TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
TOP・UPDATES・FOUR PILLARS・CINEMA/TV・GAMES・MANGA/ANIME・MUSIC・WRITINGS・FAQ・LINKS
I voted in the presidential primaries on March 5th. It was only the second time I've voted at a presidential level. The first time was in 2012 when I first turned 18. I voted for Barack Obama in the November election because my family were lifelong Democratic voters and I didn't think too much more deeply about it than "I don't want to hear my family and friends bitching about having a Republican in office for four years, so I'll do what I can to see that that doesn't happen." In 2016 I was too afraid to involve myself in politics. I had begun to see politics as something that only would lead to pain and headaches, so I selfishly put my head in the sand and focused on my own studies in university. Given that I wasn't living in a swing state at the time, I told myself the excuse that my vote didn't "really" count. Certainly it wouldn't have turned the election in anyone's favor. In 2020, I was living in Japan and didn't have the chance to figure out how to vote from abroad. Again I was focused on studies, though I had a much greater awareness of the dangers. But no longer will I avoid voting in any elections, be they local or national.
So what changed? Why do I vote now? The maximum temperature on March 5th, the day I voted, was near the all-time record for this time of year in my city. I'm sure I don't need to mention the rapidly-melting ice cover in Greenland, the record-breaking Canadian wildfire season, the mass die-offs of giraffes and other animals caused by African droughts, the disappearance of coastal land under rising sea levels in Louisiana and Florida, or any other unmistakable signs of chaos induced by ever-rising global temperatures. And my country, the United States, is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. At the rate things are going, vast swathes of the earth will be uninhabitable within my lifetime and likely yours, and not in the distant future. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything in scientific consensus as well-proved as the fact that human beings are responsible for global heating via the emission of greenhouse gases. Read my first pillar if you need a primer on why and how severe it is.
I'll be frank: There are a lot of horrible problems in my country, but I'm not the kind of destitute person who will bear the brunt of the problems. I come from a well-off enough family that I'm privileged enough to largely not have to worry about a lot of the day-to-day troubles of much of the country. And while it's not easy, I probably have a good shot at moving to another country if shit really hits the fan. But there's nowhere on earth I can run to avoid the rising of global temperatures. And rising temperatures are by no means "easier to bear" even in freezing places like the Arctic. In fact, the Arctic is one of the areas on earth most struggling with rising temperatures. Ice there is melting like crazy and much of its traditional marine food supply is being decimated. Ecology is my special interest and passion, but you will suffer massively from raising temperatures even if you don't give a shit about the environment.
In a sane country, you could put this issue to the side in electoral politics. In a sane country, you could vote for a minority third party knowing that your vote wouldn't win but would only be a way to "send a message." You could do this because no matter who won the election, at least that party would have the shared interest in steering the world away from the destruction of organized life on earth. They might debate on how the best way would be to do it, but at least they would agree that the most important issue should be the ones that, if ignored, would lead to complete civilizational collapse the world over. We could debate over which direction to paddle our lifeboat in, but only after we all got off the sinking ship together. But again, I do not live in a sane country.
It's easy to be cynical about the power of your vote in the US. Our electoral college ensures that maybe about five states decide the president each year. And we are constantly locked into only supporting two parties, neither of which we are ever very happy with. But I am no longer convinced that "both parties are the same" or that "both parties equally serve capitalist interests." Perhaps during the early Obama administration, before the rise of the Tea Party, this was still true. We had two ambivalent, vaguely environmentally conscious parties. But the Democratic party has taken a few steps towards minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the environment. The Republican party not only has not moved forward, it has moved incredibly far back. I say this as someone who hates soymales who scream YASSS QUEEN every time AOC tweets something. I say this as someone who hates globalization and political correctness. I say this as someone with absolutely no bias or hidden agenda to promote the Democratic party. If the parties were exactly the same as they are now with the mere exception that the Republicans had the same environmental policy, I wouldn't even vote. But I can't ignore what is going on. Let's look at exactly what voting for a Republican candidate will mean in 2024:
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X Outright claims that global heating is a hoax, removed it from the list of national security threats while in office. X Removed the United States from the Paris Agreement and promises to do so again if re-elected. X Appointed global heating-denying scumbag Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and later replaced him with equally despicable coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler. X Censored previously-existing sections of government websites like the Department of the Interior and the EPA with information on global heating. X Removed references to "climate change" from plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (even the Bush propaganda term had to go). X Weakened the EPA's criminal enforcement arm to such a degree that their criminal enforcements hit a 30-year low. X Disbanded the 20-member air pollution review panel of the EPA and replaced it with a 7-member panel with only one independent researcher. X Signed executive order revoking federal flood-risk standards that incorporated predicted sea-level rise. X Ended NASA's program to monitor carbon emissions. X Cut funding for studying the effects of global heating and research into renewable energy sources. X Halted a study on the health risks to residents near mountaintop coal removal sites in Appalachia. X Appointed former CEO of ExxonMobil (the company that knew about global heating in the 1970s and purposefully hid their findings for decades) and waste of human life Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. X Increased petroleum production to the degree that the US overtook Russia and Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of crude oil, including on lands with endangered animals such as the sage grouse. X Created orders to overrule federal judges in order to greenlight the monstrous Keystone XL Pipeline, designed to carry 800,000 barrels of oil from Canada to Texas every day. X Opened up the sacred Inupiaq/Gwich'in land of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling. X Approved the first oil and gas wells in the waters of the US Arctic for Texas-based company Hilcorp (an extremely dangerous endeavor for what is already one of the most fragile environments on earth). X Approved the use of seismic airgun blasts that endanger the lives of marine mammals to search for oil and gas deposits. X Rolled back regulations on coal plants and automobile and appliance fuel efficiency. X Delayed requirements for limiting methane waste from the Bureau of Land Management. X Increased tariffs on solar panel imports. X Signed an order for massive increase in logging on public lands. X Revoked restrictions on dumping mining waste into rivers and lakes. X Rolled back safety measures designed to prevent oil spills at sea. X Dramatically downsized the sacred Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. X Enacted rollbacks and loosened regulations of the 1973 (!) Endangered Species Act. X Refused to prosecute any "accidental" killing of birds as illegal as part of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. X National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration abandoned rules to help prevent whales and sea turtles from being caught in fishing nets. O Signed a bill that provided protections to some 2 million acres of land for conservation. O Signed the Save Our Seas act to clean up ocean plastics (with a lot of very rude remarks blaming Japan of all places, which has one of the highest recycling rates anywhere in the world). O Extended ban on mining near Paradise Valley in Yellowstone National Park. O Made efforts to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades. |
X Continues to support the Line 3 pipeline siphoning oil from the incredibly destructive Athabascan Tar Sands. X Has continued to expand a number of liquefied natural gas projects, although he has halted further approval of export projects as of 2024. X Went back on promise to halt federal oil drilling including the extraordinarily dangerous Willow project in the Arctic waters of the Alaska North Slope. X Ended the US-China Clean Energy Research Center, one of the few cooperative mechanisms between the US and China to have survived the Trump administration. O Rejoined the Paris Agreement. O Spent the most money ever spent on combating global heating of any US president with some $400 billion on renewable energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, including defining carbon dioxide as an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act (yes, the corporate dystopia we live in is so insane that you can't even pass a bill called something like the "Carbon Emissions Reduction Act" or "Stop Heating the Planet Act" and you have to disguise it with a name that implies it's meant to BOOST MUH ECONOMY). O Passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with over $300 billion for investment in things like wildlife conservation, sustainable agriculture, direct air capture, electric vehicles, and so on. O Passed Methane Action Plan and ratified Kigali Amendment to reduce superpollutants like methane and hydrofluorocarbons. O Revoked Trump's permit to develop the obscene Keystone XL Pipeline. O Suspended oil and gas drilling projects in the sacred Inupiaq/Gwich'in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. O Signed executive order to cut federal emissions by 65% by 2030. O Signed executive order to return to adding social costs of carbon emissions when implementing new regulations after abandonment by Trump. O Allocated $10 billion in clean energy research and development. O Allocated $575 million to protect coastal ecosystems from climate disruption and sea-level rise. O Reversed many Trump-era reductions of energy-efficiency standards in appliances. O Financial Crimes Enforcement Network called for increased scrutiny of financial transactions tied to environmental crimes like wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and illegal fishing. O Reversed Trump-era relaxations on the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Birds Treaty Act. O Oversaw an agreement between seven states on the preservation of the Colorado River. O Restored Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments allotments in Utah after Trump shrunk them. O Designated Pacific Remote Islands as protected areas for conservation. |
Don't take my word for it. Check my sources: [1]
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This is why I voted for a Democratic primary candidate. Would I love to vote for a Green Party candidate? You bet I would. But I have to do a very simple cost-benefit analysis. Four more years of Republican environmental policies is too dangerous of a prospect to allow even the slightest chance to happen. While Biden is far from perfect, I have seen actual improvements under him. Of course I'm not attached to Biden personally. I voted for Marianne Williamson in the primary because she supports UBI. But any realistically electable candidate who is an improvement over Republican policies is who I will vote for, and Biden is absolutely one of those.
You might say that we can't always make an exception for the current moment. Someone will always make an excuse that we are in an emergency and therefore have to put off voting for third parties. And I agree. So I have a clear line: When I live in a solid blue state, I will vote for a third party. But I live in a purplish state. When there aren't any politicians on the ballot who actively deny global heating, have policies of increasing fossil fuel production, and encourage the destruction of the natural world, I will vote for a third party. When all politicians on the ballot are on the level of the Democratic Party in terms of environmental policies, I will vote for a third party. The danger is simply too great to risk it. And voting for a Democrat is valuable even if you live in a solid red area. It makes it more likely that politicians in that state will try to adopt Democrat-ish principles (by which I mean better environmental policy). And at the state/city level they can actually afford to do this, unlike the president. Yes, there are a few Republicans like Bob Inglis and Jeff Flake out there who at least try to do something to help the environment. And more stuff like that can happen when you are an active voter at the local level.
Voting, especially for a "lesser evil" candidate is not cool. It is not fun. It is not inspiring. It is not a form of self-expression. It is a lot more cool to say that both parties are corrupt capitalist interests who will fuck you over regardless. If you live in a sane enough country like most of western Europe, this is probably true. It might be the most ethical choice to vote for a third party or not vote at all in those countries. It was probably the case in the US until fairly recently as well. But it's just not true in the US if you look at what Democratic and Republican candidates today actually argue for. The dangers are too great for those of us who care about the future of the planet to even risk the chance of the Republican establishment increasing its dominance over environmental legislation in a country as powerful and influential as the United States. And so I urge every American reading to vote for the most electable Democrat this November. You will be voting for a "lesser evil," but that's exactly what ethical action consists in: choosing the least evil action at any given time. If you are able to vote for the most electable Democrat in 2024 and refuse to, I will personally hold you responsible for the world continuing to heat to dangerous levels.