WARNING: this is an opinion piece. I will try to present facts, but I’m not an unbiased news source.
Oh boy. Whether you are rooting for the guy who got Clint Eastwood to babble to an empty chair (Mitt Romney), or the guy who is tap dancing as fast as he can in the White House to the “be patient. hope is on the way” song (President Barack Obama), you know this is a critical crossroad in our country’s history. The ideologies of the two main political parties have gotten so strange that by 50-year-old standards Obama would be considered conservative and Romney wouldn’t be taken seriously at all.
I was always a Hillary gal, but in 2008, I rallied behind the man of hope and was surprisingly inspired when he indeed took office. The country was hitting some harsh realities and the mere whiff of hope and change created a magical sense that we could suck it up and go through our growing pains and band together to become a stronger nation again. Lots of airy rhetoric and it worked . . . for like 5 minutes. Then the backlash of opposition turned the beltway into crazy town with all kinds of crazy talk about demolishing access to women’s healthcare; getting rid of the EPA; and giving personal rights to corporations. Ok. I’m probably exaggerating on these things, but that’s how it felt.
The Tea Party faction became cement in the intestines of our federal government to the point of painful and dangerous legislative constipation. Seems to me it is a miracle ANYTHING happened these last 3.5 years!
Obama proved to be less effective at Presidential governing than he was at campaigning. Most liberals feel that he compromised too much; the conservatives never enough. It’s been a tenuous and rough go for Obama’s first term (and possibly only) the oval office.
While lacking luster, did his policies keep us from going deeper into economic disaster? Hard to tell, but I’ve been trying to pay attention to his policies regarding the environment, energy and agriculture (GMOs specifically). He’s got a bit of a track-record regarding these things, where Romney has none. Although if you look to the RNC platform, it is easy to see where Romney draws his environmental and energy planks from.
In my opinion, as a Green Diva, Obama has better environmental and energy plans than Romney overall (and as I stated earlier somewhat of a track-record). It’s an imperfect plan that involves steps towards energy independence via homeland/offshore drilling and tapping into natural gas reserves presumably via fracking. This concerned me deeply and I decided to run a GD poll on the GD Facebook page. Here’s what we got so far (please feel free to weigh in!):
- A step in the right direction – I’m voting for Obama: 65%
- Not acceptable – I’m voting for Romney: 4%
- Need to learn more about both party’s stance on drilling & fracking: 4%
- This issue doesn’t affect my decision – I’m for Obama: 17%
- This issue doesn’t affect my decision – I’m for Romney: 5%
- This issue doesn’t affect my decision – I’m not voting for either of them: 5%
Here are a few great comments from green divas & dudes that took this GD poll:
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Hi,
California law does not allow home owners to size their Solar systems larger than what they use.
Residential home owners, should be allowed to participate in the State mandated goal, to achieve 33% renewable energy by 2020.
Due to this law, we have automatically taken out over 8 million roof tops, that would generate over 11,500MW of power, thats 5 San Onofre nuclear power plants.
We need to let our tax paying, home owning citizens in on this Feed in Tariff, it would be a gold mine for the State, Counties, Cities and the Environment, the possibilities of each entity selling carbon credits is an untapped gold vein.
That’s why I created a petition to California Energy Commission, California Public Utility Comission and Governor Jerry Brown, which says:
” The California Feed in Tariff allows eligible customers-generators to enter into 10- 15 or 20 year contracts with their Utilities to sell the electricity produced by renewable energy systems, let California home owners in on the Feed in Tariff allowing them to over size their Solar systems.”
Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name:
http://signon.org/sign/let-california-home-owners?source=c.fwd&r_by=3329334
Thanks!
When I saw this post I had to share this awesome infographic we created about the latest green regulations. Let me know what you think!
http://www.ambientbp.com/greenliving.php
Hi Bernadette, I like your infographic, its nice to read that we are going to address some of these toxic chemicals and get them out of the environment. I have revised my petition, click on and read the meat of it, what do you think ? Japan and Germany will pay residents between 32- 52 cents per kilowatt hour, here in California they will pay us 4 cents per kilowatt hour, want to change our Feed in Tariff ? Campaign to allow Californian residents to sell electricity obtained by renewable energy for a fair pro-business market price. Will you read, sign, and share this petition ?
http://signon.org/sign/let-california-home-owners
I wish I didn’t have to vote for a democrat, but they’re always the lesser of the two evils. On a political affiliation chart, Obama ranks “authoritarian Conservative,” only slightly less so than Romney. I want a real liberal, someone who cares more about people, animals, & the environment & less about big business, oil, & making more money.