The other night, I got a call from a survey company asking me questions about
my views on various candidates for Massachusetts Governor, and then
about various energy alternatives, and then the obvious real purpose:
questions about my views on the large-scale wood-burning biomass
projects proposed around the state (including three locations fairly
close to me: Russell, Greenfield, and even densely populated
Springfield), and a proposed bill to count only solar, wind and hydro as
Green projects, excluding nukes and biofuels.

I think this gets an “award” for the most biased survey I’ve ever
taken. First, the questioner determined that I was strongly opposed to
the biomass plants—which are very bad on carbon footprint, not only from
the burning of wood but also the massive deforestation and the huge
amount of truck traffic they will generate. Wood is, indeed, a renewable
resource. But it sure isn’t a clean one!

Then he asked questions like

After these three biased questions that were clearly tilted toward
counting me as an opponent of the bill, I stopped the guy and said I
thought this was a survey, and not a blatant attempt to feed
misinformation to me in an attempt to change my opinion. He said, “hey,
I’m just reading the questions!” I said I understood that, but I didn’t
appreciate being manipulated like this, and I ended the interview. My
caller ID told me he had a 609 area code (New Jersey), incidentally.

I am totally sure this so-called survey will be used to trumpet the
citizens of Massachusetts’ supposed stance in favor of biofuels and
against the proposed law. While the law’s definitions could be
sharpened, I actually feel that eliminating nuclear power and
large-scale wood-burning biomass plants from being counted in the
progress toward a Green economy is a GOOD thing. And I’ll be directing
my friends who are active in the anti-biofuel campaigns to this blog, so
they can see exactly what their opponents are up to—sleazy and easily
discredited “surveys” like this.

//