A new study has shown that people who do care about the effects of climate change actually use more electricity that those who don’t.
The study conducted by Loughborough University and Cambridge Architectural Research was commissioned and published by the UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change. It analyzed electricity usage and views of 250 families.
The researchers concluded, “Taken all together, householders who strongly agreed they were not worried about climate change because it was too far in the future in fact used less electricity rather than more, counter to the hypothesis that households concerned about climate change use less electricity.”
Peter Lilley, a Conservative member of Parliament, told The Telegraph Monday, “The survey exposes the hypocrisy of many who claim to be ‘green’: the greater the concern people express about global warming the less they do to reduce their energy usage.”
The researchers also took into account that people over the age of 65 use less energy and care less about the effects of climate change. “When we separated the pensioner households from the younger ones, there was no significant relationship between this statement and energy use in the pensioner group, and only a weak trend among younger households.”
This wasn’t the only statement people were dishonest about, researchers found, “claims to avoid leaving appliances on when not in use had no discernible effect on the hours of TV being on, but were significant for computers being on. Similarly, claims to save hot water were not related to length of showers.” (RELATED: Greenpeace Executive Commutes 250 Miles To Work Via Plane)