Can you help me get it to trend?
#MondayMorningClimateWarming is a modest, Twitter-based start to increasing the pressure on the huge number of folks in Congress who aren’t paying attention to – or do not “believe in” – climate change. It’s a small step in the direction of getting them to pay attention to this vital, urgent issue and do something other than talk about how “not scientists” they are.
The wonderful Organizing for Action site is still up, and it has a clean, easy-to-navigate interface that allows you to tweet directly to the climate change denier(s) who represent/s you in Congress.
While it’s true that many of these fine folks won’t see our tweets on their hand-held devices, it is also true that politicians are exquisitely sensitive, fine-tuned opinion sensors, with quivering feelers held high to detect any change in the winds of public opinion. And each of them has a staff of diligent minions who will certainly note an increase in #MondayMorningClimateWarning tweets and report back to their master/mistress. If we maintain a constant barrage of traffic aimed squarely at them, our elected officials must take notice. (And if we don’t, we throw the bums out.)
More below the fold.
If you‘re of a creative bent, rather than use the canned tweets on the OFA site, write your own! Even better, cruise over to your rep/senator’s twitter page and reply directly to their fatuous drivel.
Fatuous drivel, you ask? If you’ve ever visited a politician’s Twitter page you know what I mean: empty encomiums to our troops by legislators who clearly don’t know or care (or more likely won’t admit) that American troops will be increasingly put in harm’s way as the world warms… chipper tweets about jobs, and not a peep about GREEN jobs... simplistic platitudes about patriotism… and feel-good billet-doux to donors like “great to see Midge and Harry at the Weehawken Pork Bake and Tractor Auction this weekend!”
It’s all fodder for talking to them about climate change. Representative Gesundheit went to a Pork Bake and Tractor Auction? Remind him of the carbon footprint of raising meat, and the challenges farmers are facing as the world warms. Senator Gladhands supports the military? Remind her that no less an authority than the Pentagon predicts that climate change will be a threat multiplier, and put more American troops in harm’s way. Representative Nudnik tweets pictures of his kids fly fishing? Tweet him this link about conservation and the conservative principles behind acting to halt further climate change.
Is your Governor doing enough at the state level? If not, tweet! When she talks about the local 4H club, you can tweet her about the climate we’re leaving behind for those kids. If he tweets about minimum wage jobs, call on him to do more to add green jobs to the state’s economy. If he talks up the state’s wonderful tourism industry, tweet a link to the impact climate change will have on the environment.
Twitter isn’t much, but it’s something. It’s an easy, easy place to start. If you care about climate change and have 15 seconds to spend on Twitter, please tweet your elected officials! Get all up in their collective grille! Harried staffers are counting the traffic and taking note of trending hashtags. No politician wants to be outside the mainstream, or on the record as being against a popular position.
Many politicians talk about action on GHG emissions as if that would spell the death knell for the American economy. They mutter darkly about “job killing regulations,” and predict “economic disaster” for their state – as Senator Mitch McConnell, for instance, has said about the effect of sensible EPA regulations on Kentucky. This is balderdash, of course. I suspect most of them know it, but are too in thrall to donors from various Big Oil and coal and fossil fuel corporations to be intellectually honest.
Nevertheless, enough public pressure – real “hue and cry” public pressure – may move the dial, if we’re loud, insistent, and do it in the public square. Feel free to use any of my #MondayMorningClimateWarming images - I tweet as @SninkyPoo.
Until the next climate march, Twitter is the public square. Let’s let them know in no uncertain terms that they must change their stance, or lose their jobs. They ain't seen “disaster” yet. Climate change is already a disaster, and it’s getting worse.
Can’t say it any plainer than that.