This might have been us.
I’m reading a novel right now by a conservative author who lays out the argument — voiced through his main characters sort of Ayn Rand-style — that the environmental movement is largely a ruse designed to bog down industry and strip people of their liberty.
It’s a frequent narrative now in conservative media:
Environmentalism isn’t about saving the environment, it’s about control, about pointy-headed liberals messing with our property rights and making it harder for entrepreneurs to create jobs.
The argument is seductive. It would be great if we didn’t have to worry about oil spills or climate change or industrial pollution or farm run-off when making tough decisions.
But then you see footage like this from Hungary, where a tidal wave of toxic pollution from an aluminum plant surged over a neighboring community into the Danube River.
And then you see footage like this from the heart of China’s industrial revolution:
Half a century ago, the United States was on the same track. Our rivers were bursting into flame. Our coastlines were sewage and industrial waste dumps.
Check out this video from the 1960s on the Cuyahoga River:
So what do you think. Are we the victims of an environmental boondoggle? Or has the green movement saved us from that big red wave of sludge?
Tags: climate change, environment
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Great posts.
I think the environmental l movement in the US has not promoted it’s positive impact enough. We have more and healthier forests than we did 60 years ago in the US we have more wildlife we have cleaner water, cleaner air and we have better wetlands. We have removed several species from the endangered list due to these protections. We are not China or Hungary or Eastern Europe because of this movement and because of a broad based consensus between all those who need and love the outdoors, farmers, fisherman, hunters, environmentalists and citizens in general. I think the knee jerk reaction of the movement is to always say everything is going to hell and we must act NOW, which is true sometimes. But if you can’t show successes which we have had then no one will trust that this can make any difference, so why try?
That video from China is amazing. China is being held aloft by the left as an example of a country which is green. What a lie.
I agree with Mervel, everything is so much cleaner today than it was when I was a kid back in the 60’s and 70’s. Back then it was ok to toss garbage out of your car window while driving, and the city streets and highways everywhere were covered in garbage. It was ok to dump whatever you wanted into rivers and streams and they were full of toxic waste and garbage back then too. The government introduced catalytic converters on cars and within a few years the air became so much cleaner. I was an active member of the green movment back then, and we achieved all of those things. But they never talk about those victories today, they have forgotten them and ignore them. All they talk about is how terrible everything is today, and we need cap&trade. Cap&Trade will fix everything. Well I’m not a memeber of the green movment anymore. I don’t recognize the green movment anymore, it is all big business and big money now, those old victories were’nt big enough or expensive enough for todays greens. Today’s greens aren’t really all that interested is stopping pollution, they are too political. Todays greens aren’t green at all, they’re red.
I had not seen that footage of the disaster in Hungary before. Wow -it’s shocking.
There must be something in the air, because the Watertown Daily Times has an editorial today, which makes a case for environmental protection: http://watertowndailytimes.com/article/20101008/OPINION01/310089990
I don’t think often enough about our successes as a nation, and a cleaner environment is one of them. We deserve to pat ourselves on the back – and to then keep on doing what we are doing.
Klem,
I think the reason that this generation greens are aiming for bigger fixes is because we have bigger problems. Cleaning up one river is a lot easier than slowing the decline in ocean fish populations. Cutting down on litter is easier than cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Cap and trade might not be the whole solution, but it could help. Look at what it did for acid rain.
Personally, I think you’ve over simplified both points of view because it is a really large topic.
Free reign over natural resources is really a libertarian view. I know no conservative that doesn’t want some regulation over pollution. The question is, is the regulation and/or environmental movement hindering reasonable development of energy sources and the answer is, yes.
For example…
Are government regulations and the environmental movement hindering nuclear energy development in the US? Nuclear energy is carbon free and the most efficient source of energy on the planet. This in not 1970 either…technology, understanding, and safety percautions are far more advanced. Additionally, there are methods of processing nuclear waste so that environmental impact is minimal. Why has the environmental movement worked to stall development? I thought the world was burning up?
What you are proposing is a two-sided coin, where too little regulation people suffer, where there is too much regulation people suffer. Conservatives are proposing that we are restricting too much of our resources.
IMO there is a large difference between responsible stewardship and environmental extremism. Toxic sludge, filthy air, obscenely polluted rivers are one thing. Telling a landowner he can’t burn brush, much less trash or that his wood boiler has to go is quite another thing. I can remember the old TV commercials with Iron Eyes Cody weeping at the sight of polluted lands and waters, I took part in the first Earth Day back home and subsequent ones. I have tremendous sympathies for the idea of a clean environs. But there is a difference between a clean environment and the environmental activism that take son a political stature of it’s own.
What I’d hope to see are reasonable protections and reasonable freedoms. “Reasonable” and it’s definition just aren’t the same from one group to another and that’s where the problem will lay.
Interesting item I heard on the news the other day- about a third of previously thought to be extinct life forms were found to be still living over the past few years. I think it was a CBS report if any one wants to look for it.
Yes Brian, the conservatives are right. My interest in a clean environment has nothing to do with, say, wanting to breath clean air or drink clean water. I’m really just a power hungry egomaniac who wants to control the lives of people like Bret.
I had a friend in college who was a hard core libertarian. But the one area he supported regulation was in the environmental realm. His rationale is that what you did in your bedroom affected no one else. What you did that solely affected your property affected no one else. But what you did to the air and water DID affect other people. And since, he pointed out, my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose…
And by the way: a certain degree of regulation is what separates us from libertarian paradises like Somalia or Afghanistan.
“…the environmental movement is largely a ruse designed to bog down industry and strip people of their liberty.”
It boggles my mind that anyone could think there is any plausibility to that statement. If you do you must be listening too much conservative talking heads who deliberately create bogus environmental strawmen with outrageous positions and plans. Why would anyone bog down industry and strip people of their liberty? I know many liberals and environmentalists and not one would support that for a second. It appears to be a figment of the conservative mind that is prone to unwarranted paranoia. Where is the motive, what is there to gain monetary or otherwise? If I am concerned about clean air and water and the health of the planet what do I personally gain more than anyone else? Nothing – in fact I am willing to pay taxes and live with reasonable limitations for the good of the planet. Wow, that must make me a selfish radical environmentalist – shame on me.
On the other hand, who is the biggest supporter of reducing environmental regulations – industry and corporations. And what might they have to gain – money. Now there’s a clear motive for personal gain by CEOs and shareholders. And that’s all they are concerned about, short-term profits with little regard for the long-term health of the planet, the good of our country or even their employees. They will cut and run whenever it will create more profits. Now why would I want to accept policies supported by these short-term selfish interests?
I think your author has it backwards. The average citizen has a lot more to fear from corporate interests than environmentalists.
Bret4207,
Yes, reasonable is hard to define: it hinges on what degree of environmental degradation we are willing to accept, here and around the world. That requires taking a hard-nosed look at the places that are the most degraded (fortunately not our lovely Adirondacks) and determining what steps are necessary to prevent the worst of it. I don’t know how we get there from here, but it seems pretty clear that in many places things are getting worse, not better.
In some ways though it is almost easier to work against abstract huge world problems like global climate change, than it is to really break things down and get the job done with real quantifiable results.
It’s like being against “war” okay so what exactly does that mean, who is for war? No one is for climate change the question is exactly what do we have to do to change the situation? What can we do? In retrospect Bush should have been cynical and simply signed the Kyoto accord, no one did anything to reduce their admissions that did sign that treaty anyway. What difference has that treaty made? Many countries signed it, what have they done has global emissions gone down?
I know what we can do locally to help protect wetlands, to pass responsible legislation to protect wildlife corridors, to pass anti-smog legislation etc. I get that and we have done a great job with that.
“China is being held aloft by the left as an example of a country which is green. What a lie.”
Indeed, Klem, it is a lie that the left is holding China aloft as a country that is green. Nobody says that.
What people on the left and right actually do say, however, is that Chinese industrial policy is running way ahead of the U.S. in developing and manufacturing technologies that can make the world greener–and make China a lot of money.
And by the way, Daaaamn you, Dick Nixon, and the Environmental Protection Agency you started. Damn you all to helllll!
Let’s not forget that, as Brian M mentioned in his radio report, cap and trade was conceived by the, um, REAGAN administration.
The original cap and trade was quite a bit different than what I understand is proposed now. Obama himself said it would triple electricity rates. And it will do nothing to help us stay competitive, reduce China/Indias emissions or alter global climatic conditions. It’s a political maneuver.
The original cap and trade was a political maneuver, too. Just because some things are political maneuvers don’t make them bad.
So you want tripled electricity rates and the rippling cost increases that will bring? Just because some things are political doesn’t mean they are good either.
Thanks for your concern, but I’ve got cheap electric rates from my hydro-power-tapping socialist city power company. No worries, Bret!
So screw everyone else as long as I get what I want? That’s very 1880’s land baron of you.
You gotta admit, robber barons had a good life. Winners with a capital W.
Trading carbon credits was a free market solution to the alternative of simply mass regulating of all polluters with a one size fits all regulation.
Dumping your waste in the air for free does not make market sense. A polluter is using a resource, the air, and dumping their garbage in it for free. It is a pricing issue and an issue of common ownership. It is the classic tragedy of the commons problem you get in economics.
It would be the same as me simply dumping my garbage in the creek in back of my house, or throwing it out on the road. No I can’t do that and instead pay to have it disposed of. Companies that want to use the air to dump their waste should do the same. It makes more sense that those who need to pollute more can pay more for that right while those who are efficient pay less or can actually make money by selling unused dumping rights.