Conservatism and climate change

Conservatism is a loosely defined political philosophy that places great emphasis on tradition, continuity, and gradualism in the development of public policy. In regards to the natural environment, many conservatives have embraced elements of conservationism, but often reject the connected but distinct concept of environmentalism. By the early twenty-first century, this was especially visible in debates over climate change, a phenomenon downplayed or even denied by many American political conservatives.

Background

The root of the term "conservatism" is "to conserve," which derives from the Latin verb conservare, meaning to keep, preserve, or save. The term arose in the early 1800s, beginning in France with the writings of François-René de Chateaubriand. The term then migrated to England in the writings of British statesman John Wilson Croker and was imported into America by John C. Calhoun, an early defender of states' rights.

The modern form of conservatism, however, largely derives from the works of Edmund Burke, who repudiated revolutionary government reforms in his 1790 book Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke was critical of the French Revolution for its chaotic nature, though he supported the American Revolution.

Rather than being a set of strictly defined tenets, conservatism is a loose cluster of general principles that embrace nationalism and sovereignty, individual merit, free enterprise, reverence for tradition in the evolution of human institutions, strong respect for law and order, respect for family values such as the traditional nuclear family, respect for the wisdom of religious institutions, aversion to social planning, and an aversion to pure rationalism. Furthermore, conservatism has been associated with a more fixed world view, in the sense that what we (as human beings) do the world will have a limited impact on events such as climate change.

Conservatives are considered to be economic liberals based on the original meaning of the word, following the tradition of economist Adam Smith, an ideology that places great emphasis on the importance of well-defined property rights and the strict enforcement of contracts. These classical liberals (i.e., conservatives) disapprove of government intervention in economic affairs, beyond the provision of a highly limited set of "public goods" that the "invisible hand" of free markets would not be expected to produce but that are considered necessary for social welfare.

Conservationism and Environmentalism

Conservatism is infused by a conservation ethic, which is distinct from the ethics of modern environmentalism. The conservative attitude toward the environment differs in fundamental ways from that of the modern environmental movement. Conservatives have long embraced "conservationism," which is the idea that society should conserve natural resources for the purpose of ensuring continued abundance for maximum sustainable use. Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), the twenty-sixth president of the United States, conservatives and many Republicans have been strong proponents of conservationism. Roosevelt's confidant and the first head of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot (1865–1946), was highly influential in shaping conservationism and emphasized the importance of using the greatest amount of natural resources that can be used sustainably, arguing that underutilization is just as wasteful as overutilization.

Conservationism rejects several of the ecocentric tenets of modern environmentalism, which seek to minimize natural resource use and human influences on the environment, ecosystems, biodiversity, air, water, soil, and climate. As Pinchot wrote, "The use of the natural resources now existing on this continent [is] for the benefit of the people who live here now. There may be just as much waste in neglecting the development and use of certain natural resources as there is in their destruction . . . . The development of our natural resources and the fullest use of them for the present generation is the first duty of this generation." Pinchot further wrote, "Without natural resources life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and transport us. Upon them we depend for every material necessity, comfort, convenience, and protection in our lives. Without abundant resources prosperity is out of reach."

Pinchot's words remain at the core of the conservation ethic that infuses the philosophy of conservatism.

Context

The conservative values mentioned above, combined with the conservation ethic, have helped shape the responses of modern conservatives (typically represented by the Republican Party in the United States) to the issue of climate change. In keeping with their rejection of pure rationalism, conservatives have been wary of absolutist claims regarding climate science and are inclined toward a more skeptical view, particularly of scientific pronouncements that elevate scientific rationalism above other conservative values. Averse to social planning, the expansion of government, and redistribution of wealth, conservatives have generally rejected programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as the Kyoto Protocol and the subsequent Paris Agreement. They have similarly opposed emissions trading, carbon taxes, and regulatory regimes.

With regard to fossil fuel consumption, the conservation ethic held by many conservatives leads them to oppose greenhouse gas control regimes on the grounds that such controls would result in the underutilization of affordable fossil fuels to the detriment of society. As explained above, this theme of maximizing sustainable utilization of natural resources differs significantly from modern environmentalism, which seeks to end the use of fossil fuels in favor of alternatives such as wind power or solar power and generally to minimize human consumption of natural resources. In general, fiscal conservatism leads conservatives to oppose measures that they believe carry costs that will exceed their benefits, and that might compromise the economic prosperity and competitiveness of the United States.

Conservatives' views on climate change have also been influenced by prominent politicians and media figures who challenge the scientific consensus on global warming and other climate change issues. For example, the popular conservative Fox News media network gave voice to climate change skeptics and conspiracy theorists, including those whose beliefs directly contradicted accepted scientific evidence. By legitimizing such fringe points of view, conservatives were able to justify opposition to action on climate change even as evidence mounted that the phenomenon posed a serious threat to the global environment. Through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, American conservatives including Republican elected officials tended to oppose environmentalist legislation and instead favor policies meant to benefit businesses, such as deregulation and weaker environmental standards. Significant lobbying and other support for conservatives from groups with vested interests at odds with climate action, such as oil companies, helped solidify the link between conservatism and antienvironmentalism.

Republican administrations such as that of US president George W. Bush furthered the reputation of conservatives as relatively unconcerned about climate change. For many this lack of concern evolved into stark opposition to climate science after the election of Democratic president Barack Obama and his administration's subsequent efforts to mitigate climate change. Republican leaders made a point of opposing Obama on all fronts, leading to a deeply entrenched conservative backlash against climate and clean energy policies. This was apparent in the 2016 election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who blatantly denied the reality of climate change, claiming that was an elaborate hoax started by the Chinese.

President Trump was hostile to climate change legislation and other environmentalist policies from the beginning of his administration. As president-elect his transition committee announced planned to cut funding to NASA's climate change research and put that money into space exploration, and his proposed budget in spring 2017 would have defunded four NASA earth science missions geared at least in part toward studying climate change, in addition to cutting nearly one-third of the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Trump also announced in June 2017 that the United States would be pulling out of the Paris Agreement, an agreement of 195 countries to take action to mitigate global temperature change. In response, ten governors and more than two hundred mayors across the United States denounced the decision and vowed to uphold the agreement in their own jurisdictions. Trump also sought to overturn Obama-era regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and power plants.

The Trump administration's stance on climate change steered the Republican Party farther away from traditional conservationism and toward a more extreme reactionary stance. For example, efforts to shrink and allow resource exploitation on federally protected lands were widely criticized by conservationists and environmentalists alike for prioritizing short-term economic gain over broader benefits to the American people. Attempts to boost the coal industry were criticized as interference in the free market, violating a key tenet of conservatism. Meanwhile, the Trump administration sought to downplay research on climate change, even when it published the research itself. In November 2018 the government released a Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment that strongly warned of considerable future negative consequences due to climate change, including economic disruption; Trump and his spokespeople suggested the findings were irrelevant.

Although highly influential, Trump was not the only conservative to resist and even actively oppose action on climate change. In April 2019 a cross-partisan study of environmentalism among conservatives published by the think tank New America found deep-rooted resistance to climate policy among Republicans. The report suggested that progressive efforts to make climate change a central political issue tended to only drive backlash among conservatives, but did note a small subset of Republican politicians attentive to the threats posed by climate change and the economic potential of clean energy.

Key Concepts

• Burkean conservatism: the classic tenets of conservatism—such as its distrust of utopian, revolutionary social reform—that laid the philosophical foundations of modern conservatism, as promulgated by the father of Anglo-conservatism, Edmund Burke, especially in his 1790 pamphlet Reflections on the Revolution in France
• conservationism: the idea, originating in the late 1800s, that society should conserve natural resources for the purpose of ensuring continued abundance for maximum sustainable use; also known as the conservation ethic
• conservatism: a political philosophy located to the right of center on the classic political spectrum, marked by an emphasis on tradition and skepticism about radical ideas or social planning
• invisible hand: an economic principle, promulgated by Scottish philosopher and author Adam Smith (considered the father of modern economics), that free markets are the best means by which to allocate goods in a society, as if guided by an "invisible hand"

Bibliography

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