The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solutions for a Sustainable Future
256
The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solutions for a Sustainable Future
256Hardcover
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Overview
Politicians, pseudo-experts, and other partisans have led us to believe that there are only two approaches to climate change: doomerism or denial. Benji Backer, Founder and Executive Chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, argues that both are dead ends. In The Conservative Environmentalist, he delivers an entirely new strategy to take care of the planet while putting put the economic interest of the American people first.
Backer makes the compelling case that conservative principles are the key to climate solutions that actually work. In this book, you’ll visit the country’s most diverse ecosystems and consequential manufacturing hubs—from Utah coal mines and Texas oil fields to Louisiana wetlands and Rhode Island offshore wind farms—witnessing the power of individual entrepreneurship and local problem-solving. You’ll be inspired by groundbreaking efforts to strengthen earth’s ecosystems (that Green New Dealers and other Big Government advocates would prefer to keep hidden), like partnerships between oil and gas companies and environmental nonprofits to preserve thousands of acres of wetlands.
Drawing on cutting-edge science, a deep understanding of local community needs, and his experience rallying politicians on both sides of the aisle to take action, Backer offers hope for everyone who cares about the state of the great outdoors. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, The Conservative Environmentalist is the fresh, audacious approach needed to ensure a sustainable future, and particularly one that works for America.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780593714003 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/16/2024 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 108,645 |
| Product dimensions: | 9.00(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
1
Overcoming
Our Political Divide
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a farmer. If it's winter, your day begins before sunrise when you check the temperature in your greenhouse to ensure your indoor crops aren't overheating. If it's summer, the rest of your morning may consist of cutting, raking, and drying the hay you'll use to feed your livestock. If it's planting season, you may spend your entire day seeding, fertilizing, and spraying your fields; and if it's harvest season, you'll be spending long, long hours in a combine reaping your corn, soybeans, cotton, and other invaluable resources Americans need for everyday living. Each of these complex processes requires its own piece of expensive, specialized equipment, and all of it runs on-you guessed it-fossil fuels.
Not only does all farming equipment run on fossil fuels, but the pesticides and fertilizers that have increased crop yields tenfold and allowed us to feed the country at record-low costs are made with them. The small planes used to efficiently spray large fields run on fossil fuels, the trucks farmers use to haul equipment run on fossil fuels, and the farmer's house runs on fossil fuels. Your fuel costs have always been high, but you've been able to make your business work thanks to the subsidies that the government provides to the farmers who feed the nation.
Now take a moment to think about how you, a farmer, might feel about the government ripping away the subsidies you've relied on for years to run your business, and introducing sweeping, top-down regulations to combat carbon emissions. Your fuel costs double or triple because of a new tax that penalizes users of fossil fuels. You're also paying a higher electricity bill as electricity companies raise rates to cover the installation of thousands of new EV charging stations across your state. If you're a corn farmer, you'll soon find yourself with a lot of excess crop on your hands, as 40 percent of our nation's corn goes to making the now-useless ethanol that powers gas engines. With soaring costs and a superfluous crop, you decide to sell the farm that's been in your family for generations to a foreign solar company who will build thousands of solar panels on what used to be crop fields. As more American farms go under, more and more food is imported from foreign countries, instead of being planted, grown, and harvested on American soil. On top of all this, you find yourself being ridiculed as backwards and ignorant for daring to voice any kind of opposition against the new climate change legislation, even though you support green policies and alternative energy. Truthfully, farmers have more cause than most to be concerned about climate change-as our weather becomes more volatile, the business of planting and harvesting becomes less and less predictable.
As you can see, top-down energy solutions simply do not work in a country as big and diverse as America. If you believe in our democracy-and I very much do-then you believe that we need to implement solutions that work for everyone, not just the folks for whom buying a new EV and adding solar panels to their house is convenient. Introducing sweeping, one-size-fits-all policies that harm local communities and ruin the livelihoods of thousands of rural dwellers is simply anti-democratic and anti-American. In thinking about how to solve climate change, it's imperative that we give farmers, oil field workers, and coal miners a voice too.
If you stop to think for one moment about the plight of a fossil fuel-dependent worker in our current political climate, you begin to see that the political division surrounding this issue is material, and not just rhetorical. Fossil fuel-dependent workers are concerned about their very survival in a world that is rapidly transitioning to alternative energy sources-they aren't backwards, ignorant, or stupid, as much as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might say they are. Politicians and the media have effectively made green energy into something you're for if you're a Democrat and against if you're a Republican. This simplistic distinction only serves to divide the American people and further the political careers of a few bad actors on both sides of the aisle.
In a cheap effort to gain voters, conservatives and liberals have both adopted equally dramatic approaches toward climate change. Oklahoma senator James Inhofe's 2015 snowball-tossing stunt on the Senate floor-dismissing global warming-still makes the rounds on the internet. We've heard outspoken individuals such as Tucker Carlson and President Trump repeatedly purport that climate change is one big hoax. Just as ridiculous was New York senator Charles Schumer blaming climate change for tropical storms occurring in the southeast during that region's normal hurricane season, and climate activists blaming Texas's 2021 snowstorm on it. (Just to be sure we're on the same sheet of paper, a cold, dry snap is exactly the type of weather that global warming is expected to create fewer instances of.)
When I share my beliefs about how climate change is affecting the environment, I brace myself as I anticipate a blow from the Left or the Right. I'm not the only one. Politicians and business leaders dread the shame-and-blame game too, and adopt positions they don't really believe just to avoid attacks. One politician explained to me that even engaging in rational discussion about climate change would appear to their constituents as the equivalent of joining the other side.
By the time President Trump took office, partisanship regarding environmental stewardship had been well established. A far cry from the work of his Republican predecessors, the focus for President Trump was to hammer environmentalists and roll back environmental policies. At the same time, climate change was soon lumped in with other important issues that dominated the airwaves such as the #MeToo movement, pandemic protocols, and the Black Lives Matter movement, issues that further polarized the nation. If you glance at just about any election map since 2016, you'll notice that there's a stark red/blue divide-the urban areas are blue, and the rural areas are red. People assume that anyone in a blue area cares about climate change, and anyone in a red area doesn't. While it's undeniably true that rural areas tend to skew conservative, it's absolutely not true that these voters don't care about the environment.
The Urbanite Bias
Growing up in a small Midwestern city nestled among dairy farms and forests as far as the eye can see, I witnessed rural Americans hard at work. People there wake up at the crack of dawn, and business owners and laborers get their hands dirty to feed the rest of the country. Our local cheese stores shipped to all parts of the States and were the source of many people's livelihoods. I assumed that everyone else recognized rural America's value too.
When I moved to Seattle to go to college, I learned how wrong I was.
Three-quarters of Washington lies east of the Cascade Mountains, and is too frequently dismissed and mocked by those living along the Pacific coast. When I first heard my friends from Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellevue belittle their eastern neighbors, my stomach turned. (To this day, it still does.) Even though residents of Eastern Washington grow the food we eat and provide the energy powering our homes, many of them lack the bachelor's degree that makes them relevant in the eyes of their urban neighbors.
I often think about the highly skilled agrarian and mechanical workforce in my home state of Wisconsin, who needed very specific training to do their jobs effectively and safely. While a liberal arts education is not high on the priority list of many rural workers, the technology needed to remain on the cutting edge is. Unfortunately, even basic modern conveniences that the rest of the country takes for granted are still lacking in many parts of America. About 28 percent of rural Wisconsinites, for example, still don't receive high-speed internet service, making it impossible for rural residents to work from home or start a new business. This absence of a service that urbanites take for granted leaves many rural families one giant step away from the economic opportunity that is so readily available everywhere else. There are simply more resources available in urban areas to transition to a clean energy future-even for low-income residents. As I mentioned, a push for an electric vehicle transition is easier for a city dweller. (Think of a low-income resident of Chicago using public transportation to get around town versus a low-income farmer who needs to own a truck to haul materials that dictate their economic livelihood.)
Being lower-tech often means that rural America cannot financially keep up with the speed at which the rest of the country is accelerating. For example, California's aggressive plan to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035 spells hardship for lower-income rural areas. Online behemoths such as Amazon, Target, and Walmart will be able to pivot with every change imposed by plans like these, but Dollar Trees and other local discount stores will suffer devastating effects as delivery prices soar, as will the communities who depend on them. The closing of one of these smaller stores may seem like no big deal to someone living in a coastal city. But to its employees, it may mean months, even years of searching for new employment that will pay their family's bills.
Meanwhile, power plant workers, miners, and farmers see the fruits of their sweat and soil placed at the feet of the urban elite who consume their products and services and offer insults in return. Many millennials and Gen Zers can appreciate a good meal from a farm-to-table restaurant or a made-in-the-USA pair of jeans and are even willing to pay a pretty price for these items. However, few give much thought to the incentives and policies that will keep these local businesses afloat. The mantra Know where your food comes from is important for reasons beyond a person's individual well-being and should apply to products from industries beyond local agriculture. Yet how many of us give these farmers and manufacturers a second thought once our purchase has been made?
The adapt or die mentality of some climate alarmists poses a very real threat to the day-to-day survival of many hardworking Americans. What the urban and suburban elite consider improvements in quality of life are often actually giant setbacks for the rest of the country.
It's no surprise when rural communities are resentful toward their urban counterparts for ignoring their needs when it comes time to vote. Even more disturbing is the neglect they feel when it comes to their states' elected representatives. I've talked with countless rural residents who feel forgotten by politicians who live and work in metro areas hundreds of miles away. In rural places and small towns, people feel they are not getting their fair share of decision-making power. Nor do they feel their concerns, which greatly diverge from those of urban residents, are even being heard.
Although opinions of former president Donald Trump vary widely, there's no denying he managed to capture the hearts of rural Americans by visiting their communities and addressing their frustrations and concerns head on. Even Trump supporters who were well aware of his shortcomings or admitted to disliking his leadership style believed he was willing to stand up to the urban elites and fight for their needs. His appeal to rural Americans was not about facts or particular policies per se, but about the overall message that he understood them and (essentially) had their backs.
In contrast, most other candidates have repeatedly failed to offer America's heartland a clear vision that speaks to their concerns. Promises on the campaign trail that fail to come to fruition have left rural voters disappointed and bitter. To add insult to injury, for years, rural people have heard from the media that they are voting "against their own self-interest" when they elect Republicans, or that they vote the wrong way because they are uneducated. These arrogant messages are not easily forgotten-nor should they be.
Trump's promise to bolster goods-producing industries and provide more jobs hit an overwhelmingly strong chord with the working class, especially those living in rural America, where economic damage has hit the hardest in recent years. Compare this message to President Biden's recent address to a group of New Hampshire miners who faced job insecurity and economic setbacks. The president's advice to them? Start learning code: "Anybody who can go down three thousand feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well . . . Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God's sake!" Understandably, the president's reductive comments about an entire industry of workers were met with silence from his insulted audience.
Thus, the false narrative of two Americas presents two societies so fundamentally separate and different that they hardly belong to the same world. It frames urban Americans as forward-thinking and productive, and rural Americans as closed-minded and stagnant. The reality is if our leaders are not listening to farmers, foresters, miners, or other rural-based workers and equipping them with the resources they need, the resulting economic harm done to them will have a negative impact on urbanites as well.
Further, it's simply untrue that rural dwellers don't care about the fate of our planet. Putting the term climate change aside, rural communities, whether skeptical or not, have always known how to care for their surroundings better than the people who live far away from nature. Their personal stake in protecting their backyards informs the way they behave, and they have learned from experience what works and what doesn't work to keep nature thriving. Some of the cleanest areas in the country belong to private landowners who don't rely on somebody else to make decisions about their property. For farmers, the stakes are high. If they can't keep the land healthy, they will lose their livelihood and not be able to feed their families.
Consider the following scenarios: A city dweller who takes up very little land, uses mass transportation on his daily commute to work, and drinks from reusable water bottles believes he is doing the most to fight climate change. Meanwhile, a suburbanite who drives an EV, composts and recycles religiously, and chooses paper instead of plastic bags at the grocery store believes her contribution counts most. Lastly, a farmer who cares daily for his surrounding land, which not only produces the crops that feed the rest of the nation but also naturally sequesters carbon, might feel that he in fact is the best steward of the planet.
Which one of these three people is doing the best job taking care of the planet? The answer, of course, is all of them. Each person, whether urban or suburban or rural, is partially correct in their approach to protecting the environment. Likewise, Americans living in different parts of the country have a lot to teach one another about effective climate change solutions.