Conservatism and the Environment

[Zachowon]

I think the GOP and the right in general should push heavy nuclear. Start education on how it is safe and cleaner etc etc.

Maybe eventually the left will have to give in

 

[Bear Ribs]

One thing I think could be done to help conservative environmentalism is better education about the joys of hunting and fishing. Being a rugged outdoorsman is already somewhat aligned with conservative values so it's not a hard sell.

Hollywood could be encouraged to show these activities as fun and exciting in the same way the US military tends to exert social pressure to show them off as effective and heroic, by giving more access and making resources available only to studios that promote those values. This wouldn't require any infringing on rights or even dramatic laws, a simple budget line and policy at the EPA and Bureau of Land Management (probably a couple of others too) would do the trick.

Tax reductions and subsidies on things like camping gear, small boats, fishing tackle, and hunting firearms would help but require significantly more effort, that would be more something to roll out in phase 2 once media manipulation has made these activities more desirable to voters and thus raised support for it.

We need more hunting as it is because right now there aren't enough hunters to keep the deer or hog populations in check, so this not only helps the environment by keeping down pest species, it helps the environment by getting more funding for hunting licenses which are the main source of environmental protection funding in the US. It also increases the utility value of public wilderness lands. Some people already love nature, others just want to exploit it. By making a clear way to exploit it while protecting it, more of those people can be brought on board.

 

[LordsFire]

You know what, I want to thank you @Marduk.

You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment does just stop at international borders. Most of you are just the mirror side ideologues of the Left, and care more about continuing the narrative that the Left is always lying or wrong, because admitting otherwise is a betrayal of the narrative you've wrapped yourself in.

@Staff, would one of you go ahead and close this thread, since it's become obvious it will never truly serve it's intended purpose given the ideological atmosphere of this forum.

The left has always been lying and wrong about the environment. Unless you can present some evidence that proves otherwise, you're not going to convince any right-wingers.

'But a lot of voters care about this issue!' Isn't going to persuade conservatives to pander to them, only RINOs. Our response instead will be 'We'll give them the facts and try to help them understand the truth instead of building policies based on lies in order to try to win votes.'

 

[Bacle]

The left has always been lying and wrong about the environment. Unless you can present some evidence that proves otherwise, you're not going to convince any right-wingers.

'But a lot of voters care about this issue!' Isn't going to persuade conservatives to pander to them, only RINOs. Our response instead will be 'We'll give them the facts and try to help them understand the truth instead of building policies based on lies in order to try to win votes.'

I have tried to give facts about the environment, and foster healthy debate on this subject.

But when most of what I hear back is 'The Left is lying, climate/environmental data are all lies', and for what seem to be mostly ideological reasons...it becomes a matter of 'why bother?'.

The GOP Climate Caucus exists now, so the national level GOP at least thinks there is something to all of this, particularly the younger bits of the GOP, and they can actually do shit even if people here still insist it's all lies.

Like, I made this thread because I naively believed that there were fewer ideologues on the members of Right who come here, compared to ideologues on the Left when it came to this issue.

But I see now how wrong I was and how much of a pointless waste this thread is on a forum like this.

 

[Terthna]

You know what, I want to thank you @Marduk.

You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment does just stop at international borders. Most of you are just the mirror side ideologues of the Left, and care more about continuing the narrative that the Left is always lying or wrong, because admitting otherwise is a betrayal of the narrative you've wrapped yourself in.

@Staff, would one of you go ahead and close this thread, since it's become obvious it will never truly serve it's intended purpose given the ideological atmosphere of this forum.

You know Bacle, demanding that the mods shut down a discussion that didn't go your way isn't the mark of someone who's confident in his argument.

 

[Bacle]

You know Bacle, demanding that the mods shut down a discussion that didn't go your way isn't the mark of someone who confident in his argument.

It's not about confidence, not at all.

It's about realizing how futile my attempt to foster this sort of debate is when the counterargument usually boils down to 'the Left is always lying, so they are lying about everything regarding the environment'.

No amount of cites, articles, or such will break through to people who reject it all, or almost all, for ideological and narrative reasons.

 

[Terthna]

It's not about confidence, not at all.

It's about realizing how futile my attempt to foster this sort of debate is when the counterargument usually boils down to 'the Left is always lying, so they are lying about everything regarding the environment'.

No amount of cites, articles, or such will break through to people who reject it all, or almost all, for ideological and narrative reasons.

Then have the decency to bow out with some grace, and don't try to sabotage things on your way out.

 

[LindyAF]

You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment does just stop at international borders.

Eh... I don't really see how many environmental concerns, and particularly the ones the left focuses on, stop at national borders. Like the top environment issue for the left is release of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is the top issue for them by like a few orders of magnitude. That's not something that really matters where it's done. It wouldn't matter if America and Europe somehow go off oil and coal completely tomorrow, because China would just gobble all the newly cheaper oil and coal up.

I would be interested in an environmental movement that DOES focus on stuff that stops at national borders, and is about preserving America for our posterity. But that's not what the left is selling, and it doesn't really seem to be the focus on many of the issues and ideas you've raised.

You know Bacle, demanding that the mods shut down a discussion that didn't go your way isn't the mark of someone who confident in his argument.

Agree with this. If you're tired of the argument, @Bacle, I think the it'd be best to just say you're leaving this thread, ask people not to tag or quote you in it, and unwatch. There's no reason to kill the thread on a pretty large issue just because there's some people here who disagree with you, which, what did you expect?

The left has always been lying and wrong about the environment. Unless you can present some evidence that proves otherwise, you're not going to convince any right-wingers.

I think there is a pretty significant part of this that is value differences though. Like, "plastic, particularly disposable plastic, is ending up in the oceans" is pretty clearly true (I'm happy to present some evidence of this if you don't agree). The anti-environmental position here seems at least to me to be "cutting down on plastic use isn't worth the economic tradeoff" and "most of that's China anyway, and we can't do anything to control them." These are more value disputes than factual ones.

 

[Bacle]

Then have the decency to bow out with some grace, and don't try to sabotage things on your way out.

Why should I want it to stay open, when I am nearly the only one who ever posts new stuff to it, only to have 'it's all Leftist lies' used as a rebuttal pretty much every time, even when we now have a GOP Climate Caucus now active?

I mean the fact people here actually the formation of that caucus as a bad thing has really opened my eyes to how futile my attempt to foster meaningful debate on this subject was among this portion of the Right.

Eh... I don't really see how many environmental concerns, and particularly the ones the left focuses on, stop at national borders. Like the top environment issue for the left is release of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is the top issue for them by like a few orders of magnitude. That's not something that really matters where it's done. It wouldn't matter if America and Europe somehow go off oil and coal completely tomorrow, because China would just gobble all the newly cheaper oil and coal up.

I would be interested in an environmental movement that DOES focus on stuff that stops at national borders, and is about preserving America for our posterity. But that's not what the left is selling, and it doesn't really seem to be the focus on many of the issues and ideas you've raised.

That was a typo, meant to type 'doesn't stop at international borders'.

Thanks for point it out though, completely missed it.

Agree with this. If you're tired of the argument, @Bacle, I think the it'd be best to just say you're leaving this thread, ask people not to tag or quote you in it, and unwatch. There's no reason to kill the thread on a pretty large issue just because there's some people here who disagree with you, which, what did you expect?

It's not just 'some people', it nearly everyone who bothers replying to this thread, and it happens every time the thread is active.

Also, not like many other people but me seem to post anything like articles or such in this thread on their own. Nearly every time this thread gets activity it's because I posted an article, and it nearly always ends up the same way, with Right Wing people just going to the 'the Left always lies, the Left is always wrong' mantra so many seem to hold as a religious chant.

 

[Marduk]

One thing I think could be done to help conservative environmentalism is better education about the joys of hunting and fishing. Being a rugged outdoorsman is already somewhat aligned with conservative values so it's not a hard sell.

As i said, the biggest weakness the right has in regard to environmental policy is control of education in general.

This example is recent and from Australia, but it is very indicative of how the greens win their ideological debates before the right even shows up to the debate - namely, sneakily indoctrinate the young before they possibly could have the character, knowledge and sense to contest their proposals properly.

Hollywood could be encouraged to show these activities as fun and exciting in the same way the US military tends to exert social pressure to show them off as effective and heroic, by giving more access and making resources available only to studios that promote those values. This wouldn't require any infringing on rights or even dramatic laws, a simple budget line and policy at the EPA and Bureau of Land Management (probably a couple of others too) would do the trick.

Keyword: could. They sure as hell don't want to. Hollywood and the likes of them are PETA/Greenpeace territory and those hate hunting with the fire of a thousand suns.

We need more hunting as it is because right now there aren't enough hunters to keep the deer or hog populations in check, so this not only helps the environment by keeping down pest species, it helps the environment by getting more funding for hunting licenses which are the main source of environmental protection funding in the US. It also increases the utility value of public wilderness lands. Some people already love nature, others just want to exploit it. By making a clear way to exploit it while protecting it, more of those people can be brought on board.

But that's rational exploitation, not the "sacred cow" treatment that the ideological greens want.
They would rather spend lots of money giving birth control to animals than allow hunters to cull some and even pay for the privilege through licenses. Yes, really.

HSUS Pushes for Deer Birth Control in Place of Hunting, Sticking You with the Bill

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has recently offered their suggestion on how to cut an increased deer population in Washington D.C.- birth control...

www.ammoland.com

Why should I want it to stay open, when I am nearly the only one who ever posts new stuff to it, only to have 'it's all Leftist lies' used as a rebuttal pretty much every time, even when we now have a GOP Climate Caucus now active?

Well then, have you even tried convince anyone here that this GOP Climate Caucus really does offer some great ideas that the right will benefit from, as opposed to the common suspicion that it's just "whatever the left ordered but light"? Because so far your counter to that suspicion was "stop being ideological, maybe the left is right about that!" Did they even publish some kind of policy statement, and would you argue that its contents are worth promoting?

You know what, I want to thank you @Marduk.

You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment doesn't just stop at international borders.

Yet you seem to fail to understand that the sovereign rule of US and all other countries, other than cases of war, does stop at their borders. That in fact does include the application of environmental laws and regulations. Beyond the borders, the options are limited, they boil down to basically 2 main ones, as i said - bribe or beg, though there are many PR and legal ways to paint these options. Bribe or beg them to not pollute, build infrastructure or resource ops over their wilderness, dump trash into the ocean and so on.
Or at least to make them to make a pinky swear to stop doing that proceed to do their thing, maybe trying to hide it a bit better if you ask nicely.

China fuels global steel glut – DW – 02/13/2017

A study commissioned by Greenpeace has found out that China massively expanded its steelmaking capacities last year, despite pledging to cut output amid a steel glut that has led to a global crisis in the industry.

www.dw.com

Both you and i understand that putting efforts into such futile, if idealistic looking policies is not an easy sell to the right. I hope it is not hard to understand that on rational grounds, the right has a good point in this. There's some crazier and more exotic ones like bombing highly polluting developing countries back into stone age, but that's not gonna fly with most on both sides. Do you have any better alternative option for national action (and the costs it will incur) on the inherently international environmental problems or an argument for pursuing the ones i've given regardless of their crappy nature?

 

[LindyAF]

Beyond the borders, the options are limited, they boil down to basically 2 main ones, as i said - bribe or beg, though there are many PR and legal ways to paint these options. Bribe or beg them to not pollute, build infrastructure or resource ops over their wilderness, dump trash into the ocean and so on.

Well, there's also...

bombing highly polluting developing countries back into stone age

Ah, you covered it.

 

[Terthna]

Why should I want it to stay open, when I am nearly the only one who ever posts new stuff to it, only to have 'it's all Leftist lies' used as a rebuttal pretty much every time, even when we now have a GOP Climate Caucus now active?

I mean the fact people here actually the formation of that caucus as a bad thing has really opened my eyes to how futile my attempt to foster meaningful debate on this subject was among this portion of the Right.

I don't know; maybe because these rest of us might be interested in seeing if there's still a discussion to be had? If the thread dies without you, so be it; but shutting it down out of spite is just disrespectful to everyone who's posted in it, including me. Besides; what exactly does it cost you if the thread is kept open?

 

[LordsFire]

I think there is a pretty significant part of this that is value differences though. Like, "plastic, particularly disposable plastic, is ending up in the oceans" is pretty clearly true (I'm happy to present some evidence of this if you don't agree). The anti-environmental position here seems at least to me to be "cutting down on plastic use isn't worth the economic tradeoff" and "most of that's China anyway, and we can't do anything to control them." These are more value disputes than factual ones.

I make a practice of reusing disposable plastics as much as reasonably possible. I use grocery bags instead of ziplocks (mostly), I re-use water/gatorade bottles until they're pretty much trashed, etc.

The reasonable expectation to push culturally and politically for issues like this, is to be personally responsible. Changing personal behavior patterns is the best way to deal with the issue, and it's something that can actually be done without screwing over our own economy, empowering China, etc.

As others have already pointed out though, China India, etc, dump waste into the ocean in bulk, and that's the more serious source of this problem.

On top of that, plastics aren't as 'permanent' as a lot of environmentalists like to make out. Some forms are very difficult for nature to break down, yes, but that's not all plastics, and IIRC, those designed to be disposable are often designed to be easier to break down these days.

In the end, it's still worth making reasonable efforts to try to control the issue, but one must also recognize that it can not be fully controlled.

None of this changes the issue that Bacle fails to recognize; IE that trying to pander to the Democrat position on this will never work, because their objective isn't actually environmental protection, but more power and control. Even if they do eventually manage to gain totalitarian control through environmental excuses, they will never let the issue die, because it will be part of their continuing justification for remaining in totalitarian control of all things.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Keyword: could. They sure as hell don't want to. Hollywood and the likes of them are PETA/Greenpeace territory and those hate hunting with the fire of a thousand suns.

But that's rational exploitation, not the "sacred cow" treatment that the ideological greens want.
They would rather spend lots of money giving birth control to animals than allow hunters to cull some and even pay for the privilege through licenses. Yes, really.

HSUS Pushes for Deer Birth Control in Place of Hunting, Sticking You with the Bill

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has recently offered their suggestion on how to cut an increased deer population in Washington D.C.- birth control...

www.ammoland.com

Yeah, so? If it took no effort and both sides of the political scale endorsed it, we wouldn't be having a discussion, it'd already be a done deal. Complaining that people who oppose you will oppose you is... not exactly a hot take but also completely meaningless as far as complaints are concerned.

Despite how much Hollywood hates guns, somehow the US military manages to be portrayed as total badasses in every movie because there's money and support in it for them, that's why I specifically mentioned using BLM regulations in the same manner to similar results. It's a proven successful strategy for leading Hollywood by the nose because they are in it to make money and will tend to betray their principles for money. The problem is that outside the military wisely using that to make sure the military is portrayed as utter combat machines to the point that they managed to kill more Decepticons than the Autobots did, the right rarely bothers to actually use this.

Lemme note that HSUS is pretty much a known scam operation, taking them as typical would be a mistake. They embrace relatively crazy positions, usually about spay and neutering wildlife that's not really possible, and then sock all the money they get for it into an offshore account. Even actual HSUS employees think they're a scam.

10 Things You Should Know About HSUS - HumaneWatch

Updated February 2023. For a printable handout of this information, click here. If you’re visiting this site for the first time–welcome! Here’s the full list of things you should know about the so-called “Humane Society” of the United States. It’s a story of financial malfeasance and...

humanewatch.org

Charity Navigator - Rating for The Humane Society of the United States

The Humane Society of the United States has earned a 4/4 Star rating on Charity Navigator. This Organization to Prevent Cruelty to Animals is headquartered in Washington, DC.

www.charitynavigator.org

None of this changes the issue that Bacle fails to recognize; IE that trying to pander to the Democrat position on this will never work, because their objective isn't actually environmental protection, but more power and control. Even if they do eventually manage to gain totalitarian control through environmental excuses, they will never let the issue die, because it will be part of their continuing justification for remaining in totalitarian control of all things.

Using regulatory persuasion to make Hollywood embrace guns and hunting.
Pandering to the Democrats.

Pick one.

 

[Captain X]

You know what, I want to thank you @Marduk.

You've helped me realize that this sort of thread is pointless on a forum like this, because very few people are on the American Right seem to get or care that the environment doesn't just stop at international borders. Most of you are just the mirror side ideologues of the Left, and care more about continuing the narrative that the Left is always lying or wrong, because admitting otherwise is a betrayal of the narrative you've wrapped yourself in.

@Staff, would one of you go ahead and close this thread, since it's become obvious it will never truly serve it's intended purpose given the ideological atmosphere of this forum.

Dude, I lean mostly liberal myself, but I'm libertarian enough to be very skeptical of climate change alarmism because of the scientific facts that I have seen on the matter. It also doesn't help that when you actually ask most of the people who are pushing it, it pretty much comes down to "it's warmer now than it was when I was a kid" for a disturbingly large portion of them, and that's before you get into the bad science pushed by the likes of Al Gore and the IPPC, which literally started with a conclusion and then tried to find evidence to support it. This is largely where the obsession over CO2 comes from, in spite of the fact that even on their absurd hockey-stick graph they tried to sell to the world, it has been shown that CO2 levels followed on from changes in temperature rather than leading them, suggesting exactly the opposite relationship than the one they are pushing. Furthermore, their "solutions" to this "problem" amount to sin taxes, with exceptions for certain places, like China, which just happens to be the largest producer of CO2. Furthermore, they reject other obvious solutions, like nuclear power, in favor of what amounts to luditism, where we live very low-tech and eat bugs while the elite, of course, get to continue to live un-impeded because they can afford the sin taxes and other things that will become luxuries, like eating meat. Everything for them is about pushing globalism, and they're just trying to scare people into going along with it by claiming climate change (which they changed from global warming because the warming really leveled off there for a good long stretch) is going to kill us all. Also notice that their talking heads have consistently been saying that we only have ten to a dozen years to avert this coming disaster, going at least back to the 1980s.

So I'd say this is less about us being ideologues (since I don't exactly fit in with the rest of them, you know), and more about you buying into the fear-mongering that has always been designed to get the populous to act without thinking. If anything, @Marduk has been very thoughtful on the topic and has tried to explain his position very thoroughly, which you are just ignoring.

I think the GOP and the right in general should push heavy nuclear. Start education on how it is safe and cleaner etc etc.

Maybe eventually the left will have to give in

That would be nice, but I doubt the left would just give in since this is more about supporting globalism and their leftist authoritarian ideology than anything else. Plus, right now the main fight is against kids being brainwashed with CRT.

Why should I want it to stay open, when I am nearly the only one who ever posts new stuff to it, only to have 'it's all Leftist lies' used as a rebuttal pretty much every time, even when we now have a GOP Climate Caucus now active?

Because the leftists have consistently lied about everything. You really ought to know better considering the election fraud, which you yourself lambast the conservatives on this board who are skeptical that the fraud happened. And the fact of the matter is, there have been many times the climate narrative being pushed by leftists has been disproven as well, going all the way back to that absurd hockey-stick temperature/CO2 graph they tried to sell us back in the early 2000s. There has been a constant fight over temperature and CO2 levels ever since, because there is significant evidence from both tree core and ice core samples which suggest that both the Roman and Medieval Warm periods were warmer than it is today. There's also the failure of several climate models they've been pushing to predict the future, and all of them have failed to recreate known, undisputed data from the past century using the criteria that they are based on. I seem to recall that not that long ago, we had almost moved entirely out of the "best case" scenario that they had published, which is to say, we were almost out of the low end of the standard deviation of that model. So given this, and given the fact that the globalist-pushing leftists have lied about so many other things, why are you so convinced that they're telling the truth about climate change and are merely exaggerating on a few points?

 

[DarthOne]

What Corals Can Tell Us About Climate Change

New resarch from the IPA reveals that records from living and fossilised corals show natural variations in temperature stretching back thousands of years.

ipa.org.au

A new paper from Dr John Abbot, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, reveals that records from living and fossilised corals show natural variations in temperature stretching back thousands of years.

Dr Abbot urged Australia’s Government-funded research institution to resume the program of coring corals and publication of trend data that appeared to cease in the early 2000’s, as detailed in the recent IPA documentary, Finding Porities.

The research report, What Corals Can Tell Us About Climate Change: Temperature Variability Over Millennia, was released today by the IPA, to coincide with this week’s hearing in the High Court of the case of Dr Peter Ridd, dismissed by James Cook University for his criticisms of quality of the reef science being undertaken by some of his colleagues.

“We are constantly being informed that the world is in the midst of a climate crisis and that current atmospheric temperatures are unprecedented, but this should be viewed in the context of what has occurred in the past,” Dr Abbot said.

“The public and politicians have been conditioned to associate ‘climate change’ with the destructive behaviour of generations of humans since the onset of the industrial revolution about 130 years ago. However, the scientific literature informs us that climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred over thousands of years and there is no reason to believe that this process is not ongoing.

“Studies of corals can contribute to our knowledge and understanding of these natural processes that are contributing to current climate change and also enable us to quantify the contribution from human activities,” he said.

Dr Abbot applies the evidence in the coral record gathered in his research to critique the famous “hockey-stick” of Dr Michael Mann, which had the effect of flattening the temperature record of the last millennium and implying a rapid increase in recent times. By contrast, the studies of corals cited by Dr Abbot show that sea surface temperatures have been increasing since about 1790 AD after a period of decline of at least several centuries.

This fits with temperature profiles that show evidence for the Little Ice Age, approximately during the period of 1600-1800 AD, following a relatively warm period called the Medieval Warm Period around 1000 AD, which had maximum temperatures similar to the present.

Dr Abbot has a BSc in chemistry from Imperial College, London, an MSc from the University of British Columbia, Canada, a Master of Biotechnology from the University of Queensland and a PhD in chemistry from McGill University, Canada. He has has published more than 100 papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. He also obtained a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Queensland and was admitted as a solicitor in Queensland, and later obtained an LLM from the University of Queensland.

 

[Bacle]

What Corals Can Tell Us About Climate Change

New resarch from the IPA reveals that records from living and fossilised corals show natural variations in temperature stretching back thousands of years.

ipa.org.au

He's not wrong, the climate has always been variable.

However those cycles were before we started liberating a lot of trapped carbon and methane via fossil fuels.

The climate will naturally change no matter what we do; however we definitely can impact the magnitude change, both in good ways and negative ways.

The environment is very fucking complex, and only in the last few decades have we truly started to understand the depth of that complexity and how we impact our world.

 

[DarthOne]

He's not wrong, the climate has always been variable.

However those cycles were before we started liberating a lot of trapped carbon and methane via fossil fuels.

The climate will naturally change no matter what we do; however we definitely can impact the magnitude change, both in good ways and negative ways.

The environment is very fucking complex, and only in the last few decades have we truly started to understand the depth of that complexity and how we impact our world.

...you didn't look at the chart, did you?

 

[Bacle]

...you didn't look at the chart, did you?

Yes, yes I did.

Actually seen similar ones during my Master's of Environmental Maganment grad program.

What you are seeing are the long-scale cycles of periodic warming and cooling on the Earth's surface, which are the macro level manifestation of many smaller cycles blending together.

Sun cycles, the Milankovitch orbital cycles, volcanos, and a bunch of other things all factor into the average surface temp of the Earth.

However introducing more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere will impact the effect/magnitude of said cycles.

 

[Captain X]

...you didn't look at the chart, did you?

Yeah, he did, he's just ignoring it and is going to insist on repeating what the alarmists have been saying to get us to go along with what the globalists want.