“Figures often beguile me,” Mark Twain wrote, “particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’”
There are any number of ways to cook statistics. One way to do it is to write the questions for a survey so that you get the results you want. There are plenty of other ways to do it.
The way that comes to mind is to define your categories so broadly or narrowly as to produce the result you want. For example, what if the definition of “green job” was so broad that campaign promises of 800,000 “green jobs” by 2012 would come true almost by definition.
Is dealing in antiques or rare books a green job? Yes.
Is fueling a school bus a green job? Yes.
Is being a lobbyist for an oil company engaged in advocacy related to environmental issues a green job? Yes.
Don’t believe me? So says US Bureau of Labor Statistics Acting Commissioner Josh Galvin, in testimony before the House Oversight Committee, chairman Darrell Issa. Watch it yourself:
So, is your job is a green job? Let us know in the comments. (And all this time you had no idea, did you?)
