cities and counties consider the environment and energy conservation a priority, but far fewer have taken steps to address those issues. And four out of five people do not consider climate change to be a high priority.

This one was from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in the USA, which is usually a fabulous resource. But one look at the actual pdf shows that the old garbage in, garbage out still applies. Surveys like this are worse than worthless, as they mislead and provide poor information for decision-makers.

The slow train crash...

Jonathon Porrit keeps an eye on how the new UK Government is going - and in particular the Lib Dems via a speech by their leader to the Party - and worries about the lack of focus (let alone anything) about climate change:

We’re just a few weeks away from the next big climate change conference in Cancun in Mexico (the near-inevitable failure of which will essentially result in the demise of the Kyoto Treaty post-2012, representing a massive set back in terms of addressing climate change), and the Deputy Prime Minister has got diddly-squat to say.