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Ralph Nader.

Though Ralph Nader is running as an independent and not under the Green Party banner this time around, he still has some serious small-G green cred (at least among those not still livid over his alleged role in Gore's 2000 presidential defeat). In the heyday of his consumer advocacy, he and the groups he formed helped get landmark environmental and consumer-protection laws passed, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. He has also spent decades fighting nuclear power. These days, Nader regularly decries corporate influence in government and argues against subsidies to nuclear, oil, coal, electric, and biofuels interests. Instead, he calls for heavy investment in solar, wind, and other renewables, as well as in energy efficiency. Nader also advocates for a carbon tax as a way to fight climate change.

Read Grist's exclusive interview with Nader.

Key Points

Watch Nader talk about environmental issues on "The Late Show with David Letterman" in January 2008:

Watch Nader announce his 2008 presidential candidacy on NBC's "Meet the Press" (though nothing environmental is discussed):

What did we miss? Tell us below in comments. We'll update this page as the presidential campaign continues.

Todd Hymas Samkara compiled this fact sheet.

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This is part of a series of interviews with presidential candidates.

He brought you the seat belt. He launched a consumer advocacy empire. He got 2,883,105 votes in the 2000 presidential election, which critics argue helped put George W. Bush in the White House. Ralph Nader has earned fame -- and infamy -- for many doings over his 40-plus years as a firebrand activist. Perhaps less well-known is his contribution to environmental protection in the U.S.

Nader, who entered the 2008 presidential race in late February, was on the frontlines of environmental advocacy in the 1970s. He went to bat for the first auto fuel-economy regulations and was a major voice against nuclear-power development. He fought for the passage of cornerstone environmental laws including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. In the years since, he's pressed on with green advocacy, publishing numerous studies, essays, and editorials decrying coal and nuke power and advocating ultra-efficient cars and a solar-powered economy.

But for all his work in these areas, Nader has done little so far to flesh out an environmental and energy platform for his presidential campaign. The only specifics on his campaign website are that he supports solar energy and a "carbon pollution tax" and opposes nuclear power. To rustle up some particulars, I called Nader on his cell phone as he journeyed from one campaign stop to the next.

For more info on his environmental stances and record, check out Grist's Nader fact sheet.

Why should voters consider you the strongest environmental candidate?

I was a big advocate of renewable energy back in the '70s -- all forms, from wind power to photovoltaic to solar thermal to passive solar architecture. I was a very early opponent of nuclear power. As a lobbyist, I was instrumental in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, along with legislation to control air pollution and other toxic substances. I was also involved in the passage of the first motor-vehicle efficiency laws back in the '70s. So my words on this issue as a candidate reflect what I've done, rather than what I hope to do.

Going forward, what sets your environmental platform apart from the other candidates'?

I'm basically promoting a massive conversion from a hydrocarbon-based economy to a carbohydrate-based economy. I'm not talking about corn ethanol, which has a very poor net energy- and water-usage characteristic. I'm talking about industrial hemp. I'm talking about plant life that can be efficiently converted to fuel -- like sugar cane, agricultural waste, cellulosic grasses, and certain kinds of biomass that can be grown with a spectacular ratio of energy inputs to outputs. I'm talking about a very fundamental remodeling of our economy -- a conversion from industrial-age, 19th-century technologies like the internal combustion engine to renewable, sustainable technologies of efficiency and production. We should have vehicles that get well over 100 miles per gallon. As Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken have shown, we can create far greater efficiencies in the use of our natural resources, whether it's copper, iron, oil, gas, timber, you name it.

Let's get more specific about how you would implement this massive shift. You propose a carbon pollution tax, for instance. How would that work?

You tax inefficient technology and you tax pollution. The carbon tax would not be a credit exchange [as in a cap-and-trade program], which can be easily manipulated. It would be a straight-out tax on hydrocarbon production at the production source -- where it's far, far removed from consumers and forces better choices of technology from the get-go.

Would energy producers then pass an increase in prices along to consumers in the form of higher gasoline and electricity prices?

Not necessarily, because it will provide a competitive opportunity for companies to say, "Hey, it's now more expensive to produce polluting technology than it is to produce non-polluting technology." And they will begin to break ranks from one another in an effort to innovate, and the magnet will be toward the more efficient option.

To protect consumers, you could have an excess profits tax on companies such as Exxon, and rebate it back to the customer. Or we could use the proceeds from the pollution tax to build more alternative public transit -- that would relieve the burden on consumers.

Some people argue that a carbon tax is political suicide because you can't make taxes appeal to voters, period.

Look, this is not a gasoline tax. This is not a final product tax that directly hits consumers. It's a tax at the coal mine, a tax at the oil well.

Your website says, "No to nuclear power, solar energy first." How do you plan to phase out nuclear and phase in renewables?

Oh, this is easy. The first thing you gotta do to stop nuclear power is prevent government guarantees of Wall Street loans to nuclear power companies to build plants. They will not get private-sector financing without a 100 percent Uncle Sam guarantee. You appeal to conservatives and liberals who don't like corporate welfare and say, "Let's stop rigging the playing field and cut off loan guarantees to nuclear power."

As far as the renewables are concerned, you can do it in two ways: You can basically eliminate all direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear and say, "Let's have a level playing field." Or you could actively increase tax credits and subsidies to solar power because it has superior environmental and geopolitical benefits. Furthermore, the government's a big customer -- it can take its entire procurement power and direct it toward solar energy and sustainable technology.

Keep in mind that we're currently paying six, seven dollars a gallon for gasoline if you include all the military expenditures to safeguard the global oil pipeline. That's something that taxpayers are paying for, even if it doesn't show at the pump.

Nuclear makes up 20 percent of America's electricity supply. Coal makes up more than half. Would you phase out coal as well, or do you believe in the promise of advanced coal technology?

There's no such thing as clean coal. Anybody who's been down in a coal mine knows that. You've got to phase out all fossil fuels: first coal and oil, then natural gas.

How quickly would you phase out fossil fuels?

If we had the will, we could convert most of [the infrastructure] in 20 to 25 years, and that includes a significant portion of the housing and building stock, which you'll replace with different types of structures and solar architecture, and retrofit existing buildings for solar water heating and photovoltaic.

I think solar energy is on the verge of exploding in this country. California is adding jobs by the day. The beauty of solar energy is, the jobs it adds are very decentralized, right down to "fix it yourself" firms in little towns. It's wonderful for climate, it doesn't promote wars abroad, and we've got a 4-billion-year supply. And Exxon cannot eclipse the sun in order to produce a shortage.

Do you see renewable energy costing consumers more than conventional electricity?

If you include the costly military and environmental externalities of fossil fuels and nuclear, solar has been cost-competitive for years. If you exclude the externalities of finite fuels, wind power is already competitive, passive solar architecture is competitive. Meanwhile, the price of photovoltaics and other forms of solar-generated electricity are coming down very fast every year, and are on an upward curve of innovation -- with new technology, refined ways of producing the film, etc. They will be uniformly competitive within the next 10 years.

Remember that consumers are paying [for today's energy system] in many other indirect ways: strip mines, acid runoff into lakes and streams, pollution in their lungs, medical costs. Sixty-five thousand people a year die from air pollution, half of them from coal-burning utility plants. Those are just a few of the external costs operating here.

Would you use revenues from your carbon tax to provide incentives and tax breaks for renewable innovation?

Industry argues for public subsidy, but I think renewable energy technologies are moving very, very fast toward a competitive posture with fossil fuels. It's happening on its own. That's even without accounting for the horrendous external cost, military cost, pollution, health cost, and damage to land and water. Once you've incorporated all of those burdens, the cost comparison is not even close. If the geopolitical and environmental costs are so compelling, government tax credits can reverse the uneven playing field that has existed for decades to the advantage of fossil fuels and nuclear, and direct them toward solar consumers and the fledgling solar industry.

Companies from Wal-Mart to GE have been launching green initiatives and building clean energy solutions. What do you think of these efforts? Do you see corporate America today as a breeding ground for transformative change?

Oh yeah. Why not? I mean, when they start competing over light bulbs and things like that, that's a sign the solar age has come of age. After General Electric monopolized and stagnated the electric light bulb for decades, costing billions of dollars and many, many megawatts of waste, it's nice they've finally recognized that consumers want efficient lighting systems.

Many argue that the U.S. shouldn't commit to a global greenhouse-gas reduction target that doesn't involve China and India. Do you agree with this? How would you bring them to the table?

You bring them to the table by restricting imports of badly emitting greenhouse-gas technologies. Then you devise an international treaty where you analyze very carefully which countries really need aid in this area, which countries don't need aid, and you proceed accordingly. You have a deliberative process under an international body with a global goal of restricting greenhouse gases and acid rain and other things.

What do you think is the most important environmental issue we face after climate and energy?

It's all about solar, in all its manifestations -- from passive solar to active, including photovoltaics, solar thermal, and efficient biomass [plant life fed by sunlight]. Wind is also a form of solar energy, because the sun creates the earth's climate, including the winds within it. Solar is the greatest universal solvent for environmental hazards.

What do you think of Al Gore's climate activism? Has he been an effective agent of change?

At last. Where was he when he was vice president? We couldn't get him to make a speech on solar energy. But now, like Martin Luther King Jr. said, he's "free at last, free at last," and he's made a major contribution.

Many have called George W. Bush America's worst environmental president, and some critics have said that if you hadn't entered the 2000 race, Gore would have been president, and therefore Bush's irreversible environmental damage never would have happened.

Well, tell those critics to take a course in elementary statistics and engage all variables, each one of which would have put Gore in the White House. Gore won, but the Republicans stole his victory in Florida. The Electoral College stole his victory nationally after he won the popular vote. The Supreme Court stole his victory. And 250,000 Democrats in Florida voted for Bush. We've got to stop playing the spoiler game and treating third-party candidates as second-class citizens.

If you're going to blame me for Gore's loss -- and Gore doesn't blame me, by the way -- then you've got to credit me for Gore's Nobel Prize for his alerting the world to global climate change, for all of his successes with books, and for his millions of dollars of appreciating Google stock.

Maybe you should get an honorary percentage. On to another topic: Who is your environmental hero?

There are several. One is David Brower. Another is Barry Commoner, who wrote Making Peace With the Planet, among other great books on the environment. The third one is Amory Lovins.

What was your most memorable wilderness or outdoor adventure?

Camping in Yosemite National Park when I was as a student at Princeton. I thought it was the most beautiful place on earth, in spite of the haze from 25,000 vehicles in the valley below.

If you could spend a week in one natural area of the U.S. now, where would it be?

The Green Mountains of Vermont.

What do you do personally to lighten your environmental footprint?

I consume very little except newspapers, and I recycle them. I don't have a car. I'm the antithesis of the over-consumer.

How are you getting around for your campaign?

We use planes and cars and trains. When we get there, we spend very few resources in getting our message across.

Are you going to offset your footprint from the planes and cars?

I think that's an indulgence. I don't trust these offsets. We can do a lot more than that.

If George Bush were a plant or an animal, what kind of plant or animal would he be?

Poison ivy. As for an animal, I wouldn't demean any animal species that way. It's easy to say coyote, but that's a stereotype of animals. What carnivore has ever, as a species, done what Bush has done to the Iraqis?

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"I have decided to run for president," Ralph Nader declared on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday morning, after listing a litany of problems in America and citing polls that have found citizen discontent with the direction of the country and with both main political parties. Washington, D.C. is "corporate-occupied territory," he said, and he accused Barack Obama of leaning "toward the corporate side." He also had harsh words for Hillary Clinton, and harsher still for John McCain. Nader's campaign website promises to fight "corporate greed, corporate power, corporate control," citing among other scourges polluters, agribusiness giants, nuclear power, and Big Oil. Also on his site, he calls for a carbon tax, which the other remaining presidential candidates do not support, and he declares, "No to nuclear power, solar energy first." Do you think Nader should run? Take our poll.

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Updated 22 Aug 2008

Forget boxers or briefs. You want to know about the presidential candidates' stances on energy and the environment, right? Well, you've come to the right place.

Compare the candidates' green positions using our handy chart. Get a quick rundown on each candidate below, where you'll also find links to interviews with them, fact sheets on their records, and more. (And at the bottom of the page are links to info on candidates who've dropped out of the race.)

Descriptions of candidates and their positions are not and should not be perceived as endorsements. Grist does not endorse political candidates.

Barack Obama.

Photo: Conrad Erb Photography

In the early months of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, enviros were skeptical of his (now heavily qualified) support for coal-to-liquids technology and unvarnished enthusiasm for ethanol, but he earned their respect with his aggressive climate and energy plan. The plan centers on a cap-and-trade system that aims for 80 percent emission reductions from 1990 levels by 2050 and calls for auctioning 100 percent of the pollution permits. It also includes a $150 billion investment to boost clean energy and create green jobs, along with fine-grained proposals to boost efficiency, build a smart electricity grid, and encourage public transportation. Enviros have also applauded Obama's refusal to endorse a gas-tax holiday and his now somewhat qualified opposition to offshore oil drilling. Obama earned an 86 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters for his first three years representing Illinois in the U.S. Senate (a lower score than might have been because he missed some votes while campaigning for president).

John McCain.

Photo: hatch1921

John McCain has a mixed record on the environment, but he's long been outspoken about global warming. He introduced the first major bill in the Senate to address it: the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, cosponsored with Joe Lieberman. In May 2008, he unveiled a new plan for tackling the problem, a cap-and-trade system with a series of targets for gradually reducing carbon emissions to 60 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050. The plan would give away many pollution credits instead of auctioning them off, and would give polluting entities expansive leeway to buy carbon offsets instead of reducing their own emissions. McCain used to oppose ethanol subsidies, but upon launching his current presidential campaign, he has changed his tune. He also changed his position on offshore drilling (but he still opposes drilling in the Arctic Refuge). McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and spend big on "clean coal" technology; he also expresses support for wind, solar, and other renewables, but doesn't believe they need government assistance. The League of Conservation Voters endorsed McCain in his 2004 Senate campaign, despite the fact that he's gotten low voting scores from the group over the years (including a zero for 2007); McCain's lifetime LCV score is 24 percent. (This year, LCV endorsed Obama.)

Ralph Nader.

Though Ralph Nader is running as an independent and not under the Green Party banner this time around, he still has some serious small-G green cred (at least among those not still livid over his alleged role in Gore's 2000 presidential defeat). In the heyday of his consumer advocacy, he and the groups he formed helped get landmark environmental and consumer-protection laws passed, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. He has also spent decades fighting nuclear power. These days, Nader regularly decries corporate influence in government and argues against subsidies to nuclear, oil, coal, electric, and biofuels interests. Instead, he calls for heavy investment in solar, wind, and other renewables, as well as in energy efficiency. Nader also advocates for a carbon tax as a way to fight climate change.

The path to the presidency is littered with losers, some more sore than others. If you're wondering what might have been, check out our info on the ex-candidates' environmental views.

DEMOCRATS

Joe Biden

Hillary Clinton

Chris Dodd

John Edwards

Mike Gravel

Dennis Kucinich

Bill Richardson

Tom Vilsack

REPUBLICANS

Sam Brownback

Rudy Giuliani

Mike Huckabee

Duncan Hunter

Ron Paul

Mitt Romney

Tom Tancredo

Fred Thompson

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A look at Ralph Nader’s environmental platform and record

An interview with Ralph Nader about his presidential platform on energy and the environment

Right on, Ralph.

The complaints continue to pour in:

"Why are you writing columns supporting Ralph Nader? How can you actively aid and abet the election of that dolt Bush? You can think better than that."

And so does the applause:

"I believe that you will never regret voting on the basis of your conscience, and neither will I."

On the letters page of Grist, folks are attacking not just me but each other, with gusto:

"Whoever is elected gets to call the shots for the next four years, and I don't think the environment can take four years of Texas-style environmentalism."

"Let's stop always taking the short view. That's just what Tweedledum and Tweedledee want you to do."

"George the Shrub will undo all the environmental progress we have made in my lifetime, turn education on its head, and turn the Supreme Court over to the radical religious right. These are outcomes so unacceptably evil that a protest vote for Nader looks ridiculous."

"People are voting for Gore out of fear, not because they think he will make a good president. Sticking to what we believe is the only way to get real change."

These embattled folks all want to vote for an honest person rather than a packaged image, for someone who is not sold to the highest bidder, for someone who will fight for the people and the environment. Their anger with each other is mainly anger at the choice they face. Vote for Nader and get Bush. Or vote for Gore and get Gore.

But some people refuse to be squeezed into that box.

The great columnist Molly Ivins, for example, says that Nader "has done more real good for this country than both [major] candidates added together and multiplied." But she's from Texas and emphatically does not want to do anything that might help Bush become president. "The lesser of two evils does make a difference."

So for the short term, she says, if your heart is with Nader, be loudly for Nader. If he gets 15 percent in the polls, he'll be in the presidential debates, with a chance to show up the two Tweedles. When it comes to voting, she says, if you're in a state with a certain outcome, like Texas that will go for Dubya or Massachusetts that will go for Gore, you can freely vote for Nader, throw a scare into the Tweedle-parties, and help the Greens get recognition and campaign funds. If you're in a state where the outcome is close, she says, "why don't we see how it looks in November?"

The irrepressible Michael Moore has another strategy. In an open letter entitled Bush and Gore Make Me Wanna Ralph, he urges all Gore supporters to vote for Gore. "In fact I insist on it, even if you are just throwing your vote away," he writes. Rather than trying to get these folks to vote for Nader, Moore wants to mobilize the nation's largest party -- the 55 percent who are normally too disgusted to vote.

"What if you drove down to that stinky gym where the little shell game behind the pretend curtains is taking place, walk in, sign in, take the ballot they hand you, and toss yourselves inside the booth like a political Molotov cocktail?" Moore asks. "You wanna tell me there's a choice here between two guys who both support NAFTA, WTO, the death penalty, the Cuban embargo, increased Pentagon spending, sleazy HMOs, greedy hospital chains, 250 million guns in our homes, more bombing of Iraq, the rich getting richer and the rest of us declaring bankruptcy? Not me. I'm voting for Ralph Nader. KAAAABOOM!"

In 1996 Bill Clinton won with 47 million votes, while 100 million eligible voters stayed home. They could "make history by putting a true American hero at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" without taking a single vote away from Gore." Moore writes.

For the longer term, why should we put up with an electoral system that gives us nothing but choices between lesser evils? There are far better alternatives. One is the proportional parliamentary system practiced in most democracies. I see people stick up their noses at it, but I never understand why; it allows a fairer hearing to a wider spectrum of views than does our winner-take-all system.

Another intriguing possibility is the instant runoff, practiced in Ireland and Australia. In this system you mark your ballot with your first, second, and third choice. In the first round only first-choice votes are counted. If no one wins a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated. Those whose first choice was the eliminated candidate automatically weigh in with their second choice.

That would take away the agony of voting for someone you despise just to keep someone you despise even more from winning. It would be even better combined with a feature of Russian elections, where there is always a choice called "none of the above." If a majority of voters choose "none of the above," all candidates are disqualified. The parties must keep trying until they come up with a slate of possibilities that the people can actually stomach. (Learn more about alternative voting systems from the Center for Voting and Democracy.)

Of course no president from either Tweedle-party would think of leading a charge toward a genuine democracy. You know who would? Here's a hint: The Green Party already uses instant runoffs for its presidential nominations.

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Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Gore on The Daily Show

Wow! Did I ever infuriate my liberal friends when I said I would vote for Ralph Nader! [See Won't You Be My Nader?.]

They've been hammering me with earnest lectures about how every vote for Nader will help get Bush elected, and how an elected Bush will devastate the environment, enrich the rich, hand the country to the oil companies, appoint Supreme Court justices who will send us back to the dark ages. As if I didn't know. Liberals, bless their well-meaning hearts, can be a bit tedious.

This week I heard the same argument from Vermont's governor, Howard Dean (D), an excellent administrator and adroit politician, slightly to the left of Al Gore. Stick with me this year, he pleaded. I have a rival on the far right and a rival on the left who will say everything you want to hear. If you vote for what you really want, you'll end up with what you don't want at all. Sometimes, he said, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

It's an argument of impeccable logic, and I usually go for logic. But something in me worries that the good can also be the enemy of the perfect.

The Kyoto accord, hammered out with the help of mildly good Al Gore (and which the far-righters in our Senate refuse to ratify), is the first international step in the direction of stabilizing the crazed climate. We should ratify it and celebrate it, of course. But only in full recognition that it is far too weak to stabilize the climate. If it were implemented, things would get worse at a slower rate. We need to do much better than that.

In the same vein, our government's revised regulation for organic labeling is mildly good. It begins to correct the most glaring faults of the first draft, which would have allowed genetically engineered foods, irradiated foods, and crops grown with sewage sludge to be called organic. A huge citizen outcry, beyond anything the Department of Agriculture had ever seen, made it clear that whatever "organic" means, it shouldn't mean that.

The new draft allows genetic engineering, irradiation, and sludge only by exception, leaving small loopholes that seem destined to become big ones. It permits animal factories, as long as the feed is organic and doesn't contain hormones or antibiotics. It makes the certification process so complex and expensive that only large producers will bother with it. If you wanted to write a regulation that would help large growers push small ones out of the organic market, you could hardly do better than this one.

It will, however, encourage farms and agribusinesses to stop using toxic chemicals. That's good. Maybe even worth sacrificing the word "organic," which will now simply mean "chemical-free." Mildly good agriculture. Those who practice farming that also builds soil, honors wildlife, keeps farms small so they can be actively nurtured, sells local and fresh, does not draw down groundwater, treats animals lovingly, treats workers as if they were not animals, and builds community -- well, those folks are going to have to come up with another word.

I don't want to complain about small steps in the right direction. I welcome them. I recognize that they're the only way to get anywhere worth getting. What I'm trying to kick at, I guess, is the tendency of those who are comfortable in the middle of the perfection spectrum to settle there -- and to muddle the words we use to distinguish mediocrity from anything better.

Let's at least keep the words clear. In agriculture we go from "industrial" (huge, cruel, polluting hog and chicken and beef factories) to "conventional" (large, chemical-soaked farms) to -- well, there's no word for the folks who follow many environmental practices and therefore need to use fewer chemicals. "Integrated pest management" is as close as we have come to labeling that mildly good middle. Next in the direction of virtue comes "organic" as now defined by the USDA. I suggest "ecological" for farms that work really hard to follow the rules of the planet and "sustainable" for farms that actually obey those rules and that also practice the highest morality in their treatment of workers, neighbors, and customers.

In politics, we need labels to distinguish the purposefully destructive (Jesse Helms, for instance) from the ignorant blunderers (George W.), the dawningly aware, the gesturers in the right direction (Al Gore), those in steady good motion (the present governor of Vermont), those who push hard, and those who are unrelenting in their dedication to a world that works for everyone (Ralph Nader).

In the arena of companies and products, we distinguish black (sports utility vehicles), brown (sports utility vehicles that get higher mileage), beige (current compact cars), faintly green (the new gas-electric hybrids), jade (hydrogen-powered cars), spring green (hydrogen-powered buses and trains), deep forest green (bicycles). Most of the products in "green" catalogs are actually somewhere on the beige border, and most of the companies who proudly call themselves "sustainable" are struggling to move from brown to beige. Good for them. They're going in the right direction. But they have a long way to go.

How do we appreciate the good without letting it be the enemy of the perfect? How do we keep a step in the right direction from becoming a stopping point? How do we get beyond shades of insipid light green?

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Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix

Gore on The Daily Show

Russell Peterson, former governor of Delaware, ardent environmentalist, lifelong Republican until a few years ago when he switched to being a Democrat, was appalled when I told him I couldn't bring myself to vote for Al Gore.

Tell it like it is, Ralph.

He gave me the undeniably rational argument. George W. shows no sign of either knowing or caring about the environment. If he is president, especially if he's blessed with a Republican Congress, our environmental laws will be decimated. Anyone who has watched Washington for the past six years has seen the Republican Congressional leadership work unceasingly to clear-cut the national forests, gut the Endangered Species Act, and let the polluters write the pollution laws. Gore may not be the dauntless warrior for the environment we would like, but at least he will probably, like Bill Clinton before him, veto most of the worst ideas of the anti-environmental right wing.

I assured Peterson that I have no intention of voting for George W. (In my household we have the terrible habit of calling him "George the Gerbil.") I will vote and work for Democrats for Congress. I am sick of Republican committee chairs trying to give away overgrazing rights on public lands, privatize national parks, drill for oil in wildlife refuges. But for president I'll vote for Ralph Nader.

Russ Peterson's jaw dropped. He's in his eighties now, but he's as energetic and forceful and political as ever, and so he bore in on me. But that will put Bush in office! Nader will draw votes away from Gore, not Bush. How can you do that?

Lean and green.

Not only do I sympathize with his argument; I've made it to myself. Why waste a vote on Nader, who is not even a serious candidate? He spent $5000 on his last presidential campaign (and got 800,000 votes in what must be one of the best votes-to-dollars ratios in history). He says he'll spend $5 million on this one -- a drop in George W.'s overflowing campaign bucket. How will you feel, Peterson asked me, as I had already asked myself, if you ditch Gore and then have to watch Bush for four or eight years take away abortion rights, build prisons, promote guns, and enrich oil companies?

But what does it mean to waste a vote? I may disagree with Bush on just about 100 percent of all issues, but I disagree with Gore on maybe 50 percent. He promotes free trade and the WTO -- two of the worst things I can imagine for the environment. He has done nothing to push for auto fuel-efficiency standards or regulations on genetic engineering or a strong enough climate policy to actually stabilize the climate. The Greens are the only party talking seriously about solar energy or stopping corporate welfare or real campaign reform. Isn't it worse to waste your vote on a spineless party patsy, up to his neck in his own overflowing bucket of campaign contributions, than on a guy who will at least speak and fight for what you want fought for -- no matter what his chance of winning?

Tim Russert asked Ralph Nader that very question on May 7 on Meet the Press: "So if you wake up in November of 2000 and the Green Party has gotten 5 percent of the vote but Al Gore has lost and George W. Bush is the next president, you'll consider the day a success?"

Takin' it to the streets.

Nader answered, "The Green Party will get more than 5 percent of the vote, number one. Number two, there's nothing preventing Al Gore from grabbing hold of these corporate power issues: corporate welfare, strong labor laws, crack down on consumer fraud, corporate crime, challenging autocratic forms of government like the WTO.

"The two parties are converging more and more into a huge vested interest money pot and are turning their backs on very important needs of the people. So we're appealing to conservatives, liberals, all the people who feel they're losing control in this country over everything that matters to them -- their government, big business, environment, the workplace, the marketplace, even their own children being seduced by corporate hucksters and entertainers."

Sometimes he sounds like a real candidate, sometimes like he's just trying to knock the Democratic party back into its one-time groove. Too bad. If Ross Perot could get 19 percent of the vote, Nader, who is modest, well-spoken, well-informed, steady, of unassailable integrity, and actually working for the public interest, should be able to do much better. If he could become visible. And if people voted for what they want, instead of what they think can win.

What is a vote, anyway? A chit we use to play political games, figuring the chances, trying to choose the least distasteful candidate who has some chance of coming out on top? Or our one straight signal to our government telling it what we -- we who pay the bills, we whose interests the government is supposed to represent -- really want?

I hope Russ Peterson will forgive me.

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