By Thomas Princen

All the candidates are talking about the environment. And yet, they're not.

For the growing number of people concerned about climate change and other environmental problems, this is puzzling. From global warming to tainted food to disappearing species, the list is increasingly familiar, and worrisome.

It's a list that cuts across the ideological spectrum. Blue and red coastal states are worried about rising sea levels. Hunters and bird watchers lament the changes in migrations. Evangelicals and foodies worry about what they eat. Yet it seems that the more the candidates talk about the environment, the less they talk about real concerns, about concrete issues that actually affect people — drying reservoirs, disappearing game, tainted foods and toxic toys, forest fires and floods.

Because people are mostly motivated by what they experience, candidates need to show they can ensure an environment that sustains us rather than threatens us. That begins with the basics: fertile soil; clean, free-flowing water; healthy food; a stable climate.

Here's what voters should consider as they size up candidates:

1. Be wary of bland professions of concern. A "clean environment" is as abstract as peace and democracy. Who is not for such ideals?

2. Watch out for candidates who lure voters into the "environment vs. economy" or "owls vs. jobs" trap. Instead, look for those who connect healthy ecosystems to healthy people (via, for example, healthy food and clean water) and to a healthy economy (one that eschews ecological debt — withdrawing groundwater faster than it recharges, for example — as much as financial debt).

3. Check for real targets. Policies that aim to reduce emissions per dollar of gross domestic product sound good, but if the economy grows rapidly, so might total emissions and, as a result, respiratory ailments and global warming. Promising to do something in the distant future, when well out of office, is not a scientifically or politically meaningful target.

4. Look for ecological metrics. GDP is not a measure of sustainable resource use. Nor are trade figures and stock market readings. Look instead for candidates' understanding of the ecological footprint (a measure of land acreage needed to maintain current consumption) or a sustainability index (a combination of quality-of-life measures and environmental measures).

5. Beware of claims that we can buy our way out of serious resource problems, especially those associated with overconsumption. Green products might be better than brown ones, but consuming more is still consuming — and still drawing down resources such as soil and water.

6. Look for hard steps that match hard problems. If a community is overpumping its groundwater, the easy solution is to find "new supplies." The hard solution is to reduce water consumption.

7. Finally, look for positive statements about sacrifice. A candidate who has the gumption to ask all citizens — not just soldiers, firefighters and police officers — to sacrifice for the common good is likely to understand the seriousness of the environmental challenges.

Thomas Princen is an associate professor of natural resource and environmental policy at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Logic of Sufficiency.

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