Is it possible to be a Conservative & an Environmentalist?

HEARTLESS wrote: SC are you doing the CG thing, start a thread then never enter the discussion? No offense intended CG.

Science Chic wrote: I'll reserve my thoughts for a bit if you don't mind.

Posted at 10:11am.
I thought I'd give y'all more than an hour and a half - I know it seems like forever that you've been here, but I wanted to see whether the direction this discussion went was a little more comprehensive first!

For example, no one's addressed this statement: "How much of the enormous changes necessary can be driven by policy premised on small government, low taxes, and reduced regulation?"

Heartless, you mentioned Commanche and solar arrays as not being cost-competitive, but what about the point in the article that fossil fuels aren't free-market priced? If so, solar, wind, geothermal, and wave would certainly be cost-competitive right now. And Commanche may be brand new, with the latest technology, but it doesn't have Carbon Capture and Sequestration technology, so it's still adding CO2 to the atmosphere, along with many other pollutants like arsenic and sulfur.

My neighbor, a financial genius, and I had a great conversation yesterday about the economy. He gets PO'd when he hears Dem's talking about "investing" in infrastructure - a spend-y thought process. Instead, he'd just like to see quiet maintenance and upgrades being budgeted for - like the electrical grid. It shouldn't have to be this massive project that seems so scary in terms of scope and cost, but merely an improvement of the crappy existing infrastructure. And the money that would be spent improving it, will be paid back in terms of better efficiency. http://www.grist.org/climate-energy/201 ... ifty-chart

But I see the most efficiency for the mitigation of climate change as being at the individual and community level. (More on that later so this post isn't so long). But this requires an ongoing examination on everyone's part as to how they live their lives and what they can do (to save money primarily, but also help the environment), active, engaged, and sustained action, and for this to all happen an understanding of why it's important is essential. Climate change isn't going to be a quick or easy fix, so while it doesn't have to start because you believe in AGW or don't, it will have to continue because eventually you will.

Omniscience wrote: An environmentalist? No, because I see today's 'environmentalism' much differently than I did 20 years ago. I've encountered way too many self-identified 'environmentalists' that have no understanding of simple concepts such as 'opportunity cost' and are actually pretty narrow-minded (and at times hypocritical) in their approach to solving natural resource related issues.

I absolutely agree that there are way too many narrow-minded, self-serving environmentalists who don't have a grasp of the big picture or the effects of implementing or not implementing certain technologies, who go all NIMBY, and don't consider the other side of the coin conscientiously enough (like cap-and-trade, or cash-for-clunkers - feel-good, but sh**ty programs in terms of effectiveness in mitigation). That's why I believe it's imperative to bring the conservative viewpoint into the solutions required. CriticalBill often states that "green" technologies are too expensive and will bankrupt our economy eve worse than it is now. I don't believe that to be so, and am gathering data to show how.

major bean wrote: Not everything spouted by liberals is scientific truth. Here is where the controversy starts. Liberals say that if you do not agree, unquestioningly, with everything that we put forward, then you are not an environmentalist.

I've never made any such claims that everything spouted by liberals is scientific truth, nor that anyone must agree unquestioningly. On the contrary, I support critical reasoning and thinking for one's self, as evidenced by my sig line. All I've ever asked is that those who deny global warming is occurring, or has become more influenced by our actions than by natural variation give the evidence a chance, with your own first-hand critique, not media's or blogs' regurgitation (yes, TPP, I have read JunkScience, among many others, have you read http://www.realclimate.org/ or James Hansen's blog http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ ?). A hypothesis cannot be denied without first being carefully weighed and considered from the primary sources.

More later, as this is getting too wordy and I need to go eat lunch. Good discussion so far, let's get deeper!

Whew, here I thought that my post had totally killed the topic! I have to go to a Teacher Conference for my son right now, so I wanted to let you know that it'll be a while before I can respond, lots of good stuff there Heartless! Thanks! Continue on without me...