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by nikhilsimha
1137 days ago
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You could vote for the candidates (senators, state and national, governors and presidents) that push for nuclear, building-heating-tech regulations, carbon taxes on food production and tell your friends and family about it. If you have the means to, you can even donate. |
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Imagine you just got voted in to office. How do you have any idea which of the ideas on your campaign platform were the ones that got you elected? How do you know what people want you to do -- be it because you actually care, or are purely self-interested and want to get re-elected? Was it abortion rights, or school vouchers, or tax policy, or what? Remember that people run on a big basket of policy positions, of which environment is only part, and within environmental policy there are lots of different specific options.
If you get a hundred letters and calls about people all asking specifically for carbon taxes and/or a transition to nuclear power, THAT is a much clearer signal. Maybe you are a diehard anti-nuclear kind of person, but if you see that your constituents are mostly for it, you realize you may need to re-evaluate your beliefs, or perhaps just grit your teeth and compromise a bit if you want to stay in power. Maybe you are really anti-tax, but when a debate comes up for carbon taxes, you don't speak up against them. Maybe you mention to one of your colleagues "Gee, I've been getting a lot of push for carbon taxes in my district. What about you?" and they say they have too, and the Overton window for carbon taxes shifts just a bit more.
Maybe you're already for nuclear power, but you just want to make sure that if you support the next bill to make it more feasible by reducing over-regulation on it or by providing subsidies, you won't get voted out! You need people to show their support for the policies you already want!
So you don't really know what each vote actually means, unless people tell you.
*edit -- oh, and consider joining Citizens' Climate Lobby. They have all sorts of stuff like this and more that you can do.