Economists often talk about “revealed preferences.” If Uncle Stu
says that he wants to watch his weight but continues to gorge
himself like a wild boar, it’s clear that his preference to eat
outweighs any desire to drop a few pounds.
Similarly, although this election was viewed as a victory for the
environmental movement, it also revealed an important truth about
how most Americans view environmental issues. They may agree that
protecting the environment is important in the abstract but when
they go into the voting booth they weigh green initiatives
against other concerns and often refuse to cast green ballots.
California Propositions 7 and 10 would have pumped resources into
renewable energy and natural-gas powered vehicles, respectively.
The state’s voters, supposedly among the most eco-friendly
citizens in the nation, rejected the measures.
Likewise, greenish Colorado voters rejected a tax on the oil and
gas industries that would have funneled money to cleaner energy.
Why did two of the most exquisitely environmentally sensitive
states in nation end up voting against the environmentalists?
It probably boils down to one fairly straightforward explanation.
The environmental issues on the ballot cost money and those costs
will hit people where it hurts the most — in their shrinking
wallets.
“There are no atheists in foxholes,” goes the old saying. Without
being quite so categorical, we can say there are remarkably few
environmentalists at the ballot box. It turns out that, in the
anonymity and quiet of the voting booth, people care more about
putting food on the table and covering their kids’ college
tuition than they do about being “green.”
This is nothing new. Californians voted down Proposition 87 in
2006, a tax on oil companies and a special fund for renewable
energy. In 2005, they failed to pass proposition 80, which would
have required that more of people’s electricity needs be supplied
by expensive renewable energy.
The timing of the elections doesn’t seem to make a difference
when it comes to defeating these measures. This year and 2006
were good years for green-leaning Democrats. They captured and
increased their majorities in Congress and state houses and won
the White House. In 1992 and 1996, voters in Nevada and
Massachusetts defeated green initiatives at the same time that
Bill Clinton and Al “Earth in the Balance” Gore were having a
remarkably good time of it.
This contradiction can fool people, even pollsters. Few predicted
that this year’s green ballot initiatives would fail as they did,
especially given the overwhelming majority that transformed
Senator Barack Obama into President-Elect Obama. The weekend
before the election, the Sacramento Bee had Proposition
10 favored for passage by 49% to 39% of likely voters. In fact,
it got clobbered 40.2% to 59.8%.
One explanation for the victory for green politicians but not
green initiatives is that democracy is a blunt instrument. When
we vote for politicians, we simply cannot vote on every issue on
which they have stated a position. This year, voters were more
worried about the economy, the war, the stock market, and the
amount of money spent on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe,
than on whether we’ll all be driving Priuses by 2020.
The 2008 elections have been interpreted as a green mandate.
Congress now looks set to proceed with green jobs initiatives,
renewable portfolio standards, Kyoto II, and cap and trade, among
other things. These bills may meet very little resistance and
even the ones that fail initially will be retooled and sent back
for passage.
Congress will do this because voters are said to be demanding
“change” on environmental issues. But many supposedly green
voters already had a chance to vote on that kind of change. They
said no.
