What do people in Cambridge think about climate change?

On Saturday some of us from the energy group held a stall at a Community Cleanup Day in East Chesterton. These events are organised by the council. They bring in skips where you can dump stuff that is too large for the household waste bins and they have a bring and take table for stuff that someone else might want. Doing a stall at these events is interesting because they draw in all sorts of people - everyone likes a good rummage to see what they can have for free.

We were trying out a new survey I devised to engage people with. I find surveys useful because (a) people like it when you listen to their opinions and (b) they make you think. This survey had three questions – but lots of possible answers. The three questions were:

• What concerns you about climate change?
• What are we doing for climate change?
• What should the government be doing?

Rather than have a sheet of paper for each person, we asked people to just put a tick next to their selected answers. This way, they not only get to answer for themselves they also see the answers from previous people. This is not a scientific approach to running a survey, but it is a great way to show people that they are not alone in their concerns and actions. We are all worried and many of use are taking a range of actions.

One of the survey sheets we used on Saturday, showing ticks next to each answer.

One problem is that I had already selected a set of possible answers and although people were allowed to add their own, not many did. These were the most popular answers:

Concerns:

• The natural environment
• Having enough water in Cambridge
• Flooding and refugees
• Health impacts from hot weather
• Impacts on food production

Personal action

• Walking and cycling for short trips
• Repairing stuff where possible
• Eating less meat

Government actions:

• Schools should have only vegetarian dinners, one day/week
• A carbon price/tax, high enough to make a difference
• All buses should be electric

I was a bit surprised that the vegetarian school dinners were so popular, also the carbon price/tax, given how contentious taxes are. The issue of how to use the revenue from the tax was less clear. The survey had two possible answers – use to reduce other taxes like VAT or use to subsidise energy efficiency. The subsidies were more popular.

The survey stimulates conversation too. For example, when someone has just finished you can ask - what did you tick? I had discussions ranging from environmental impacts of infrastructure for electric vehicle charging, to whether Japanese style 'shower toilets' were more or less water efficient than using toilet paper. I am still unclear as to the answer to that one!

There are more community cleanup days scheduled for the autumn: Cherry Hinton Tenby Close/Bliss Way Saturday 5th October 9am-1pm and Trumpington Rec/Byron Square Saturday 19th October 9am-1pm If you’d like to help on a stall do let me know. Also I have promised a stall alongside the repair café at the Cambridge Remakery on 12th October. If you'd be interested in helping there, please let me know.