I don’t understand how conservatives could say “unintended consequences” until they are blue in the face, yet it is generally the left that supports environmental measures. (I’m not trying to assert an inconsistency.) When we wish to mess with the economy, it is, “you don’t know how this might hurt us,” but when we want to not mess with the environment, it is, “prove AWG.”
I’m not personally a huge environmentalist. I usually don’t care much about random extinction events, for instance. But on the whole I support measures to protect the environment.
I’m doing research for a paper at school on a topic somewhat related to valuing the environment, and the debate around whether and how to value so-called “environmental services.” I admit it is a perplexing question, and to some extent I can see the sense behind arguments that the value of the environment is, generally, already incorporated into our decisions, so this seems like it could be a backdoor for the break between conservatives and conservation. On the other hand, proper pricing of the environment would involve already having knowledge about the consequences of our actions, and their reversability (or lack thereof), which we don’t have. And on a third hand, I have read arguments (sorry, paid article) that the environment is still so much of a supply source that its price is accurately “almost zero” right now. (But in my mind this just returns to the question of knowledge we don’t have being incorporated into the market.)
It seems to me that conservatives should be worried about unintended consequences with deforestation and pollution and so on; yet, generally, they aren’t. What’s up with that?
Because the conservative political position has as much to do with conserving as the People’s Republic of China has to do with the people or being a republic. Conservatism is about selfishness and malice, not conserving anything. They want to force the people to live and think the way they want; reshape the world according to their fantasies; exploit anyone and everything without restriction; and hurt anyone different than themselves. They don’t want to “conserve” much of anything.
I think this is a definitional thing. In the US, corporatist or crony-capitalist viewpoints tend to get labeled conservative, and a corporatist viewpoint is necessarily going to by anti-environmental.
Perhaps. But as I half-heartedly mentioned in my OP, some research I’m doing shows it to be broader than corporatism. Steven Landsburg, for instance, is practically militant against environmentalism, and he’s an academic. As well, I read a paper from a philosopher (On the Economic Value of Ecosystem Services by Mark Sagoff, sorry, no free version available) which argues against valuing the environment at this time. (OK, it argues that the present value of zero is largely correct.) Reason.com has a host of articles looking to poke any hole in a pro-environment agenda.
I think if we scrap corporatists, the point still stands.
Conservative != Republican Party of the United States. While I’ve said it a few times on these boards, the problem with using conservatism as an ideological label is that conservatism (at least as laid out by men like Burke) is sort of ideology-independent. For example depending on context there’s nothing that would prevent a Communist (or even a Stalinist) from being also a conservative.
If we’re going by the U.S. “buzzword” conservative then what we’re really talking about are Republicans. Historically speaking most Republican Presidents have engaged in some forms of environmental activism; Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to be a conservationist and also was a self-labeled conservative. Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency.
Some Republicans are generally unconcerned with the environment, but many Republicans have concern for the environment. In the United States there is significant disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on many policy issues, and how to manage the environment is one of them. In some instances many Republicans are definitely on the wrong side of things, but in other instances it is just a question of genuine disagreement for which there is no “right answer.” [Example: Nuclear Power]
Yeah, right. :rolleyes: Because demanding that you be allowed to marry the person you love is exactly the same as forbidding people to marry the one the love. Because wanting to follow your own religious beliefs or lack of same is the same as wanting to write your religious beliefs into law. Because laying waste to the ecology is the same as not laying waste to the ecology.
Yup; those are realllly similar.
In America, they are essentially the same thing.
And the modern Republican party isn’t like that anymore.
The history of human efforts to protect the environment full of cases where “protection” ended up making things worse (I recommend Alton Chase’s book on Yellowstone for some examples).
That doesn’t, of course, mean that we should do nothing (there are also, of course, cases where much good was done by environmental efforts). But it does mean that there is no conflict whatsoever between a healthy respect for unintended consequences and a reluctance to tinker any more with the environment than we already are – especially given that many of the environmental measures advocated for things like AGW do themselves have enormous unintended consequences.
Can you give me just one example? It’s an interesting notion.
Interesting. I guess I look at environmentalism as stopping tinkering, rather than a different kind of tinkering. Maybe your perspective is more appropriate. Thanks.
My homework is pretty much unrelated. It is about the different perspectives on the valuation of economic services as such. Some work has measured it in the trillions; other work suggest the entire methodology is flawed. Still other work suggests that people don’t interpret data about the environment appropriately, leading to misconceptions that we could “wait and see.” If the paper is worth a damn when I finish it I might trim it and make a different post here.
Hunters, particularly the duck-hunting variety, have been pretty active in wildlands conservation ( the duck-hunters have been key to preserving sensitive seasonal wetlands in places like California ). And I’d say gun-toting hunters in general tend to skew a little more right than left. So I’d offer that up as a counter to the notion that conservatives tend to not be involved with conservation.
The biggest problem ( if you want to call it that ), is that American conservatives tend ( always gotta be careful to emphasize the weasel words in this forum ) to value property and property-rights above all other philosophical issues and thus are resistant to protections that might usurp their control in any particular way. I don’t agree with this way of thinking myself, but it’s a valid POV.
But in general I don’t think it is an either/or issue.
Hunters and fishers contribute lots of money towards conservation efforts through license fees and the like. I think conservatives feel it’s pointless to expend a lot of effort towards conservation if you’re also going to bar anyone from using and enjoying the resources we have, though protection of endangered species and preservation of natural resources are worthy goals in and of themselves.
) to value property and property-rights above all other philosophical issues and thus are resistant to protections that might usurp their control in any particular way. I don’t agree with this way of thinking myself, but it’s a valid POV.