Will you hear this on our reliable TV news?
A survey commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace has spectacularly backfired as it revealed that more people support fracking than oppose it.
Thus begins an article by A.B. Sanderson, political reporter at Breitbart, who reports a Greenpeace online survey of 2,035 British adults on fracking. Because the survey goes against their anti-fracking campaign, they buried the results in a footnote and spun it their way but then, apparently, removed the entire press release from their website. He puts it this way (emphasis added):
Instead, the group chose to focus on other details from the survey, saying that fracking could be a significant issue in key marginals and hid the headline figure in the footnote of a press release which has now been removed from their website.
But (unless it’s a different press release) that’s just where I found it, with a footnote that seems to be as Sanderson describes it:
[1] The Com Res survey also shows 42% of British people support fracking for natural gas, whilst 35% oppose it. But a similar YouGov poll for the Sunday Times from January put support for shale gas at 35% and opposition at 41. February’s DECC attitudes survey found only 24% of the UK public support shale gas extraction.
So it’s odd to see it reinstated, but a revelation to learn how UK public opinion might be moving to support fracking.
Which is reasonable, considering that with proper safeguards there’s little danger to it unless you’re operating the machinery. When people are told the truth about fracking they tend to accept it. When they’re told lies about the process they naturally become anxious.
ComRes, who conducted the survey, belongs to the British Polling Council. According to the BPC website, the margin of error in a poll of 2000 people is expected to be about 2%. So the 7% margin of support for fracking is well significant.
If you don’t believe me on the fracking support swing, I hope you can at least believe Greenpeace.
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