I’m going to be frank, the past 2 weeks have been pretty awful. Between the chaotic and tragic scenes in Afghanistan, the terrible Supreme Court abortion ruling, the rise of people using horse de-wormer instead of an FDA approved vaccine, and the powerful, deadly hurricane I’m feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. So many people are more personally and acutely effected than me. I’m not an Afghanistan veteran or part of a Gold Star family, I don’t personally know anyone who has died of Covid-19, I wasn’t hit hard by the hurricane, and I don’t have a uterus. I recognize that all of these things are essentially priviledges for me. Still, watching these mostly preventable things happen in real time is hard to watch. Knowing that I have it easier than other people gives me no comfort.
I think it’s important to understand the role that politicians have played in all of these events. Warmongering politicians got us into Afghanistan in the first place. Anti-woman politicians passed the Texas abortion law and appointed the anti-woman justices. Anti-vaccine politicians are promoting the horse de-wormer. And climate denying politicians have prevented us from doing anything about climate.
Even this week, Senator Joe Manchin published an infuriating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, a fitting place for such a piece, stating that Democrats should hit the pause button on their $3.5T spending package. This package includes President Biden’s two signature climate policies: the clean energy payment plan, and the extension of the clean energy tax credits. Even these two market-based schemes will probably be inadequate, but it’s the best he could do under the Senate’s crazy, anti-democratic structure.
And now Manchin’s op-ed has put us on our heels at the last minute. Is he bluffing? Is he just trying to appear “fiscally conservative”? In Manchin’s defense, he has a tendency to make big, bold proclamations challenging Democratic leadership only to vote along with his party when the time comes. Maybe that’s why his Senate colleagues aren’t ringing alarm bells.
If he and the other so-called moderates need to extract their pound of flesh, then so be it. But there’s a limit.
I apologize for sounding so negative in a climate solutions post. As I said, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.
The most important thing we can do for the climate is elect leaders who will take the issue seriously. In a perfect world, Democrats, Republicans and third parties would all work together on this issue. We’d be arguing about how to fight it, not whether or not we should.
If you’re a Republican or know a Republican, encourage them to vote in primaries. Vote for candidates who acknowledge climate change and want to do something about it. If you’re a Democrat, do the same in Democratic primaries. But more importantly, vote in as many primaries and elections as you’re legally allowed. Every level of government has a roll to play, and lower level elections, like the recall in California or the state elections in Virginia that are both coming up soon, tend to have very low turnout. Cities and state legislatures have the ability to make great progress on these issues, but the most reliable voters tend to be older and more conservative.
Climate change is fundamentally a political problem. We don’t need some magic technology, we have solutions already. We need to implement them as soon and as widely as possible. Every president since LBJ has known about climate change and every president since LBJ has failed miserably to address it. Some presidents, notably Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, actively worked to make things worse.
We’re running out of time to get this right. Vote, march, organize, run for office, do something to get the needle moving. Politicians who deny climate action must be punished at the ballot box. Systems that unfairly allow those politicians to stay in power must be altered.
The Mangrove 