Nate Silver nabs an important poll finding: now that Barack Obama is President, large numbers of Democrats and Independents think that the environment is getting better, even though it totally is not:
This is very worrying, as it is a sign of how complacency can set in among grassroots supporters once their preferred political party takes power. Even though Obama has only been President for three months, even though his major environmental legislation largely remains bottled up in the Senate, many of Obama's supporters seem to think that the environment is improving simply because he is President now.
This is, of course, crap. The level of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses, in the atmosphere continues to increase. Water scarcity problems are getting worse. Soil contamination is getting worse. Mass extinctions are continuing apace. These problems are not going away, or even stabilizing. As Nate writes, at best, the "environment is getting worse less quickly, not that it's actually improving."
This is a problem that can also be seen in the audience for progressive media declining since the election. Once an individual's preferred political party takes power, oftentimes that individual seem to think that the problems that made them support that party are just solved. The truth is that taking political power just gives you an opportunity to finally work on those problems, and doesn't mean anything is actually solved.
While Obama's presence in office probably isn't the only factor in the newfound, unjustifiable Democratic and Independent optimism on sustainability and the environment, it is still disturbing to think about how "HOPE" can quickly turn into complacency. This is a fine line for politicians to walk, as they know both that they need their very presence in office to instill confidence (otherwise, why would people vote for them?), and that they need continuing grassroots pressure once in office to help pass their agenda. In this case, we need to do a much better job of continuing to rally the troops, because winning the election didn't solve anything. All it did is provide us an opportunity to solve the problems we face. On that front, a lot of work remains to be done.
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