Use the energy to persuade your representatives to actually do something (including by raising awareness among your fellow voters) rather than voting for a particular party. Of course, Democrats are more likely to be persuaded, but "sit back and vote for Democrats because it's better than <shitty alternatives>" is a pretty surefire way to lose the climate war.
It's actually much more effective than expending energy obsessing about how much carbon you're emitting on a daily basis. Use that energy instead to vote/support/campaign for Democrats, because the marginal utility of having more Democrats in power is exponentially more important, given the consequences of not having them in power.
If you think climate is the top issue facing the planet, the most effective step you can take is getting Democrats elected in the US. And since the other side is onboard with unlimited political spending, there is no choice but to match them.
There's a third option, though: Do whatever, but vote for a party that wants to curb emissions. Only governments can turn this around. Listened to an interview with a climate scientist who was advocating that. He said individual action is a distraction.
The best we can do is lower our own CO2 emissions as much as possible (no flights, recycle/upcycle) and vote wisely. Don't get stuck in the issue of the day, but look forwards when choosing your representative.
This doesn’t really work in a democracy. Look how high gas prices have turned so many Americans against Biden, and that isn’t because of some anti-climate-change policy. Try to fight climate change at the ballot box, next election you lose all your seats as more people want $2 gas than care about the environment.
If you are in the United States, participate in Republican primaries in support of Republican politicians who acknowledge that climate change is a problem that we cannot ignore and need to start seriously acting on.
There are in fact Republican politicians who support effective measures to address climate change that are compatible with traditional Republican market-based, conservative principles, such as a revenue neutral carbon tax, but they are greatly outnumbered by the ones who think climate change is fake or is just natural cycles that will swing the other way on their own and that we cannot influence anyway.
It would be even easier if the left would just get off its collective butts and go vote.
Disproportionate representation is a problem, for sure, but the American left would have far more success despite that problem if only they would go vote in off-year elections.
Either way, I don't think it would help the fundamental problem, which is that roughly half of the voters in this country don't accept climate science, and their party and associated media have set up a huge feedback loop to keep it that way. Helping the Democrats isn't really a solution, because we need two healthy parties.
The most effective thing is probably banding together to vote in politicians that will actually do something about climate change.
It’ll be at least another 8 years until the US does that (unless Biden ends up changing course), and that’s way past the point of no return for the planet.
Even if Biden isn’t reelected in 4 years, it will just mean we end up with an even more climate hostile president.
In the very short term, people should be protesting in the streets to end the filibuster, and then immediately fund primary challenges to any democrat the stands in the way of the green new deal.
One simple thing we can all do is never vote for a candidate if they are not for aggressive and immediate measures to combat global warming.
If the roughly 60-75% of Americans who believe human activity is causing climate change were to stop voting for individuals who don't believe this, we'd have meaningful change coming from the federal government within 2 years.
One of the reasons for this is because you're not actually responsible for all that much as a middle class and below person. Yeah, get better fuel efficient cars. Yeah, eat less meat. Yeah, get the most out of what you can when you buy things. But that's not going to do much while corporations are still chugging along. It won't do much while coal and gas are the primary energy production. Sure, use less electricity and get onto renewables as much as you can but the offenders will buy these nonsensical carbon credits and such that cause issue.
The real answer is definitely vote Democratic, one cannot vote democrat as that's not a party in the US. But more than that it gets involved in the political process such that change to our policies are done with climate change in kind. You won't get that from Republicans.
I don't know where you live, but on my ballot, "the environment" isn't listed.
Instead of goals or policies, what's listed are politicians.
An honest question: The west coast is represented by Democrats. Who am I supposed to vote for? We've known about climate change, and we've voted. We've had both Republican and Democratic regimes over the past half century, but what has changed for the better? Just recently, House Democrats voted to give 850,000 acres of a Nevada wildlife refuge to the airforce for bombing [0].
This makes me think you cannot vote your way out of climate disasters. Telling people to vote doesn't really solve the problem. What are concrete steps that can be done?
If voting is the only thing we can do, then I think we're in big trouble.
No amount of personal lifestyle changes will affect the end result and the only thing that will affect the end result is policy--specifically carbon pricing and border adjustments. So while I don't think "voting democrat" is sufficient (because they seem to do little more than lip service toward the climate), "personal responsibility and lifestyle changes" are a distraction (and a deliberate one that the fossil fuel industry invests in). Indeed, one has to raise awareness ("talk frequently about climate change"), pressure their representatives, and of course vote. Everything else is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Note that I'm not a partisan, and any Republicans who want to help conserve the world (including the economy) are welcome at the table as far as I'm concerned.
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