Today in Biofuels Opinion: “When the MIT kids can’t figure out climate change, what are the odds that the broader public will?”

Bryan Walsh in Time magazine: “John Sterman — a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management [asked] 212 MIT grad students to give a rough idea of how much governments need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by to eventually stop the increase in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. These students had training in science, technology, mathematics and economics at one of the best schools in the world. Yet 84% of Sterman’s subjects got the question wrong, greatly underestimating the degree to which greenhouse gas emissions need to fall. When the MIT kids can’t figure out climate change, what are the odds that the broader public will? A 2007 survey by the U.N. Development Programme found that 54% of Americans advocate taking a “wait and see” approach to climate-change action — holding off on the deep and rapid cuts in global warming that would immediately impact their lives. (And it’s not just SUV-driving Americans who take this position — similar majorities were found in Russia, China and India.)”

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic: “I do not like the way they forced [the EU climate deal]. Environmental issues are a luxury good. Now we have to tighten our belt and to cut the luxury.”

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