As a member of the Sierra Club's national Board of Directors, I have received tremendous pressure to hold my tongue and refrain from speaking my mind on Al Gore's environmental record. I was one of the few Club board members who voted against a Gore endorsement, in favor of endorsing Ralph Nader for President. I accept that a majority of those in my own organization disagree with me on this issue. However, after witnessing Al Gore, certain syndicated columnists, and the Sierra Club turn on Ralph Nader in the closing days of this election, I feeled compelled to offer my views.

A vote for Ralph Nader is a vote for George W. Bush, the saying goes. Gore himself echoed this sentiment recently at a campaign stop in Wisconsin. I was deeply offended. While making this statement, Gore essentially acknowledged that he is the lesser environmental candidate, compared to Nader. But rather than improve his environmental stance to address the concerns of those who would vote for Nader, he instead uses this scare tactic to coerce environmentalists to support him despite their better judgement. According to Gore, it is us who have to change, not him: vote for me, or else. I simply don't accept this brand of electioneering.

Besides, I believe it is far from clear whether Gore would in fact be better for the environment than Bush. There's no question about the fact that Bush is a regressive neanderthal when it comes to the environment. He'd love to increase logging on national forests, and open up sensitive wildlands to oil drilling. But would he be effective in achieving these anti-environmental objectives? I doubt it. The environmental community would pull out all the stops, justifiably branding Bush as environmental villain number one. The press would scrutinize his every move; and moderates in his own party would resist his attempts to undermine environmental laws, lest he tarnish their reputations by association. There would be an epic backlash, and Bush would be hamstrung.

Gore, on the other hand, is a totally different story. The national environmental groups are notorious for looking the other way when a Democrat President they helped get elected sells out the environment. The relationship, in my view, has become too cozy. The writing, in fact, is already on the wall. In two separate campaign stops, Gore proclaimed that he supports continuing the commercial logging program on this nation's national forests--a view out of step with three out of four Americans (Nader would end timber sales on national forests). There wasn't a peep from prominent environmental groups. Nor was there any cry from the large national groups when the Clinton/Gore Administration, just weeks ago, made a deal with Congressional Republicans to enact the largest funding increase for timber sales on federal lands in recent memory. Gore's failure to support the removal of outdated Northwest dams that are harming imperiled salmon runs was met with criticism so tepid it barely registered in the media.

The problem is, when it comes to comparing Gore and Bush on the environment, Bush is twice as bad but half as effective, while Gore is half as bad but twice as effective. On the ground where it counts, the difference between the two, in terms of the damage they are capable of, is likely to be negligible.

So, what's a self-respecting environmentally-minded voter to do? Simple, vote for Nader. Reject the "lesser of two evils" approach and the politics of fear. Vote for your candidate because their positions inspire you and give you hope, not because they have made you afraid of their opponent. Ultimately, things won't begin to get better for the environment until people stop voting for candidates they don't really want.

Chad Hanson is a national director of the Sierra Club.

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