The American public's energy choice

Daedalus

Volumn 141, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 61-71

  Ansolabehere, Stephen ^a   Konisky, David M ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84859351320     PISSN: 00115266     EISSN: 15486192     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/DAED_a_00146     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003; updated 2009)
2. The Future of Coal: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007).
3. Toby Bolsen and Fay Lomax Cook, "The Polls-Trends: Public Opinion on Energy Policy: 1974-2006," Public Opinion Quarterly 72 (2) (2008): 364-388
4. Eric R.A.N. Smith, Energy, the Environment, and Public Opinion (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).
5. There has been some effort to understand how Americans weigh energy development and environmental protection, specifically with regard to strip-mining for coal, offshore drilling for oil and gas, and the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to gas and oil exploration.
6. The surveys were administered through the Internet by Knowledge Networks to a nationally representative group of adult respondents. Knowledge Networks recruits and maintains a panel of individuals who participate in client-based surveys, such as our surveys of energy attitudes.
7. National Research Council, Hidden Costs of Energy (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2010).
8. Paul Slovic, among others, saw a broader framework in which to understand opinion about nuclear power. For more on his risk framework.
9. Paul Slovic, "Perceptions of Risk," Science 236 (1987): 280-285.
10. The regression also includes control variables for various demographic characteristics (age, education, income, race or ethnicity, gender, and marital status), political attitudes, and region of residence. For a similar analysis in the context of not-in-my-backyard (nimby) attitudes about different types of power plants.
11. Stephen Ansolabehere and David M. Konisky, "Public Attitudes toward Construction of New Power Plants," Public Opinion Quarterly 73 (3) (2009): 566-577.
12. Standardized regression coefficients allow for more direct comparison of the measures used. One can interpret the expected change in the dependent variable for each standard deviation increase in the measure of interest.
13. Jon Krosnick, "Large Majority of Americans Support Government Solutions to Address Global Warming," Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, June 2010, http://woods.stanford.edu/research/americans-support-govt-solutions-global-warming.html.
14. Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney, "A Strategy for America's Energy Future: Illuminating Energy's Full Costs," The Hamilton Project (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011).