During today’s debate on climate change, Newt Gingrich gave perhaps the best explanation yet as to why many conservatives are resisting government action on climate change and other environmental issues. Roughly paraphrasing, here’s what he said:
“For most of the last 30 years, the environment has been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. That’s why this is such a difficult issue for conservatives - you end up fighting it not because you disagree with the environmental goals, but because you don’t want bigger government and higher taxes. We need green conservatives who stand up and propose ways to solve these problems through our conservative value system.”
Newt makes a fair point. It’s not that conservatives don’t care about the environment, we just don’t care much for the kind of solutions traditionally offered by the left. The real ideological divide here is not so much environmental green vs. economic green, but rather the divide between those who believe in command and control as a cure-all, and those who value individual freedoms and markets over government bureaucracy.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Climate Change . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
It’s also a problem that current “enviromentalists” believe in buying out the problem rather than solving it. You can buy carbon credits, you can buy the new clothing line that has resusable napkins on the sleeves, etc. The problem is these are not solutions, it’s just profiteering.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp Compare the energy use from the homes of Al Gore and George Bush. Gore believes in paying for the energy he uses, Bush in the means of preventing energy use. No wonder people are resisting current enviro-issues, it’s all about how much more they will charge you.
Or in simple terms, Make Enviromentalism cost effective, and people will follow.