What Conservatism Taught Us About Conservation

Environmentalists often wonder, with some justification, why they have so little political clout and so much difficulty making headway. In polls, Americans overwhelmingly evince concern for the environment, while a majority of us also favor stricter gun-control legislation. Why, then, do most politicians essentially ignore environmentalists while genuflecting to the National Rifle Association, which aggressively promotes a much less popular cause?

Like any complex question, this one has a complex answer. But one component of that answer may be that the "environmental movement" has many foci and speaks with many voices -- voices that do not always agree. Ask two randomly selected environmentalists which is more important, industrial pollution or deforestation, and you'll likely to get two different answers. Take aside two environmentalists who agree that deforestation is the most critical problem and ask them the best way to fix it, and you'll get two different answers again. The more nuanced or discordant a message, the easier it is for policymakers to cite "conflicting viewpoints" and brush it aside.

This phenomenon is even more pronounced among conservation-oriented academics. Many scholars build their careers around a certain set of ideas about how best to conserve nature; those ideas are often countered, the counters rebutted, the rebuttals rejoindered, and the rejoinders refuted in what can become epic (and occasionally tedious) exchanges in the literature. Of course, disagreement is part and parcel of science. But conservation, while ideally science-based, is not exactly science -- it is a social, economic, and political agenda, and science is just one tool in its shed. Perhaps for this reason, we have heard more than one colleague imply that dissent among conservation biologists and ecological economists should be muted. As one friend once put it to us, "We don't want to give ammunition to the other side."

Well. We have to admit that in our more cynical moments, we have been tempted by this view. Might presenting a unified front really a prerequisite for getting what you want in the political sphere? Might the ends, in vital issues like these, justify the means?

At the end of the day, we think not. Recent political events are instructive. We were tickled to read, in Saturday's New York Times, a piece entitled "Unease In The Conservative Commentariat," which contained the following passage:

"The strength of the [conservative] movement, as it gained power, rested on discipline. Conservative writers and thinkers might disagree, but usually within limits -- and they were careful to emphasize their points of agreement and also to modulate their differences. Hashing them out in public would only weaken the movement and give ammunition to the other side."

Four years ago, on the eve of George Bush's second inauguration, this ostensible conservative strength seemed a formidable strength indeed. Neoconservatives, fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives had again banded together to install an under-qualified überconservative in the nation's highest office. John Kerry had been Swift Boated, and narrow Rovian politics ruled the day.

But over the past four years, the fundamental failures of the past 40 years of American conservatism have become painfully apparent: its excessive faith in military might and its deregulatory pandering to big business have landed our great nation in one hell of a mess. So, suppressing dissent within a social-political movement does not look like the enlightened path to achieving actual goals in the long term.

Neither, it would appear, is it even a viable path to long-term political influence. Democrats are certain to retain control of the House and Senate this year, and, thanks in part to John McCain's blunder-full campaign, they seem poised to retake the White House, too. This is hardly the death of the conservative movement, but it is clear that the Republican Party is going to have to spend at least the next two years cleaning its filthy attic--if not rebuilding its entire rickety house.

Why? It might have something to do with the effort to present a unified front to the world. We believe that squelching ideological disagreements is ultimately a formula for ideological weakness. Competition in the marketplace of ideas strengthens the good ideas and winnows out the dumb ones (and how ironic that conservatism is currently foundering upon its own failure to grasp this fundamental free-market principle). So while "discipline" and cohesion of message may help advance an agenda in the short term, it corrodes a movement over the long term.

In this case, what holds for the conservative movement holds also for the conservation movement. We should not be seduced by strategies that yield short-term gains but invite long-term losses. We should celebrate the diversity of our ideas, debate them, scrutinize them, and hold them accountable. And we should never let our attachment to our own particular ideas and notions (which we naturally cherish) distract us from the ultimate goal of bequeathing a green, blue, and biodiverse world to our kids.

Comments

[KSMullins]

Folks, three things hurt the conservation movement...no money, no Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to a clean environment, and no Religious nuts clamoring for preservation.

Big Oil, Coal, Logging, etc., etc. mean big money for a whole lot of folks and they have been raping the natural world for profit for a very long time and are doing it throughout the world. They are happy to short change the future of the world for their short term profit and financial gain. And the politicians they serve are too addicted to their campaign funding to fight back.

There is no 2nd Amendment for the plantet...the right to keep and bear clean air, clean water, etc., etc.

And the Religious Right dumbs down the power of science to deflect public opinion away from the rape of our planet. And we can only ask why they of all people stand by while Gods' gift to us is poisoned. It defies logic.

[Cactusman]

We must shift away to craft a new future. Ignore the crap thrown out by many conservative wingnuts who say that environmentalists "want to return society to the Stone Age". Evolution moves forward, not backwards. Even if you don't believe in it. And most environmentalists want to move us forward into what comes next by taking pages from the present and combining them with wisdom from the past and the natural world. No credible environmentalist is trying to throw everything back to the Paleolithic. There are many ways to get to this future, as many ways are there are societies and cultures. But it isn't devolution.

I think one rising concept rapidly gaining strength nowadays is the realization that diversity is a strength. Financial diversity in a portfolio is a strength in troubled economic times, as is dietary diversity for your health, and social diversity for your mind, and biodiversity for your surroundings.

Diversity is even more potent when combined with unity. To weld individual freedoms with a collective sense of purpose within the framework of a flexible, tolerant society will plant the seeds we need to change the current sick, linear system to something that is truly worthy of the word "sustainable". If it cannot be kept up indefinitely and in a neatly closed, recycling loop, then by definition it is not sustainable. Our current toxic, disposable, use-it-and-toss-it, endless-growth economy is in no way sustainable.

This is what is changing now. I welcome it.

[Cactusman]

Another part of the problem in our society is the widespread and increasing ignorance of basic science (not least of all the life sciences) and a disconnection from the natural world, replaced by bloated, passive consumerism as a lifestyle. Shopaholicism isn't a viable subsitute for meaningful community and natural world engagement.

We've become dissociated from any realistic concept of our impact, both individually and collectively, upon the broader ecosystem.

We've allowed the framing of the lowest cost is usually or always the best option to dominate our thinking and our economic choices.

We've externalized the costs of our preceived American "birthright" of low prices and high energy use(among them pollution, species loss, poverty, and resource depletion) onto distant lands and distant people about whom we are not very aware, and with whom we do not identify. Additionally we've projected those costs onto the future and upon other species.

The majority of us have no clear concept of what has to happen to bring us the wide array of inexpensive goods that line our shelves, and how costly it is to others elsewhere. Even more of us couldn't even begin to provide ourselves enough food calories to survive should it become required in the event of a systemic collapse. We are so much more vulnerable than we think. But there is also resilience built into our systems, although it needs to become much more coupled with awareness and responsibility for our choices.

[ploverinn]

Years ago Malcolm Wallop, Republican Senator from Wyoming, was booed on the floor of the Senate by members of his own party for stating "Conservation is at the very heart of the Conservative philosophy." He was right in the sense that it should be so, but it isn't. Malcolm didn't seek another term.

[Hopeington]

Great food for thought guys!! Love reporting that really helps me understand something. Us Dems could learn a lesson here. We're going to need some disipline and focus to sort this mess out in the coming years. Should be an interesting journey, I look forward to your insight along the way.

[jnratliff]

Faith in military IS PANDERING TO BIG BUSINESS.
It's the corruption that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about. He was a Republican.

The MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX has nearly destroyed America's economy,
robbed the USTreasury of working and middle income Americans' tax money, and
all but destroyed honesty, fairness and values and replaced them with CORRUPTION, LIES,
PROFITEERING, GREED, DESTRUCTION, WARS.

NO MORE YEARS for out of control r Republican SOCIAL & ECONOMIC CRIMINALS.
------vote Obama-Biden '08.

100% correct!

[TrevorAlan]

We need to have a healthy debate but we also need to have debaters who realize that the world's ecosystems are not going to be destroyed if we don't put THEIR favorite agenda item first.

You identified some weaknesses of the right, but on the left it can sometimes be worse than a little dissonance, it can devolve into cat-herding. I think that's what explains the continued support for Nader (although if he found any measure of success THAT coalition would probably implode from various calls to do everything first).

There are some very important environmental issues requiring prompt attention, but we also can't have sulking if a particular initiative is shelved.

[TidalShadow]

Theodore Roosevelt was not an environmentalist. He believed the environment should be profitable. However, for the environment to be profitable, it must be healthy, and thus TR championed a large number of conservation efforts. Saving the environment does not necessarily mean sacrificing profit. Big business needs to relearn this fundamental fact.

[vegas9999]

What we need is another Bubba who struck fear in the bad guys, if you really believe there are bad guys?

[Yermammy]

You trolls slay me. The biggest oxymoron of all time has GOT to be "conservative" (right along with "hermitage"- a communal abode for hermits).
Conservatives- outlandish spending, socializing Wall St., fear mongering empire building, religious zealots pushing their faith on the world, fascist leaning toward government­/corporate conglomeration and just all around EXTREMISTS.

Upon perusing your "See Profile", I will answer your rhetorical question- yes Michael Moore IS believable (and you're not). :| :O :| :(

Barack & Joe (9 out of 10 whales agree!)

[mgloraine]

Environmentalists and conservationists are routinely brushed aside by legislators because they are opposed by well-funded industrial lobbyists who dominate those legislators' attention with large cash "campaign contributions" and a variety of less traceable gratuities. They buy Congressional influence with big bucks, while scientists and most regular folks think (incorrectly) that the legislators will consider the facts and the long-term consequences of their actions. The results are evident in the kind of things which have passed Congress recently: massive increases in "Defense" (war) spending, retroactive immunity for telecoms and expanded domestic spying with FISA, offshore drilling leases, Kyl/Lieberman, $700B Wall Street giveaway, an extensive list of corporate lobbyist purchased rights violations against the American People. The cronies get everything they want, Congress gets rich and fat, the People are robbed, and the environment is obliterated.

A unified voice is not really what's required; either conservationists need a fatter checkbook than Exxon-Mobil (not likely in the foreseeable future), or we need to change (i.e., restrict) the way corporations influence Congress to eliminate corporate bribery from the process of deciding national policy.

[Tanytarsini]

It used to be much simpler - human population, habitat degradation, and sustainability. Underneath these were buttressed a lot of science, tons of models, and millions spent on research that financed thousands of scientists doing their part to help 1) understand nature, and 2) council society towards "saving" the environment. The benefits accrued - over time and space enormous - and unfortunately dispersed, and not immediately sensed, and accrued in the accounts ledgers of economic America. More immediate concerns of business, workers, and society eventually trumped the "tree huggers," and the narrow interests of people advocating "property rights" more often than not won over policymakers. As environmentalists began to fight defensive legal battles, at all political levels, the focus was lost from the over-arching national focus, to each and every local political battle. Which, when you're running a national campaign, instantly makes the "environment" at best a second-tier issue. I guess we'll need another "river on fire" story to bring attention to the environmental catastrophe occurring around the planet.