Green Conservatism

Can Red be Green?
How to Show Love for Environment Without Hugging Trees

By Douglas W. Bailey

Over the past several years, the controversies about energy have begun to take the forefront in the political and economic world. Questions about the environmental consequences of energy production, distribution, consumption, and energy policy are at the top of every news program’s daily reel, grace the front page of every major newspaper in the country, and even show up as themes on the big screen (i.e., The Day After Tomorrow, Happy Feet, An Inconvenient Truth, etc.). This trend has sent the liberal politicians scrambling to come up with a plan that will quell the mass hysteria. Unfortunately, the conservatives see fit to do just the opposite. As a result, the American people are left with policies that secure the environment, but at the same time, curtail the rights of individuals and business owners, and hamper the economy. May this article get the conservatives off the couch and show that it’s possible to create a policy that expresses both our ethical obligations to the environment as well as to individual rights and the economy.

The Earth is not Flat, and The Fred Syndrome

Yesterday, after a long day at work, I sat down in front of the television with a hot plate of pizza in my hands. After clicking the power button on my trusty remote control, I was greeted by the beautifully bearded face of “The Honorable” Al Gore, as he’s now come to be known (I actually saw his placard with those words printed on it during a session of Congress on C-SPAN II). At the bottom of the screen flashed: Al Gore – Nobel Peace Prize Winner. I thought, wow, that’s even more astonishing than seeing “The Honorable” on his placard. Astonished as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to change the channel. My finger even reached for the volume-up button and pressed it a few times. After listening for a moment, I thought, wow! Even more astonishing than the caption placed beneath The Honorable Al Gore’s face (which was more astonishing than seeing “The Honorable” on his placard) were the words coming from his mouth. When asked about an op-ed piece written by a member of the IPCC (the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticizing his dire predictions about the cause and impact of global warming, The Honorable Al Gore smiled with compassion and pity and said, “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat, but when you’re reporting on a story like the one you’re covering today [global warming], where you have people all around the world, you don’t search out for someone who still believes the Earth is flat and give them equal time.”

In effect, anyone who disagrees with The Honorable Al Gore on the issue of global warming is also likely to be one of the handful of individuals who still believes the Earth is flat. This is a convenient way to shut out the opposing view, and has worked wonderfully to a large extent, because when conservatives hear this kind of condescending, arrogant rhetoric, they don’t just turn off the television; they turn off the debate. It’s a natural enough reaction. And if it ended with turning off the television, it might even be an honorable reaction. But more often than not, turning off the television leads to turning off the brain whenever the environmental debate resurfaces.

In a way, it’s a lot like Fred, my neighbor’s cat, who used to drool and meow every time he heard the gentle hum of the electric can-opener. Fred’s brain had made the connection that “can-opener” equals “tuna fish dinner,” despite the fact that it was a can of tuna only 25% of the time. For the conservative brain, words like “green,” “environment,” and more recently “Nobel,” act like that gentle electric hum, but instead of getting hungry at the thought of some juicy tuna fish, we get irritated. Those buzz words trigger the memory of the condescending, arrogant attitude embodied by Nobel Peace Prize Winner The Honorable Al Gore, which thus triggers the power-off button.

Getting Over the Fred Syndrome

However natural a reaction powering off might be, it’s the wrong one. Unfortunately, it’s the only answer coming from the right at this time. Whenever a question is asked about global warming, the response is usually something like, “well, I don’t believe people are causing global warming, so there’s nothing we can do to stop it.” That sentiment is a common theme for Rush Limbaugh, in many ways the voice of conservative ideology. And actually, there is plenty of evidence to support his claim and the generally held conservative belief that global warming is caused by things other than man, and that the apocalyptic predictions of destruction due to warming are unfounded.

In his article, “Climate Stability: an Inconvenient Proof,” David Bellamy argues that “Global warming is a largely natural phenomenon. The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” This is essentially the same argument made by Mr. Limbaugh, but coming at it from a scientific foundation.

Antonino Zichichi, the president of the World Federation of Scientists, and an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Bologna, expresses his belief in the inaccuracy of these predictions: “The models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view.” So even if we concede the point – go along with the idea that man causes climate change – the idea that it will cause destruction is based on incoherent and invalid science. In fact, according to Sherwood Idso, a former research physicist for the USDA Water Conservation Laboratory and emeritus professor at Arizona St. University, “warming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it.” In other words, we have nothing to fear! My relatives in Wyoming should be welcoming the increase in temperatures. In addition to getting healthier food, they’ll finally be able to start playing golf in the traditionally cold and wintry weeks in April and May, when the golf season is supposed to be getting underway.
Conservatives can prove that humanity is not responsible for global warming the same way liberals can prove we are responsible. But “let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who,” to quote the King from Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Arguing over who exactly is responsible is causing us to miss the point. Climate change is occurring no matter whom or what is responsible. The problem with the conservative stance is not that we deny responsibility for global warming, but that the denial bleeds into a denial of responsibility to the environment as a whole. We can argue about the cause, we can argue about what effect we can have on changing the trends, and we can argue about how devastating the effects will be if we don’t do something about it. Instead of arguing about that, why don’t we agree to agree that we might as well make the environment a cleaner place, because we want our kids to breathe fresh air too.

A Cleaner Earth is a Better Earth*

Say what you will about Nobel Peace Prize Winner The Honorable Al Gore, but he has succeeded in raising awareness of the fact that temperatures are rising and that our environment could use some cleaning. He might have juiced his documentary up with some HGH, a few steroids here and there, especially in regards to a certain desperate polar bear drowning in the all but melted Arctic Sea, but we can still accept his claims in broad terms (albeit with an asterisk in mind [i.e., Barry Bonds and his home run ball]), at least in the sense that a cleaner earth is a better earth.

The question that now remains is how we go about cleaning the earth.

For the most part, the liberal solutions to cleaning up the environment are based on litigation, higher taxes, and government regulation. On the regulation front, you have Hillary. Her plan to clean the air is as follows: “This bipartisan bill would require power plants to significantly reduce harmful emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and carbon dioxide.” That sounds easy enough. But the Senator forgot to mention what happens to the power plants when the government decides to regulate their production. The price of production increases, which means the price of distribution increases, which means the price of retail increases. The general public takes the financial hit for the regulation, and when the public takes a hit, the economy takes a hit.

On the higher tax front, we can look to Barack Obama for his solution to curbing climate change:

I believe we should make the auto companies a deal that…It's a piece of legislation I introduced called "Health Care for Hybrids," and it would allow the federal government to pick up part of the tab for the auto companies' retiree health care costs. In exchange, the auto companies would then use some of that savings to build and invest in more fuel-efficient cars. It's a win-win proposal for the industry - their retirees will be taken care of, they'll save money on health care, and they'll be free to invest in the kind of fuel-efficient cars that are the key to their competitive future.

Appealing at first glance, but like Hillary, Barack forgets an important piece to the puzzle: where does the money from the federal government come from? That’s right. The citizens. In order for the federal government to provide for the auto companies’ retiree health care costs, it will have to take from the people first. And what happens to the economy when taxes are raised? That’s right.

And finally, the litigation front: two years ago, the state of New York, along with two adjoining states, began legal action against a power company in Pennsylvania for creating air pollution that drifts across state lines. The litigation intends to sue the corporate officers and force the company to install antipollution equipment. But according to a representative of the industry, forcing the company to use the most advanced and most expensive pollution-control devices would only “raise electricity rates in poor areas of West Virginia…and do nothing to decrease pollution.”

A Cleaner Earth is a Better Earth (No Asterisk Included)

The liberals’ obsession with expanding government regulations and taxes to curb greenhouse gases is just as destructive for the economy as the conservatives’ infection of the Fred Syndrome is as destructive to the environment. Neither attitude will work. What needs to be brought into political arena is a brand of environmentalism that is intrinsically tied to conservative values – an environmentalism that is market-driven, incentive-led, entrepreneurial, and optimistic.

The Strategerie

This new brand of “green conservatism” offers a more effective approach than litigation, as in the case in New York. Instead of driving the cost of energy up for the people of West Virginia by forcing expensive regulations on the plant and suing their corporate officers, an attempt ought to be made to drive the cost down! The way to do this is through tax incentives. Offering the plant financial rewards for adhering to a self-imposed maintenance program will motivate them to regulate themselves. It’s much easier to convince someone to do something when there’s a reward for doing it. The power plant will be more willing to impose sanctions on itself if it doesn’t come as a financial burden.

In addition to providing motivation for the company, decreasing the taxes will enable the cost of production to go down or at least to remain the same. This means the price of the energy produced can also go down or remain the same, which in turn means no added cost for the consumer, which in this case, are the people of West Virginia.

The same principle applies to the auto-makers. Supposing they do need more incentive than the demands of the market (a debatable claim in and of itself), Green Conservatism can offer it. Instead of raising taxes on the American people to pay for the auto-makers’ retiree health care costs, the federal and state governments could reduce the taxes on companies that decide to research, develop, and build more fuel-efficient cars. This way, not only will the auto-makers be contributing to a cleaner environment, but their retirees will get to keep their health care, and the American people get to keep their money! There’s your “win-win!”

Conclusion

The constant attack from the left on corporations, consumers, SUV-driving soccer moms, and in general, humanity, for their destruction of the environment tends not to inspire conservatives to think “green,” but to see red. In anger, the conservative turns the other cheek, as a good Christian should. But because the left continues to throw punches, by way of taxes, regulations, and litigation, it is time for the conservative to keep that cheek where it is, to square up, and fight back with some answers of his own. Namely, that it’s not up to the government to dictate environmental ethics, and that businesses and individuals can be “green” without being liberal.

If conservatives can rally around the platform of Green Conservatism, it will not only allow the free market to work its magic (which allows the economy to continue to grow), but will also help create an environment with higher living standards for our children and a cleaner planet with greater biodiversity.