Updates

As a Tarkio High School senior in April 1970, I didn't place Earth Day at the top of my priority list. Other than a few fumes inhaled while operating farm equipment, the air seemed plenty healthy and clean in my rural northwest Missouri community. Hogs and cattle smelled a little at times. "Smells like money," we would say. But pollution -- that was a city problem.

Imagine if 15 million environmentalists decided to take 14 minutes and vote next Election Day. It could change everything.

Tens of millions of Americans will also have the opportunity to vote for a new mayor in 2016.

Many of us now realize that climate change and other environmental issues have become – quite literally – existential problems. So why are politicians still so unwilling to pass the laws and regulations that we desperately need?

When Stinnett - a veteran campaign strategist who has been involved with several U.S. Senate, congressional, state, and local races - saw the environment consistently low on lists of voter concerns, he wondered what was going on. Convinced that getting those people to the polls would be easier than getting non-believers to go green, Stinnett created the crowdfunded Environmental Voter Project.

It wasn't just in Paris. People from around the world began celebrating on Saturday evening as officials from more than 190 countries agreed to a landmark global deal to address climate change.

As the Boston City Council election nears, clipboard-toting canvassers are busy stumping for their chosen candidate, working to get out the vote in a low-key race. But an environmental group now door-knocking in the neighborhoods isn’t trying to get anyone elected. Instead, the group is hoping to persuade inconsistent voters — the kind political campaigns typically ignore — to simply head to the polls.