Vote Susty

Mindset of Change

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Leo Tolstoy

Love it or hate it, the United States is built on the backbone of capitalism, defined as "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit." Practically speaking, this means three things:

1. Anybody can produce anything (within the bounds of legal regulation).
2. Anybody can buy anything (within the bounds of legal regulation).
3. Profit depends on ownership (within the bounds of legal regulation).

A world of history, debate, nuance, and value judgments exists behind each one of these statements, but for the purposes of living sustainably, let's narrow in on the first two. Anybody can produce anything. Anybody can buy anything. Within the bounds of legal regulation. The 'legal regulation' part is very important, because without it, things may be bought and sold which are harmful to both society and individuals. For example, drugs could be produced and sold which cause cancer, hair loss, or infertility; people could freely buy child pornography, meth or assassinations. Consumers are neither uniformly good, nor are they uniformly well informed.

To put it in more standard economic terms: supply (production of things) and demand (buying of things) exist in a regulatory context of some kind. As much as die-hard capitalists like to promote the idea of a 'free market,' no such market exists in the world today. However, the degree to which the market is regulated varies widely around the world. In the US, meth and child pornography are illegal, but in Italy, meth is legal and in several African countries, so is child pornography. One could say there are levels of market freedom, but it is not obvious that the US would fall closer to free than many other countries, including countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Nor is it clear that freedom in this context would be a good thing.

How things are regulated is often extremely controversial. For example, the legalization of marijuana has been a polarizing topic in the US for decades, as have the issues of abortion, guns, drugs, and gambling. Almost every fraught political debate today comes down to regulation of production or demand. Even seemingly uncontroversial and long-standing regulations are not nearly as settled as you might think. As recently as 2023, car design safety standards and air pollution laws have been debated.

Such is the challenge of capitalism. Because anybody could buy or sell anything, as a society we have to decide what is actually allowable. Legal regulation is one way to do this, but it is quite slow, often with tragic consequences. For example, asbestos was a widely used building material until it was proven to cause a horrific lung cancer called mesothelioma. Lead in paint was shown to cause brain damage and altered child development. In Europe, thalidomide given to pregnant women to help with nausea caused birth deformities. These were legal products until their effects became known and regulation was put in place to prevent their sale. Consumers had to take legal action to change the status quo.

In fact, underlying all legal effort, consumer action is the most common way for the regulatory framework to change. For example, in the case of state legalization of marijuana, consumer demand and advocacy for both medical and recreational marijuana usage has led to cascading changes across the country. Another example is both the historic ban and then re-legalization of alcohol after Prohibition. Sometimes, products are so beloved by the populace that, even though they have harmful effects, they cannot be totally banned, as with cigarettes or guns.

'When and how should something be regulated?' is a difficult question. When regulation does not yet exist, consumers are the front line. They must declare their preferences and concerns through purchase choices, protest (public and private), boycott, advocacy, and legal action. Law and legality are far from static; they are constantly evolving frameworks. In a capitalist society, the ultimate power falls to the consumer - when our aggregate choices become demand.

Capitalism + Democracy

The power of individual choice is further underlined when a country is not only capitalist, but democratic. Although the United States has worked quite hard to entwine these two world views in mainstream parlance, they are not synonymous. You can have capitalism without democracy - China being a notable example - and you can have democracy without capitalism - Singapore being probably the closest modern example, and ancient Athens the original.

Yet, capitalism and democracy do tend to layer well together, because they both derive from the same ultimate principle – the power of the individual. In a true popular democracy and a true free market economy, this power would be unrestrained. However, as we've discussed, intermediary frameworks – legal (e.g. regulation) and political (e.g. the electoral college) – exist in all countries to protect consumers from the ill consequences of their own actions. Mob rule is no more pleasant than lead paint.

Nonetheless, practically speaking, what this means is that we – as individuals – have the most power we have ever had in the history of human civilization.

The baseline of that power is the ability to vote – in federal, state, and local elections – and on top of that, commensurate to your buying power and willingness to advocate for the things you care about. In other words, our actions matter.

So how do we, as consumers, as citizens, mobilize our power? The first step is to understand the issues and the players. Knowledge is power.

Mobilize the Power

There are many regulatory initiatives for critical sustainability and environmental issues. For those of us living susty, this brief exploration of capitalism and democracy probably brings up the well-debated idea of a carbon tax. But it might equally highlight the volume-based waste fee system that South Korea implemented or the recycling programs in Sweden; good old sales or consumption tax; the endangered species act, the French Nuclear Safety Authority and nuclear energy policy, or the Clean Air Act.

Broadly speaking, from a policy standpoint, there are a few big buckets to look at:

1. Energy transition - utilities (from fossil fuels to renewables)
2. Energy transition - transportation (from fossil fuels to renewables)
3. Regulation of emissions (especially carbon dioxide and methane)
4. Regulation of waste
5. Regulation of water usage
6. Regulation of land usage (especially federal land)
7. Regulation of production - consumer goods (especially inputs like plastics and byproducts like waste water and emissions)
8. Regulation of production - industrial (especially inputs like mined ores, and byproducts like waste water and emissions)
9. Import of goods and regulation of foreign supply chains
10. Transportation development (do we fund highways or train lines?)
11. Building development (do we require efficient energy usage, green roofs, or solar panels?)
12. Protection of biodiversity (are we conserving or restoring habitats critical to preserving biodiversity? are we protecting endangered species? are we measuring species loss sufficiently?)

Plus, there are some important cross vectors:

1. Financing and investment (a carbon tax only impacts demand; financing of oil pipelines impacts supply)
2. Lobbies and subsidies (what industries are we giving money to, making them artificially richer or more powerful? what companies have a voice that is louder than it should be?)
3. Campaign financing (where does the money come from? how many layers are there between the politicians and the donors?)
4. Conflicts of interest (what politicians have investment portfolios that are directly impacted by the committees they sit on?)

Of course, these are a lot of issues to keep an eye on, and it's pretty overwhelming.

Each one of these issues and cross vectors touches multiple companies, industries, and regulations, representing seemingly infinite complexity. It's natural for us to want a short cut. We can't know everything about all of these issues, so who can we trust to give us the gist of it and tell us when to take action? It's an age-old problem when it comes to politics – and in a capitalist democracy, isn't politics economics too? As someone trying to live susty, how do I know what companies I should buy from or avoid?

These types of environmental issues suffer from two main problems:

1. Lack of a cohesive platform, itself the result of a fractured movement. 'Environmentalists' come with myriad agendas and areas of focus, with varied perspectives on how solutions should be implemented and by whom. These ideological rifts often run deep.
   1. What is more important - human development, or the continuation of the natural world? How is this best achieved - through technological advancement, or through preservation, conservation and restoration? Of course, the answer is usually 'both, and,' but the devil is in the details. Although broad coalitions do exist, they are often hampered by internal and external conflict.
2. We get lost in the details. Because of the lack of a cohesive platform - and even the platforms that exist are often too controversial to be widely accepted (politics amiright?) – we individuals are forced to wade into the morass of specific issues with all their nuance, complexity and tradeoffs. Add in the egregious emotional manipulation by the political parties (and non-profits) involved, and it is inevitable that we get overwhelmed, lose faith, and tap out. It happens to all of us. The trick is to get back on the horse. To quote Stan Lee vis a vis Spiderman: with great power comes great responsibility.

If living sustainably is a journey, so is civic participation. Especially in a presidential election year, it is very easy to feel polarized and burnt out by the political rigamarole. But, at the end of the day, most of the real work of regulation and governance happens during the four years when the President sits, not just at the turning point of the election.

Civic Participation

But, where to actually start?

Scroll up a bit, and take a closer look at that list of issues. Pick one that impacts you directly, perhaps one that provides the backdrop of something you're trying to work on personally.

If you're interested in installing solar, learn a little more about the energy transition in your state - what are the renewable energy methods – solar? wind? are there pending incentives? who's financing it?

If you're trying to eat less meat, find out where your grocery store chain or state gets most of its meat. Maybe look into the pending legislation around agriculture in your region.

If you're working on buying less, explore secondhand vendors or repair workshops.

Focus on one issue to start with, and learn a little more about it. Maybe sign a petition or contact your representative. Voting is important, but we often overlook other actions like emailing our congress-people, donating to effective interest and advocacy groups, or just signing up for mailing lists to stay in the know. Plus, we vote not only as citizens but as consumers. "Vote with your dollars" may be a bit trite, but it's incredibly relevant in a capitalist democratic country. Every day, we make choices - to buy our groceries; to drive or take the train; to have the tofu bowl, the chicken sandwich or the beef taco. Our actions as consumers and as citizens go together.

Resources

To get you started, here are some helpful resources.

I suggest setting up 30 minutes once a week to peruse these sites for legislation, petitions, and regulation regarding your current focus issue. It's an incredibly useful and eye-opening way to get a feel for how our democratic system works.

• NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures) Searchable Bill Tracking Database - To learn more about pending legislation by topic in your state.
• Regulations.gov - The forum for citizens to comment on proposed policies and regulations.
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Petitions - To learn more about pending environmental petitions by the EPA, sponsored by numerous non-profits and environmental agencies.
• NPS (National Park Service) Policy - Learn about the policy process, recently passed policies and see drafts. Get involved to stay in the know.
• Change.org Environmental Petitions - To learn about popular environmental petitions. You can also create one.

Also, if you're like me, you might not even know who your representatives are. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your Senators and Representatives (on the state level) and your local Alderperson (on the local level). These are the people who are speaking for you and your community.

Learn what committees they sit on and what their agendas are. Senators, in particular, have a lot of influence in the committees they sit on and the issues overseen by those committees. One active constituent (that's you) can make a lot of difference by being a gadfly (although if they do something you approve of, don't hesitate to share the approval as well - all humans like to be told they're doing a good job.)

Now, outside the official channels, there are of course, many other groups advocating for change. Here are my go-to environmental nonprofits:

Full disclosure: I donate to several of these organizations.

• Center for Biological Diversity
• Environmental Defense Fund
• Earthjustice
• National Resource Defense Council
• Nature Conservancy
• Rainforest Alliance
• World Land Trust
• Rainforest Action Network

Hot Tip: Once you're on the mailing lists for some of these organizations, you will find you no longer need to go out and look for updates on what's happening (although you should, every once in a while). Nonprofits will be lining up in your inbox about the latest crisis, and advertising to you on whatever social media platforms you use. Although useful, the blatant emotional manipulation can be a bit much. My advice would be: don't engage through social media. Once you've engaged on social media, the algorithms will double down on that type of content and it skews your visibility and perspective. It also takes a while to reset. Better to just go and look it up separately.

And for those who want to find a centralized authority and monitor just one thing, here are some environmental policy platforms that might be worth aligning with.

• Green Policy Platform (Global)
• Equitable & Just National Climate Platform (US)
• The Breakthrough Institute (US focused)
• Climate Action Network (Global)

And last but not least, some very useful data sources:

• Climate Data Watch
• Our World in Data
• EPA Data
• NOAA Climate Data Online
• Climate Mapping for Resilience & Adaptation

Here's the short recap:

1. Bookmark a few of the resources above that seem particularly useful to you (I recommend the Bills database and regulations site).
2. Get to know your Senators, Representatives and Alderpersons, the committee they sit on, and the agendas they ran on.
3. Pick 1-2 policy issues to focus on and learn more about (say, for a month).
4. Consider downloading the Climate Action Now app.
5. Schedule 30 min a week to check in on what's happening and maybe sign a few petitions. Maybe have a glass of your preferred beverage and listen to some tunes while you do. Positive vibes for positive action.
6. Subtly brag to others about your civic participation and newfound knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

Remember: it's impossible to be perfect, but it's easy to do better.

When I get discouraged and fed up, I like to go and look up the recent wins from my favorite nonprofits. It reminds me that there are people doing really good work out there, and I am supporting it.

Sustainability is all about being in it for the long haul, so treat yourself kindly and keep on keeping on!

Our 2023 wins by the numbers

With your help, in 2023 the Center for Biological Diversity won over and over again for the wild.