Let's discuss the role of the environment in the 2008 election. Easy to do, because it has not been an issue in this election. In fact, it is seldom if ever an issue in American politics. Yet environmentalists every two to four years reward being ignored by loyally working on campaigns that act as if they do not exist. Occasionally we do shine, like when we helped knock off the truly horrid Pombo in California. That is the exception, not the rule.

I would venture two among many reasons for this dispiriting state of affairs. First, the economics profession holds American society in its thrall. Economists play the same role in our society that the church played in feudal society. They explain the will of god (ie the Market) to the peasantry. If it isn't an issue for economists, it isn't an issue. For about 99% of economists the environment is an "externality" ie it is irrelevant. If it is irrelevant to them, it is irrelevant to Mr. & Mrs America and will never get any attention by the politicians seeking that one killer issue that will put them in or keep them in office.

Second, the environment has been safely scrubbed clean with green washing and consigned to the living death of the life style section of America's mind. It isn't a matter of survival. It is a matter of will you or won't you try to find a contractor who will do over your house like Ed Begley has. How many elections are decided on the issue of green friendly counter tops???

Finally, in spite of the best efforts of the League of Conservation Voters and some of the Big Green groups, American environmentalists still don't know how to walk and chew gum at the same time when it comes to politics. You have the purists whose principal concern is the preservation of their political virginity, and those who suck it up and agree to be chumps for politicians who want to add some token greens to their list of supporters. And we provide this service for free, not even requiring the candidates mention our issues. Don't rock the boat. The American environmental movement needs fewer organic growers and solar power experts, and more James Carvilles and Karl Roves. Try to ignore or paternize them, and you will lose an arm.

Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH

Randy Cunningham

Lots of great points.  But people are waking up.  They just aren't using exactly the same vocabulary as environmentalist.  When the consequences of policy affect them in their wallet, body, and back yard they start to care.

I just spent a week in Put-in-Bay.  (The end of September is when the gray haired crowd hits the island and all the party harty youngsters have gone back to school) There is some reason for hope.  First, driving through rural North Western Ohio the Obama/Biden signs outnumbered the McCain/Palin ones (surprised me).  Two, at the bed and breakfast where I stayed there were two conservative couples and two liberal couples.  The B&B host noted that all 4 couples could agree that something is "fundamentally wrong" -- with the economy, with the environment, with our government.  Global warming per se never really came up, but great concern was expressed about the pollution of our water, air, and soil.  One of the uber-Republicans worried about dead zones (there's one in Lake Erie now according to him), knew what a CAFO is (thanks to e-coli scares), thought mountain top removal was possibly "sinful", and was beginning to wonder if anybody in Washington ever listened.

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Ghandi

I need comments like that. I have been in recovery since reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, and tend to be the pessimistic type.

The signs in NW Ohio are appreciated.

Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH

Randy Cunningham

I think yard signs are an under rated indicator of the state of the race.  Good news Green Granny.

Dead zones in Lake Erie?  Yow, I see them in northern Wisconsin too.  Golf courses and chem lawns kill lakes.  The fertilizer created overgrowth and anaeroebic decomposition turns the water unfit for fish and other aquatic life.

There is a whole explanation of how and why this happens to lakes and oceans as GHG climate change proceeds.  Eventually the whole dead mass is compressed under layers of sediment in geologic time, as the water turns too acidic to support most organisms.

Vote to make more oil!  For generations 500,000 years from now.  Vote to kill aquatic life itself, vote Palin/McCain.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin