maybe cuz we're all as dumb as rocks

[Guest guest]

Americans Favor Environment, but Don't Vote on It

 

October 30, 2006 — By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters

WASHINGTON -- Americans care about the environment, but they don't usually vote

that way in elections for president or Congress.

 

Compared to voters in Europe, where the Green Party is a political force and

global climate change is part of the public dialogue, U.S. voters in national

elections tend to cast their ballots based on candidates' stances on the Iraq

war, the economy and health care -- not on environmental policy.

 

Only about 3 percent of U.S. voters in recent exit polls said the environment

was the most important issue to them in casting their ballots, according to

Karlyn Bowman, who tracks public opinion polling for the American Enterprise

Institute.

 

That makes it a significant single issue, but far behind the hot-button issue of

abortion, which between 9 percent and 13 percent of U.S. voters said was most

important to them.

 

This may be because Americans reckon the question about what the country wants

in terms of the environment has long ago been settled, Bowman said.

 

" When we (in the United States) agreed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that we

wanted a clean and healthful environment and we wanted to spend a lot of money

to get one, once that consensus was reached at the national level, most

Americans pulled away from the debate, " she said.

 

Bowman said the environment has lost its potency as a national issue, but still

mobilizes Americans in state and local races.

 

That mobilization is clear as the United States counts down to the Nov. 7

election for Congress and other offices.

 

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has broken with the

Republican Bush administration on environmental issues, has pushed for special

state vehicle pollution standards, a bond issue meant to assure safe water and

beaches, and for a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Nearly 400 Green Party candidates are on U.S. ballots in 2006, and, so far,

Greens have won 24 out of the 62 elections where they had candidates around the

country, according to the greens.org Web site. However, those winners are all in

local offices, ranging from the Sebastopol, California, city council, to the

board of supervisors in Douglas County, Wisconsin.

 

PUBLIC SUPPORT

 

Most Americans do consider the environment important, according to Michael Bell,

an environmental sociologist at the University of Wisconsin. Bell noted polling

since 1983 shows a consistent high level of public support for environmental

issues.

 

But he said few politicians make this a highlight of their campaigns, so voters

leaving the polling booth are unlikely to list the environment as the reason

they cast a ballot for a particular candidate, Bell said.

 

He also acknowledged that the environmental message is often one of " gloom and

doom " -- a strategic mistake, in Bell's view.

 

" If to be an environmentalist is to put on a hair shirt every day, to force

yourself at every second of the day to ask, 'Am I making the environmentally

right decision?'... it's going to be rather overwhelming to people, " Bell said.

 

The issue resonates with voters but not with business leaders, Bell said,

adding, " That maybe is an important factor in understanding why it doesn't seem

to resonate with politicians, whose interests often reflect those of business. "

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances,

there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in

such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest

we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

William O. Douglas