Now if you were an environmentalist group and going to endorse a candidate, which one of these would you choose?
The person with the 100% (or 92%): Bernie Sanders?
Or the person with the 82%: Hillary Clinton?
Bernie Sanders was the highest rated candidate on the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) scorecard and the Climate Hawks Vote PAC in 2016.
Clinton had the weakest environmental record of the Democratic candidates using the LCV's standard.
Yet, the LCV chose Clinton.
What the fuck?
LCV's Action Fund took an unprecedented step of endorsing Hillary Clinton for president after only one debate between the Democratic candidates and months before the first vote in the Democratic primaries was cast. That was a big mistake. It was far too early in this primary for the nation’s most powerful environmental political organization to make an endorsement.
Yet they did. And they chose a candidate who was poor by their own standards!
Clinton promoted the internationalization of fracking and oversaw the State Department’s initial support for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline during her tenure as Secretary of State. The one major climate accomplishment she touts, the Copenhagen Accord, is considered by climate activists to be a huge failure. Clinton is the only candidate with deep ties to the financiers and lobbyists of the fossil-fuel industry, on Wall Street and beyond.
Clinton supported the continued exploitation of our nation’s public carbon reserves, while Sanders had introduced legislation that would put an end to fossil-fuel leases on public lands. Sanders and Martin O’Malley actively supported the climate divestment movement, while Clinton , whose campaign and super PAC accept funding from fracking investors and fossil-fuel industry lobbyists did not taken a position.
This was Clinton's reaction when asked about her connection to the fossil fuel industry by a Greenpeace Volunteer.
Clinton never did the actions necessary to gain the support of the environmentalist movement (other than those establishment groups who are hopeful that change can come through the duopoly regime). On the other hand, climate change had short shrift if it received any attention at all during the campaign.
There are a lot of issues going on here from having a candidate chosen long before the primary process begins, failure to have a serious debate on the issue, and just plain off earning the vote.
The environment is just one of many issues where Clinton just wasn't trustworthy. And she didn't help the situation by antagonising environmental activists. She failed to give straight answers on the issue. I would toss in that she failed to address The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) issue in a meaningful manner.
But this is one of many issues where Clinton demonstrated she wasn't trustworthy.
I really have to question who rigged the election when a group such as LCV essentially declared that there’s no need for any further discussion of the environment or climate by the Democratic candidates before the primary process really began. And they decided that in favour of a candidate who was poor by their own standard.
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