A Climate Primary
by Gaius Publius
One of the more successful activist climate PACs, Climate Hawks Vote, is asking you to help them decide whether to endorse one of the Democratic candidates, and if so, which one. As you’ll see if you click the voting link, “No Endorsement” is one of the choices.
Anyone who sees climate as one of the most important (and under-covered) issues of this election — needless to say, I’m one of them — should consider casting a ballot. One benefit of voting would be to raise the issue of climate this year, something that badly needs doing.
From the announcement:
Climate Hawks Vote Political Action (CHV), a grassroots climate Super PAC, is launching the Climate Primary, its endorsement vote for the 2016 Presidential primary. In an open voting process, CHV members will decide if the PAC will back Secretary Hillary Clinton or Senator Bernie Sanders as the strongest leader on our generation’s greatest challenge, manmade climate change. Every Republican candidate has been disqualified from consideration for their rejection of basic climate science.
Statement from Climate Hawks Vote President RL Miller on today’s announcement:
“Both Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders are running as climate champions. As the nation’s leading organization building grassroots-based political power for the climate movement, we’re listening to our members for how we should help elect the next Climate President.”
… CHV will campaign to promote the endorsed candidate’s leadership on
climate justice, renewable energy, and the fight to end the fossil-fuel industry’s corrupting influence on our democracy. No matter the outcome of the endorsement vote, CHV will vigorously support the Democratic nominee for president in the 2016 general election against the Koch-fueled Republican candidate.
And the details:
• Voting will take place at ClimateHawksVote.com/2016vote
• Sec. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders are on the ballot
• The endorsement threshold is a 75% supermajority of all votes cast
• All people concerned about climate change are encouraged to cast their ballot
• The voting hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere: #ClimatePrimary.
• Voting begins on Thursday, March 3, 2016 and ends at 11:59pm ET on Tuesday, March 8.
• Results will be announced at 12pm ET on Wednesday, March 9.
Consider voting in this one (and if you like, consider supporting Climate Hawks Vote). I don’t relish seeing my species return to the Stone Age, which is where we’re headed if we don’t stop put a dead stop to carbon emissions. As I wrote just recently:
The more I read and listen, and the more climate dithering I watch, the more I think “time’s wingèd chariot” is almost upon us and we have our backs turned to it. If we knew that, in five or ten years, an asteroid visible to our telescopes today were due to crash into the earth, we’d (a) start mobilizing against it immediately, and (b) not listen to the whiners who ask, “But how are we going to pay for it?” Those whiners would be kicked to the curb, especially if they were well-known worshipers at the “Church of the Giant Asteroid”.
Yet here we are, with maybe five to ten years at most to start mobilizing against a world all of us will hate, and … nothing.
It’s an emergency. The response to emergencies to mobilize. And we know how to do that.
One way to mobilize is to say loud and clear, “Enough. Stop now. This is an emergency.”
You can do that with a vote in the Climate Primary, whichever way you decide to cast your ballot. And thanks!
GP
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