Don’t be a yokel

How I love the little things you do. Half of life is just showing up. The sum is greater than its parts.

That said, eco-warriors, what the hell are you doing on behalf of Mama Earth these days?

There’s arsenic in rice. Charbroiled burgers create more air pollution than diesel trucks. What does it matter?

If you are Brian May from Queen, you’re trying to get England to stop killing badgers.

If you are the Seattle Mariners, you gave 5,000 baseball fans their very own bag of gardening soil—composted from old napkins and last season’s hot dogs.

If you are Tim DeChristopher, you are back in jail. (Convicted of civil disobedience for bidding on parcels of public land—many near national parks—in an effort to stop their development for oil and gas; his appeal was recently overturned.)

If you’re Mayim Bialik, you are vegan all the way down to your nail polish. And so on, and so on, and scooby, dooby, dooby.

You do what you can: recycle, reuse, reduce; drive your bike a little more; change your routines; try to be good.

Only so many hours in the day. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. It is what it is.

But do this: Stop dithering about.

Vote for Obama.

Whatever your reservations, be they revolutionary, anarchistic, indie-metal rocker, I’m-so-left-I-think-I’ll-light-myself-on-fire, a tragically Republican childhood, how you admire your beautiful politics in the mirror when you comb your hair—whatever. Environmentally speaking, the choice is clear, your vote is important and nothing is simple anymore.

Mitt Romney doesn’t think carbon pollution is a threat. President Barack Obama issued the first-ever carbon-pollution rules for power plants. Romney is against fuel-efficiency standards. Obama has already set standards requiring cars to average 54 mpg by 2025. Romney endorses Paul Ryan’s budget, which gives a 60 percent funding increase to coal, oil and natural gas and decreases research on solar projects and loans for fuel-efficient cars. Obama &8220;will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.&8221; Romney has repeatedly called green jobs fake. Obama has achieved a historic level of investment in clean energy (according to Grist).

Vote for Obama. Get your friends to vote for Obama, especially the eco-aware types who somehow think it doesn’t matter. It does. And, oh, while you’re at it, vote Ami Bera for Congress. If you think Romney is bad, ditto the local yokel Dan Lungren.