CFACT collegians at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville just completed a poll on student attitudes toward fossil fuels, and the results were surprising.
Over 100 students were given the opportunity to voice their opinions on a chilly November day about whether or not fossil fuels should be banned. CFACT has regularly seen less opposition to fossil fuels than media would like to claim exists, and this day was no different. Despite two-thirds of those polled blaming man mostly or completely for climate change, only 14% support a ban of any fossil fuels (this is less than half the support expressed at many other universities). The push for net zero is a common battle cry of the left despite public opposition to this radical position – but these students didn’t seem intent on it.
A second intriguing result which arose from the poll is the surprisingly high number of students opposed to nuclear energy right now. This particular poll showed that nearly 30% of respondents want nuclear power banned. While it is yet a minority, further research into this anti-nuclear surge might be worthwhile to determine what is prompting this skepticism.
A third statistic pulled from the survey found that a third of the student body sees capitalism in a negative light. A generation after many in the west thought that Marxism had been defeated, this ideology, responsible for the deaths of 100 million people last century, is making a surprisingly strong comeback.
