Feeling guilty every time we can’t be perfect environmentalists isn’t sustainable. For a safer climate, we don't need to get every action right, but we do need to understand the greater scope of the crisis.
I agree with the idea of voting for parties with strong green agendas… in principle. In practice, I find it hard to make it work because, at least in my country, pretty much every political party (even the conservatives) have environment policies in their agenda/manifesto and they all make sure to promise loads in this area to get your vote.
Everybody knows that’s not how it works: they will promise grand green initiatives and then deliver 10% of that at the end of their tenure, passing the buck to someone else. So yeah, you could punish them by voting someone else at the next election but they’ll do exactly the same (if they manage to get elected, that is).
Voting for “The Green Party” is not really an option either as these kinds of political organisation centred around a single problem rarely aim to run for government, so voting for them is a bit useless as the rest of their political agenda (education, health, economy…) is weak, nonexistent or batshit crazy (again, speaking for my country).
Depending on where you live, they don’t have to be the entire government. If they’d hold the majority they could easily work on environmental issues while leaving the rest of the government to their coalition partners. Some crazy people are, in the grand scheme of things, a lesser issue compared to climate change, which is way too much of a priority to let some of those stop you. It’s rougher in countries like the US and their two party system, because of how much they engage in contrarian bullshit.
I agree with the idea of voting for parties with strong green agendas… in principle. In practice, I find it hard to make it work because, at least in my country, pretty much every political party (even the conservatives) have environment policies in their agenda/manifesto and they all make sure to promise loads in this area to get your vote.
Everybody knows that’s not how it works: they will promise grand green initiatives and then deliver 10% of that at the end of their tenure, passing the buck to someone else. So yeah, you could punish them by voting someone else at the next election but they’ll do exactly the same (if they manage to get elected, that is).
Voting for “The Green Party” is not really an option either as these kinds of political organisation centred around a single problem rarely aim to run for government, so voting for them is a bit useless as the rest of their political agenda (education, health, economy…) is weak, nonexistent or batshit crazy (again, speaking for my country).
So, how does one solve this conundrum?
Depending on where you live, they don’t have to be the entire government. If they’d hold the majority they could easily work on environmental issues while leaving the rest of the government to their coalition partners. Some crazy people are, in the grand scheme of things, a lesser issue compared to climate change, which is way too much of a priority to let some of those stop you. It’s rougher in countries like the US and their two party system, because of how much they engage in contrarian bullshit.