March 26, 2008. Crossed Circuits: Disconnect of Citizens and Experts on America’s Energy Policies Prevents Spark of Dialogue (Putting the Pieces Together)
Citizens Blame Greedy Consumers, Experts Focus on Big-Picture Solutions. One Area of Agreement: United States Needs Stronger Leadership on Energy
New York City – When it comes to terms like conservation, energy security and energy costs citizens and experts define them and think about them very differently. And that may be part of the reason why those concerned about U.S. energy policy can’t seem to generate national consensus on how to face the energy challenge, according to a new report released by Public Agenda today. The exploratory study was conducted on behalf of the Kettering Foundation.
The report “Putting the Pieces Together: How Do Citizens and Experts See the Energy Issue?” describes the findings from a series of focus groups across the country and interviews with experts on an array of energy issues. It lays out some of the commonalities and differences in thinking between voters and a cross-section of government, technical, industrial, and policy experts on energy issues and illuminates a number of communications and policy challenges and opportunities.
One striking insight from the research is the frequency of citizens accusing corporate and government leaders of colluding to keep energy alternatives out of the market. Many citizens had a “strongly felt perception that ‘movers and shakers’ are either actively making matters worse or are simply abdicating responsibility and leaving problems to fester,” the report says. Energy experts had a more nuanced, although not entirely contradictory view. “Most experts saw the forces behind the energy leadership vacuum as a combination of the prevailing culture of partisanship and the corrupting influence of big money on public decision-making,” the report’s authors say.
The full report and methodology, along with links to related resources, are at: www.publicagenda.org/energygapanalysis2008/
CITIZENS: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME
The new research uncovers a serious barrier to advancing national dialogue on energy issues: the profound mismatch in how leaders and the public define the problem and think about solutions. For example, citizens primarily think about their own personal habits and consumption when the topic of “conservation” arises and assume that conserving means they will end up sacrificing comfort and convenience to reduce energy use. Meanwhile many experts say the nation could vastly increase energy efficiency through changes that would be nearly imperceptible to the average person. Many experts see this as a potential breakthrough, but one that is currently stalled.
Since the entry point to the discussion of energy for most citizens is its rising cost, their thinking about conservation usually involves decreasing personal consumption by driving less, turning off lights, dialing down thermostats and buying fewer goods. Most citizens expressed anguish about the wastefulness of the “American way of life,” but thought this was unlikely to change much in the future.
A Denver woman, representative of this line of thinking, said, “I think that we waste a lot of energy, whether it’s on large homes that are unnecessary or just taking for granted our resources that we have. I think there are just wasteful people in our society. If they could just step back and look and consume less, every little bit would help.”
Experts on energy issues – ranging from policy analysts to utilities executives to academic researchers – defined conservation differently from focus group respondents. While they see the role of the consumer as important and view personal lifestyle changes as a worthy goal, they placed emphasis on the need to address inefficiencies endemic to our current energy production and delivery systems overall. “There’s a lot of wasteful energy use in the U.S., but there are a lot of people who would buy more energy efficient products…if they had an affordable choice. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be making them… One of the results would be that consumers wouldn’t have to, in the short-term, sacrifice their lifestyle,” one policy expert said.
The report also outlines the differences in thinking on the term “energy security” – which according to the research means very different things to citizens and experts. Whereas the public tends to think in terms of oil independence, most experts reject the notion that we can become truly independent of foreign sources of energy. They tend to think in terms of diversifying energy sources both among types of resources as well as the geographic locations of production facilities to diffuse the risk of over-reliance on any one form of energy or any particular region or nation.
The report delves into numerous areas of energy policy – such as reducing energy consumption, renewable sources of energy, cleaner use of fossil fuels – and pinpoints the differences in thinking between citizens and experts on each.
COMMON GROUND: A CALL FOR LEADERSHIP
The report lays out a few areas where citizens and experts seem to be in tune, the most striking and strongly voiced of which is the call for forward-looking, bipartisan leadership on energy issues. Focus group respondents paid significant attention to corporate greed, special interest politics and the lack of true leadership from elected officials. Experts were strongly in tune with the public in decrying the lack of pragmatic, visionary, bipartisan political leadership on energy.
“For anyone who is working to make change on energy issues and wonders why the public, government leaders and experts seem so often to talk past each other, this report is essential reading,” said David Mathews, President of the Kettering Foundation. “The first step in coming to public judgment on how to proceed on energy policy is to agree on the terms of debate. Right now, the public and experts seem to be talking about very different things.”
Will Friedman, one of the authors of the report and the Director of Public Agenda’s Center for Advances in Public Engagement explained the significance of the research findings: “Although policymakers frequently look to experts to provide insight about how to act, it is unclear how well experts understand or reflect the public’s views and values around energy. Policies that are sustainable can only be built upon a foundation of public understanding and support.”
Based on the research findings, the report suggests and elaborates on five ways experts and leaders can help the public come to terms with energy issues:
• Nurture more systemic thinking among the public about the nation’s energy problems
• Focus on conservation, especially through increased efficiency, as a place to begin creating momentum for change
• Build on the shared support among citizens and experts for renewable energy
• Build on the common ground about the need for better leadership
• Engage the public on the search for solutions, beginning with those aspects of energy that strike closest to home
Earlier this month, the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums Institute released a Public Agenda report on public attitudes on energy issues titled, “Public Thinking about the Energy Problem: Choices for an Uncertain Future, Public Deliberations in 2007 National Issues Forums.” With findings that reinforce the conclusions of Public Agenda’s new report, the National Issues Forums study showed that “citizens are deeply concerned about energy-related issues, ranging from high energy costs, dependence on foreign sources, and environmental degradation. Yet citizens tend to compartmentalize these issues, whereas political and business leaders are more likely to see them as interrelated problems that threaten the country’s economic well-being.” The Kettering Foundation research on NIF energy forums is available at: www.publicagenda.org/press/pdfs/2008_energy_report.pdf.
THE KETTERING FOUNDATION (www.kettering.org) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, working on strategies to strengthen democracy.
Public Agenda is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nonpartisan public policy research. Founded in 1975 by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Daniel Yankelovich, the social scientist and author, Public Agenda is well respected for its influential public opinion surveys and balanced citizen education materials. Its mission is to inject the public’s voice into crucial policy debates. Public Agenda seeks to inform leaders about the public’s views and to engage citizens in discussing complex policy issues.