Just. Vote.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
191 points (95.7% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5186 readers
561 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I distinctly remember the same sentiment in 2015 and 2016. Don't listen to what anything or anyone says. Just vote, and get people you know to vote, because Trump's supporters certainly will.
2016 wasn't due to voters failing to meet their obligation to vote for a warmonger that offered them nothing and whom they cannot influence, it was due to the democrats running a campaign of "American is already great" when most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and have very little reason to expect things to improve.
It's gonna repeat unless the democrats demonstrate that voting for them is worth missing a day's work.
Voting for them is worth it, if only not to have that psycho fascist known as Trump as your president.
this is bs. that was not at all the democratic message. It was a combo of the primary shanigans, treating it like a forgone conclusion (because trump winning is as crazy as britian leaving the EU), and trumps shotgun statements like around legalization. Granted I held my nose and voted but I know why he won. I hate all the idiots who resulted in his win, which to be clear I am talking about people who voted for him and not the stupid democrat elite bullshit. Its like. Oh yeah I will vote for the ressurected hitler or at least not vote for the democrat because that will show him. I mean its not like im going to have to live with the consequences of the election in the country I live.
Also worth remembering that Trump did lose the popular vote.
Which could only happen with Republicans in modern politics. They are HUGELY systemically advantaged and yet still cry foul at every opportunity.
Unfortunately, encouraging most of the people I know to vote would be counterproductive here
If Biden's son hadn't died I think he would have run in 16 and easily taken the nomination and victory
I don't know about that. I had no real opinion of biden until he was president and now I love him because im just agog at what he has accomplished in one term not even taking into account the political situation. I loved obama but he wasted a lot of time trying to compromise. I had a similar situation with pritzker as gov in illinois. Was not wild about him till he actually took office and now I love the guy.
Oh no. Trump's gonna win.
Only if enough morons vote for him that the archaic electoral college allows him another win.
Nothing Al Gore says is of any importance. Vote.
I believe Trump will lose but I’m not so sure about the other part. Democrats will only take action on climate change if it doesn’t impact capitalism. Capitalism can’t exist if we want to truly tackle Climate change.
The outcome isn't something that just happens; it's something we need to actively work for, whether that be defeating Trump or actually getting the world off fossil fuels.
Look, 30 years ago the trend in restaurants was to get the most exotic thing from the farthest reaches of the planet, and now the trend is hyper local.
Changes can happen.
I view our chances of appropriately managing climate change the way I do a 65 year old cigarette smoker that's smoked 2 packs a day for the past 5 decades.
It's absolutely possible for a 65 year old long-time smoker to change, repair much of the damage, and live many more healthy years. But by far the more likely outcome is that person smoking on their death bed.
But is he super cereal?
A.I. Gore? ... Technology is getting crazy nowadays
The circus that is holding up the compromised Republican party is the biggest story out there but nobody wants to cover it.
From corporate shit news to weak loser leaders, corrupt fucked up judges, to businesses nobody has ever heard of. There is a douchebag circus going on and it’s going to be hilarious when it completely fails when he loses.
The POLLS are GARBAGE. The massive amount of young people who absolutely hate their predecessors are coming to bring doom to the fascists. Their 50 year plan of fucking up the country is going to have a gnarly ending for them.
I got at least a bathtub full of popcorn waiting.
Al Gore is alive?
Why does he expect either of those things to happen? Biden barely won in 2020, lost in 2022, and we can expect lower voter turnout due to his party's inaction and malicious action.
As far as climate activists winning, they maintained Trump's tariff on cheap EVs, and are considering re-implementing his solar panel tarriff.
lost in 2022??? when did this type of thinking take over. My satan do people have memories that span longer than a decade!!!
When people let the news organizations do the thinking for them. Which is always.
The democrats lost the house in 2022, only news organizations can twist that into a victory.
We saw the same thing when Obama ran on free healthcare, legalized pot, pulling out of Iraq/afghanistan early, closing Guantanamo, etc, and instead did none of that, bailed out the banks who'd just kicked millions out of their homes, and lost the house and senate in 2010.
Media spin is what idiots listen to, because they’re too uneducated and/or unwilling to think for themselves.
You are right, Dems lost in those years you mention. But they lost because of idiot voters, not because of specifically those actions. Looking deeper than just Fox News or MSNBC would see that the majority of those issues were Dems trying to clean up Republican-made messes. As usual.
When you give people hope, and then either do nothing or the opposite of what people want, it's not "idiot voters" fault, it's the candidate's fault for not doing what the people you depend on to keep your job wanted.
The people Biden depends on want him to end the genocide. The people Biden depends on want cheap EVs/solar panels. It's not "idiot voters" fault when Biden doesn't do these things and fails to get reelected.
Political representation goes one way, the candidates do what their constituents want or they don't get elected. Republican politicians understand that, and that's why their voter base turns out at a higher rate, sadly their voter base is people who want to make everything worse.
candidates do what their constituents want or they don’t get elected
You are living in a dream world then. Candidates do what the money tells them to do -- and it's been this way for 40+ years, exacerbated by the Citizens United decision. That's a huge part of the problem. But if the voter base had a clue in the first place, we would have better people in office by now. So yes, it comes down to idiot uneducated voters.
I wish you luck in your endeavors.
So you understand that the candidates do not represent the voters, but you still feel the voters have some obligation to vote for a candidate that does not represent them, and they cannot influence.
How do you reconcile these two thoughts?
Personally I just provide the analysis that "dems need to do to get elected", don't vote dem because they never do those things, and work for local orgs that occasionally make a difference.
If Trump doesn't lose, everyone loses. Even Trump supporters will lose if he gets elected.
If Biden wins, climate activists will still lose. Milquetoast, middle of the road climate "action" from the Democratic party (and similar policies around the world) are why we have broken past every single warning sign that climate scientists have set.
The Kyoto Protocol did nothing, the Paris Agreement did nothing, emissions credits and electric cars (the only policies Biden is pushing) are objectively, scientifically not enough to even do America's part in slowing down climate change. If you think sitting back, doing nothing, and voting for 1 of 2 parties that don't take climate change seriously, once every 4 years, is going to save the world, I'll see you in hell.
Stupid shit from someone who hasn't followed any of the actual climate policy of the last few years.
Actual climate policy experts are basically unanimous that the IRA makes massive progress and buys desperately needed time. The 1.3 trillion in climate spending it represents is the most any governing body has ever done and it came from the goddamn USA somehow.
And more, by design if it exists long enough it will build constituency and become very sticky policy that will continue on a virtuous cycle. It doesn't get us all the way there but is the first real shot we've had in my lifetime.
Here we are, though. Actual, direct bothsides bullshit. Literally telling people not to bother voting. You signal clearly to the Democrats and any progressive groups that they shouldn't bother with climate because they can't win elections with it. They shouldn't even bother trying because literally doing nothing and spending none of the political capital would be exactly the same to you as any herculean effort. That hard won progress will be lost in the next cycle because it doesn't even exist if it's anything short of what, global socialist Revolution?
Fuck you so much seriously. You're every bit the uninformed voter that the maga people are.
Excellent summary, doomers are very susceptible to shilling and morbidity clickbait, so it's nice to see pushback. It's a great time to be optimistic about both the climate and (the continuing and necessary) potential future action on it.
This does drive me crazy. If I could jump through a portal that would go to a world where the only thing I knew about it was carter got a second term, reagan and trump never was president, and gore served two terms after clinton I would jump through in a heartbeat.
Duuuddde you wouldn't have Clinton as president if Carter had one a second term. Clinton was not a left wing president. he was Third Way.
Remember he approved the Effective Death Penalty Act,
Remember he continued govt favoring of single mothers. which has made marriage unobtainable for the poor.
Remember he is the single person most responsible after Nixon for the current state of mass incarceration .
Why did Third Way bullshit take over the party. Because Clinton and his collaborators, made the case that there was no alternative after Carter and Mondale lost so badly to Regan.
But if Carter had won.. That's like a Turtledove level point of divergence. the late 20th Century would be so different because of that i don't even want to speculate.
But with the old left still in charge of the Dems.. It could be better. Trump would've been prosecuted for discriminating against his African American Tenants at least... in the 70s.. And we'd still have effective antitrust.
On the other hand Carter kneecaped the cia. So we might have gotten nuked. You really can't say
not necessarily. he just would not have moved in that direction policy wise given the politics. clinton was the way he was because of the political climate of the time which was heavily influenced by reagan.
not necessarily. he just would not have moved in that direction policy wise given the politics. clinton was the way he was because of the political climate of the time which was heavily influenced by reagan.
Could be... But i think the most likely scenario. Would be a a Republican win in 84, not sure who... Could be Papa Bush followed by a Gary Hart Presidency in 88. In which case Clinton wouldn't even be considered until 96 at the earliest, and by that point his historical moment was over
yeah I mean all possibilities aside, my point was I would way take the decades of my life being largely run by the democrats over the republicans instead of the 50/50 I got and so I certainly do not want to maximize the republicans time in power.