Although many of us like to think of the 'environment' and environmental issues as the territory of the left, this simply isn't true. For this blog post I wanted to explore something a little different, discussing the differences in approaches to environmental protection.
One of the reasons that I wanted to bring this up, is increasingly the environmental movement seems to be dominated by one view point and one political narrative. However, there are many different approaches and opinions on environmental protection, that I think deserve some air time. This discussion is important to have, and to understand, if we are to make headway on environmental protection and put nature first.
The main way that 'conservative environmentalism' differs from left wing environmentalism, is in its belief in innovation and the use of property rights. It also focuses much more on solving problems on a micro-scale rather than through international cooperation.
This differs from left wing environmentalism which has more focus on the collective, large international agreements and government regulation. Left wing environmentalism is anti-capitalist and believes that capitalism is the root of environmental issues. They believe in heavy taxation and regulation to stop corporations polluting the environment.
These distinctions are important because not many people know they exist. Conservatism in the last 30 years has let go of many of it's values; this makes it difficult to understand what 'conservative environmentalism' could be.
Conservatives want to 'conserve' things. This for them is done through property rights which stop people wanting to pollute or damage their own property. This has been a successful strategy in the West with large land owners especially in the UK, spending lots of time and money on maintaining the natural environment. The idea behind this is twofold. Firstly you wouldn't want to damage or devalue your own property; secondly, landowners and property owners often have a deep love of their home-land and deep historical roots that bond with an area. This approach has seen some success across the world and is important to consider when we are deciding the best way to protect a certain area.
They also believe in solving things on a local level and that local gamekeepers and farmers know much more about their land than urban bureaucrats. This is one of the issues that farmers in the UK had with the EU, as the EU was creating blanket regulations for farms in Romania and the UK. This one size fits all approach meant that some people lost out. This is often a highly contentious issue, that drives a wedge in between farmers and environmentalists.
Although this was an area many chose to ignore in terms of environmental protection there is some merit to it. Large blanket regulations can mean that the natural world looses out. The EU regulations on movement of goods has, for many years, allowed live animals to be shipped to countries with lower standards than ours for slaughter. It has also caused large issues with the milk and dairy market across Britain and the rest of the world.
You can understand their frustrations. If a group like the NFU got together and started lobbying for laws affecting how land should be used in inner city areas, I am sure people in the inner city would have something to say!
Conservative environmentalists also believe in innovation and creating innovative new solutions to tackle climate change. These can be agricultural innovations like the use of drones, hydroponics and things like renewable energy. This differs from the 'deep green' approach which is more focused on limiting resources and consumerism (although many social conservative values are also opposed to consumerism).
Conservative environmentalists also want limited government involvement and instead rely on the conscious choice of consumers in a free market to make purchasing decisions that protect the environment. This is why they oppose large international agreements as they don't feel that they are effective and transfer power away from the nation state.
Take the idea of the reusable coffee cup. A left wing environmentalist might hold the view that government should force everyone to use them and businesses only to accept them in take away coffee houses. This would stop the use of paper cups. A conservative would argue that people should be free to make the decision and coffee houses should offer financial intensives for people to use a reusable cup.
Both approaches have merit and both have issues.
Conservative environmentalists typically also agree that environmental laws and regulations can end up damaging the natural environment. This seems counteractive, however we can take the example of the USA to illustrate this.
Many were outraged when they scrapped the 'Endangered Species Act'. However, one of the issues with the endangered species act was that it had a detrimental impact on the animals and plants it was meant to protect. If an endangered species was found on your land, the government could take control of your land to 'protect' the plant/animal. However, this resulted in many people killing endangered species so they would have their land taken away.
This example illustrates how protecting the environment is a difficult task. There are many bitter pills that sometimes need to be swallowed if we want to protect our natural world sometimes we have to put politics and what we think we know aside and focus solely on facts and science. This is something that is imperative when discussing the health of the environment, especially here in the UK. We have seen many environmental or animal protection policies be pushed through and concerns of 'conservative environmentalists' ignored only to see the policy's and laws backfire.
An example of this in the UK is not burning heather. When it was ruled illegal to control burn heather we then saw the worst moorland fires for years because the land had no fire break points to stop fire and control it in dry weather. Another example is stopping killing badgers, which has resulted in a massive spike in numbers and in turn huge damage to ground nesting birds and hedgehog populations.
However, there are problems with this conservative approach to environmental protection. The most notable of which is that many natural resources that are privately owned can be bought by corporations who are more than happy to exploit soils and and pollute waterways in the persute of profits. This poses an issue if you have no government regulation! This is a problem and I do feel that conservatives do need to concede a little power to the state in this respect.
However there are still avenues for the individual to champion environmental protection and stop big business. One of the more conservative answers to this issue is the Tort law. This allows individuals or groups to sue businesses which have poisoned waterways, destroyed resources or affected air quality. This is a bottom up approach that has been used in Britain for much of our environmental protection. An example of this in practice is when the Anglers Association in Britain sued big business for polluting the waterways. They got together and sued for an injunction to force the factories to clean up their act and process their waste.
This bottom up approach is how conservatives create environmental legislation, or how it should be done. This allows power to be held in the hands of the people in terms of laws that are past and not held by big governments. Big governments can actually be some of the worst polluters as we see in China and the Soviet Union.
"Big business must only be controlled by the law and the law must be in the hands of the people" Roger Scruton
This bottom up local grassroots solution also allows for solutions to be tailored to local areas instead of created by large globalist organisations like the EU. It can also stop big business from exploiting common resources or polluting natural areas if used correctly.
These are things we need to discuss and consider if we truly care about the environment. Sometimes politics need to be put aside in order for us to put nature first. Not surrendering national and local authority to globalist corporations might often seem anti environment but in truth they are just looking at other ways to solve problems - some which have a lot of merit. These are conversations I would love to open up as I feel that the environmental movement is becoming a political weapon that many are using to gain votes, rather than actually protecting our natural world.
We need to be open to working together and remember that whatever your political persuasion you can still care for the natural world. It is shocking when we remember historically that conservatives in the UK have driven most of the environmental protections and in the USA the Republican party are the ones who created national parks, the EPA and most of the environmental legislation.
I feel that part of the issue is that conservatives have let go of their values and have decided to replace them with corporatism and the interests of big business. Many 'conservatives in the west have let go of their love of the land and local community, support for small businesses, faith, tradition and pride in their natural environment. This seems to have left a gaping hole in the environmental movement which in turn has left a gap in the market for these types of local solutions. If you have made it this far then well done! I hope you enjoyed this think piece and found it interesting.
If you would like some more information on the topic here is a book I would recommend.
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