Voting for the Planet Is the Most Important Action You Can Take

In 2024, in one of the great travesties of the 21st century, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. He has spent the time since using that power to wreck the future of this country and the world —especially on climate. And remarkably, in an election that close, a great many environmentally concerned Americans simply didn't vote. We need to make sure that doesn't happen again: not in the midterms, and not in 2028.

Nothing matters more to slowing climate change than voting. Individual actions — buying an EV, recycling — still count, but the enemies of climate action win through politics. In March 2025, Donald Trump gathered a group of Big Oil executives at the White House. According to Regime Change, the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the executives barely had to lobby — they described their wishes and watched them granted. When they complained about the Climate Superfund laws recently passed in Vermont and New York, policy adviser Stephen Miller texted Attorney General Pam Bondi and told the room, "I'm on it." Less than two months later, the administration sued both states.

The wish list keeps getting filled: tariff threats against the European Union to force it off its oil and gas regulations, and a green light for Chevron in Venezuela — a country whose president U.S. forces seized in a January 2026 strike, after which Trump announced American companies would return to its oil fields.

Then came the twist.  After doing everything he can to lift oil and gas revenues–and started a war that choked off the Strait of Hormuz–he now finds the result distasteful. "They're making too much money based on a shortage," he complained this month, after Exxon and Chevron reported blockbuster quarters. "I don't like it." He would like them to cut the price at the pump, please, before the midterms.

 He has also persuaded other countries and institutions to retreat. The EU has watered down its own climate rules. And in June, under pressure from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the World Bank retired its pledge to direct 45% of annual lending to projects with climate benefits — a target it had exceeded for the first time only the year before.

President Trump sabotaged an emissions regulation on the shipping industry that was about to be adopted by the International Maritime Organization by threatening to increase tariffs and revoke the visas of diplomats if their country voted for the regulation.

The atmospheric results are measurable too. In 2025, the United States alone accounted for roughly a third of the global rise in energy-related carbon dioxide, according to the Energy Institute's annual review — driven by a 10% jump in U.S. coal consumption as power producers switched back from pricier gas. Trump has dismantled the Biden administration's climate agenda piece by piece, and his Energy Department has issued more than forty emergency orders since May 2025 — mostly rolling 90-day renewals — forcing coal plants slated for closure to keep running.

You don't need a spreadsheet to see the consequences. This summer brought record heat and the largest wildfires in French history to Europe, the fastest-warming continent on Earth. Closer to home, smoke from out-of-control Canadian fires drifted south over the World Cup, fouling the air in stadium cities while a heat dome pushed temperatures past 110°F. Those were the conditions under which the world's best soccer players spent their July  — the hottest July ever recorded in the United States.

Meanwhile, to keep demand for hydrocarbons alive, we are handing away the industries of the future. American automakers that had gone all in on electric vehicles have written off tens of billions and retreated to gas and hybrids, while cheap Chinese EVs stay locked out by a tariff exceeding 100%.

All these examples show why who you vote into office has a direct effect on the climate, including who you vote into Congress, because the Republican-controlled Congress has allowed all these actions instead of checking Presidential excesses.

And remember: Trump's Electoral College victory rested on about 230,000 votes across Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Roughly 2 million fewer Americans voted for president in 2024 than in 2020, even as the voting-eligible population grew by over 4 million. Young people were a bigger share of nonvoters than four years earlier. So were plenty of people who say they care about climate change. 

While Trump isn’t on the ballot in November, many important positions are, including all of the U.S. House of Representatives  as well as a third of the Senate. Neither of Pennsylvania’s senators are up for election, but you can support those in other states that are in pivotal races by donating, postcarding, and most importantly, talking to your friends in those states. 

In Pennsylvania, the Republican-controlled State Senate is blocking laws we need to stop data centers that suck up electricity, raising prices for all of us, as well as other environmental laws that decrease our CO2 emissions.  The control of the Senate can be changed with just two seats changing from Republican to Democrat. It’s critical that we do so. 

We need to turn out the voters. Make sure young people you know vote! Support the Environmental Voter Project. And get your Vote for the Planet bumper magnet!  The Community Netzero Educational Project will give you one – or sell you more for $2 a piece! Sign up here

Vote For the Planet!