Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[paulb]

unlink you have discount the popullation under 18 why. my kids have definite opions painfully at times. as its there future we are talking about you can't ignore there say.

 

there are 22 thousand people apart from very young children they all should have an equal voice.

 

i have concerns about the charitable trust paying out the 50 million for the anderson i personally think thats a greater risk to its funds.

[GT]

The Shetland Times efforts were opinion polls (i.e. an inquiry into public opinion conducted by interviewing a random selected sample of people) not a vote (i.e. to voluntarily choose to express one's preference for a candidate or for a measure or resolution).

 

The only votes taken in Shetland so far were by the SIC at their public consultation meetings and the results were as follows:

************************* For **********Against *****Undecided

Brae 28 September ..............18 (22%)..............58 (72%)............5

Aith 29 September ...............15 (12%)........... 110 (86%)...........3

Dunrossness 30 September..14 (18%)..............60 (77%)............4

Lerwick 1 October .................49 (31%)...........106 (68%).......... 4

 

All further consultation and votes have been blocked by Viking Energy shareholders sitting as Councillors.

 

This the only vote taken in the process broadly reflects the ECU results - the Energy Minister will take into account the ECU findings but should hardly give any credence to a small random opinion poll taken by a small pronvincial weekly paper with no experience in this kind of excerise. In any event the change between the two polls is not statistically siginificant of any change because different people were questioned in each poll.

[unlinkedstudent]

unlink you have discount the popullation under 18 why. my kids have definite opions painfully at times. as its there future we are talking about you can't ignore there say.

 

there are 22 thousand people apart from very young children they all should have an equal voice.

 

i have concerns about the charitable trust paying out the 50 million for the anderson i personally think thats a greater risk to its funds.

 

I appreciate that young people have views Paul but I discounted those not old enough to vote. Yes, I know how this can feel (Having been too young to vote re the Common Market and look where that got us) but in all honesty, you have to draw the line somewhere - are you advocating that a 5 year old should be able to vote on this?

 

Edit: just noticed you said "young children" - define "young".

[ArabiaTerra]

The results of the poll showed, IMHO, that those people asked were split and therefore no majority. Without a proper referendum, who knows? We can only go by what we discuss with each other.

And if you got the same result in a referendum? What then?

 

The thing that annoys me most about this is how "sustainable" Shetland, after the first poll showed a "majority" against, used that as a rallying call and a justification for their campaign, yet the moment the second poll came out showing a "majority" in favour, they disowned it and switched their attention to the letters to the ECU which they are now claiming show a "majority" against, when they do nothing of the sort.

 

It's the hypocrisy and inconsistency which is galling and the fact that people seem to be prepared to let them get away with this.

 

They claim a majority against the windfarm, and they are lying.

 

The letters to the ECU are not in any way representative of public opinion in Shetland. The only representative polling which has been done is that done by the Shetland Times.

 

If you don't want to accept this, then fair enough, but you don't then get to claim a majority against by using a measure which is not in any way representative. The best you can say is that you just don't know.

[ArabiaTerra]

This the only vote taken in the process broadly reflects the ECU results - the Energy Minister will take into account the ECU findings but should hardly give any credence to a small random opinion poll taken by a small pronvincial weekly paper with no experience in this kind of excerise. In any event the change between the two polls is not statistically siginificant of any change because different people were questioned in each poll.

The Poll was not random.

 

They didn't just ring a thousand random numbers from the Shetland Directory.

 

The question – “Are you in favour of or against the proposed Viking Energy windfarm?†– was exactly the same as that asked last year. The question and methodology were designed in accordance with tech­niques used by professional pollsters and approved by BBC opinion polling expert and Strathclyde University professor John Curtice.

 

The random sample was weighted for age, sex and population distribu­tion to give as accurate as possible an indication of the balance of opin­ion.

 

Read the full report here.

[paulb]

The Shetland Times efforts were opinion polls (i.e. an inquiry into public opinion conducted by interviewing a random selected sample of people) not a vote (i.e. to voluntarily choose to express one's preference for a candidate or for a measure or resolution).

 

The only votes taken in Shetland so far were by the SIC at their public consultation meetings and the results were as follows:

************************* For **********Against *****Undecided

Brae 28 September ..............18 (22%)..............58 (72%)............5

Aith 29 September ...............15 (12%)........... 110 (86%)...........3

Dunrossness 30 September..14 (18%)..............60 (77%)............4

Lerwick 1 October .................49 (31%)...........106 (68%).......... 4

 

All further consultation and votes have been blocked by Viking Energy shareholders sitting as Councillors.

 

This the only vote taken in the process broadly reflects the ECU results - the Energy Minister will take into account the ECU findings but should hardly give any credence to a small random opinion poll taken by a small pronvincial weekly paper with no experience in this kind of excerise. In any event the change between the two polls is not statistically siginificant of any change because different people were questioned in each poll.

same problem with those at the meetings as those that wrote in they were there because they had made up there minds. now assuming that the papers poll was reasonably accurate it would indicate that they meetings were not representative of the population as a whole.

if the paper phoned diffrent folks for each poll then they now have a 10% sample. merge the two results and what do we have.

2010 2009

for against no idea for against no idea

36% 33% 31% 31% 41% 23%

378 346.5? 325.5 325.5 430.5 241.5

merged

for 672 or 32%

against 777 or 37%

no idea 567 or 27%

with a normal 2% margin of error they are virtually even

both polls =2100 people

however in 2006

 

Ipsos MORI was commissioned by Viking Energy Ltd to conduct a survey among Shetland residents, exploring attitudes towards the proposed construction of a windfarm in the central mainland of the island.

 

Key findings were as follows:

 

89% of the sample were aware of the proposal to build a major windfarm in the central mainland of Shetland Islands Council.

65% of those who were aware of the proposal felt that they were 'very' or 'quite' well informed about the proposal and 35% felt that they were not at all well informed.

76% of the sample were generally supportive of the proposal: this includes 45% who strongly supported it and 31% who 'tend to support' it; 6% were opposed to the proposal.

Among those who opposed the proposal, the main reasons for doing so were that it would spoil views or scenery, damage birds or wildlife and involve too many turbines.

Among those who supported the proposal, the main reasons for doing so were that it was a clean way to generate electricity and there would be benefits to the local economy.

When asked to comment on how seriously we should tackle climate change, 51% felt that it was the biggest challenge the world faces. 37% thought that it might not be our biggest problem but that we should do something about it. 9% thought that there had always been changes in world temperature and that human actions didn't make any difference.

Technical details

 

Ipsos MORI interviewed 502 Shetland residents by telephone using Random Digit Dialing (RDD). All fieldwork was conducted between 8-14 December 2006.

so shetland tends to like turbines in principle just not in practice.

[Speccy]

the march pics show at most a hundred or so people. if the anti windfarm movement was burning in the heart of the shetland population on mass you would expect 1000+.

quote]

 

I didn't count, but I was one of many who couldn't get in the town hall afterward as it was full - several hundred at least on the march. I think the organisers should be proud of what they achieved, on such a cold day. How many would the pros have mustered?

[exciseman]

Opinion polls are just that - polls of opinion.

No governments are formed by opinion poll, nor constitutional changes made by opinion poll. Opinion polls such as the one carried out by Shetland Times are random by definition (unless of course it was selective and targeted at known Viking Energy Supporters?).

 

Minister Mather certainly won’t take into account a small random poll of little consequence when weighing it up against the massive level of rejection of Viking’s plans by the Shetland community and environmental bodies.

 

The MORI poll was conducted before publication of EIA and detailed plans.

[paulb]

unlink you have discount the popullation under 18 why. my kids have definite opions painfully at times. as its there future we are talking about you can't ignore there say.

 

there are 22 thousand people apart from very young children they all should have an equal voice.

 

i have concerns about the charitable trust paying out the 50 million for the anderson i personally think thats a greater risk to its funds.

 

I appreciate that young people have views Paul but I discounted those not old enough to vote. Yes, I know how this can feel (Having been too young to vote re the Common Market and look where that got us) but in all honesty, you have to draw the line somewhere - are you advocating that a 5 year old should be able to vote on this?

 

Edit: just noticed you said "young children" - define "young".

why should we both incommers have a greater right to say than the young say from p6 up. we are not talking about voting for goverment we want to know what the population of shetland thinks. the kids have a better understanding of green issues than we do.

the youngare the ones faced with the future that we are leaving them they must say what they want. maybe that would be the easist way of doing the poll get the children to poll themselves and there neighbours. they may even get better results than a stranger on the phone.

[ArabiaTerra]

Anyway, regardless of the totals involved in the ST poll, the thing I thought most interesting about it was the change in the numbers between the two polls.

 

For: 36%, up 5%

 

Against: 33%, down 15%

 

Undecided: 31%, up 10%

 

The collapse of support for "sustainable" Shetland wasn't unexpected, but the sheer size of it was a bit of a surprise.

[paulb]

that would only be valid if it was the same people as it was not then you can't claim either an increase or decrease in numbers.

[unlinkedstudent]

^^Paul - that's a sweeping generalisation that the young have a better understanding of green issues!

[Kavi Ugl]

Let's be honest here. Many of the 2300 people who submitted an objection to the VE plans are not going to travel from the bowels of North Roe, Yell, Unst or wherever for a march and in the heart-hole of winter at that.

 

Like me, they've lodged their objections and will probably leave it at that.

 

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^^ Both polls were of a representative sample. It doesn't matter if it wasn't the same people, as long as the sampling method was the same both times, it is valid.

 

Edit: I'm not claiming that this poll gives a definitive, final, conclusive indication of public opinion, just that it's the best we have at the moment.

 

Edit 2: Oops, this was an answer to paulb above.

[paulb]

^^Paul - that's a sweeping generalisation that the young have a better understanding of green issues!

you have not been on the end of some lectures by the kids that i have. they are very well informed about the green stuff.