One California voter tweeted: “‘Help me fight climate change’ says the campaign mailer going straight into the recycle bin.”
Then there’s the Facebook user who called “snail mail” campaign fliers “mostly a nuisance these days,” and said her main response to them is this question: “Don’t these people care even a bit about the environment?”
If you’re a registered voter, and particularly if you live in a district with a competitive primary race, your mailbox has likely been flooded in recent days with political campaign fliers.
Like all mail, each of these fliers leaves a small carbon footprint. Trees are felled to make their paper and gas-powered vehicles spew carbon to deliver them. That’s why climate groups encourage everyone to turn off paper billing, to opt out of junk mail, and to “think before you print.”
But despite the growing role that digital advertising now plays in modern elections, the decades-old tradition of mailing out campaign fliers shows no signs of slowing down.
That’s true even of candidates who use those mailers to tout their passion for fighting climate change.
“Campaigns are notorious for being slow adapters,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches politics at USC and worked as a strategist on past presidential and gubernatorial campaigns.
“But there still is significant residual value in old fashioned snail mail,” he added. “So a campaign that moves away from it for philosophical or ideological reasons is potentially compromising their effectiveness.”
Even groups like California Environmental Voters, which grades candidates on their action around climate change, aren’t yet pushing for campaigns to completely ditch mailers.
“It’s an important tradeoff,” said Mike Young, senior political and organizing director for the environment group.
While he’s glad to see people asking these questions, Young said, “Electing someone who’s going to do more and be strong on environment issues has a…
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