Conservatism and the Environment

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
This is a thread for those of us who value the environment, but are not onboard with the Leftist lean that the modern environmental movement has taken.

The environmental movement in the US started, at least on the large scale, with Teddy Roosevelt, yet seems the sole realm of Leftists these day, because of how the media and social situation has evolved. This needs to change, and getting conservative and non-progressive view points and opinions on what could/should be done to protect the environment is one way to start to change the narrative and get real, workable solutions implemented.

Personally I feel that environmental issues are something everyone should be concerned about and have a voice in, because wanting a habitable biosphere far into the future shouldn't be a partisan issue.

Here's an article showing some of the successes, and stumbling blocks, in trying to make the environment a bi-partisan issue once again.

So, what sort of ideas and opinions do posters here have in regards to environmental issue?
 

Marduk

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I'd personally divide environmental issues into 4 types:
1. Protectionist and value judgements. Things like protecting certain species and keeping certain areas undeveloped. The value of such things is relative, very dependent on who you ask and their worldview. Sure, keeping some wilderness has value for tourist and scientific purposes, but that reasoning has scale limits, beyond which it ends. On the other extreme end you have some greens who would like to make everyone live in very dense cities and make most of their respective countries territory off limits to them and any economically beneficial activity.

2. Human health and comfort matters. Issues like air and water quality, beaches, pollution of fisheries etc. While these things usually also affect nature, a good case can be made that they need to be mitigated for the sake of the people. No one wants to drink flammable water or eat mercury in their fish. In western countries issues of these type tend to be mostly handled already.
Still, extremists can also happen, in the vein of "let's get rid of this multi billion industry because it increases local cancer rates by 0.000053%", the kind of stuff that brings the well known EPA calculations regarding establishing when it's work it.

3. Natural resource management. Matters where there is a resource to be exploited and we're not listening the crazy green types who want that to stop, we're wondering how to do it in an efficient and lasting manner. Forestry, fisheries management, and so on. Do it wrong, and you end up with less or worse resources to exploit after some time.

4. Global/international issues, possibly involving "tragedy of commons" cases. Issues where no matter what a given environmentalist minded population votes for and how extreme its government becomes in green policies, it will achieve little to nothing for such sacrifices when it comes to addressing the problem. Ideological "greens" would of course do it anyway for feel good virtue signalling reasons, but there is no reason why more reasonable people should go along. The whole CO2 emissions question is the leading case of this:
Sure, some very progressive country could listen to its most radical greens and ruin its economy for the sake of fighting "climate change", could even go back to the stone age and die off mostly, but what would it achieve? In the end, global emissions would not change meaningfully, and behavior of those who could affect it would not be changed, hell, the misery such people would inflict upon themselves and their compatriots would encourage others to put anyone who proposes similar measures into the loony bin. A similar, but non hypothetical scenario is the recent plastic straw bans - even though the countries implementing such a radical and inconvenient measure upon their populations tend to have decent waste management policies, and in general terms they are negligible contributors to the sea plastic garbage problem that such bans are supposed to address. Obviously, the leading ones don't even think of it, getting them to adopt half decent waste management in the style of aforementioned countries is hard enough.

In conclusion, i think GOP or any right wing party can be a very reasonable voice on any type 2 and 3 issues, stay careful and grounded in precedent in type 1 (can stick to national parks and such established protections, but expanding environmental protectionism is where far left ideological environmentalists lie), and leave type 4 to idiots, ideologues, and as a source of talking points to throw at the aforementioned and a reserve of convenient silly complaints to throw at foreign governments that may need to have one thrown at them in political discourse.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
I'd personally divide environmental issues into 4 types:
1. Protectionist and value judgements. Things like protecting certain species and keeping certain areas undeveloped. The value of such things is relative, very dependent on who you ask and their worldview. Sure, keeping some wilderness has value for tourist and scientific purposes, but that reasoning has scale limits, beyond which it ends. On the other extreme end you have some greens who would like to make everyone live in very dense cities and make most of their respective countries territory off limits to them and any economically beneficial activity.

2. Human health and comfort matters. Issues like air and water quality, beaches, pollution of fisheries etc. While these things usually also affect nature, a good case can be made that they need to be mitigated for the sake of the people. No one wants to drink flammable water or eat mercury in their fish. In western countries issues of these type tend to be mostly handled already.
Still, extremists can also happen, in the vein of "let's get rid of this multi billion industry because it increases local cancer rates by 0.000053%", the kind of stuff that brings the well known EPA calculations regarding establishing when it's work it.

3. Natural resource management. Matters where there is a resource to be exploited and we're not listening the crazy green types who want that to stop, we're wondering how to do it in an efficient and lasting manner. Forestry, fisheries management, and so on. Do it wrong, and you end up with less or worse resources to exploit after some time.

4. Global/international issues, possibly involving "tragedy of commons" cases. Issues where no matter what a given environmentalist minded population votes for and how extreme its government becomes in green policies, it will achieve little to nothing for such sacrifices when it comes to addressing the problem. Ideological "greens" would of course do it anyway for feel good virtue signalling reasons, but there is no reason why more reasonable people should go along. The whole CO2 emissions question is the leading case of this:
Sure, some very progressive country could listen to its most radical greens and ruin its economy for the sake of fighting "climate change", could even go back to the stone age and die off mostly, but what would it achieve? In the end, global emissions would not change meaningfully, and behavior of those who could affect it would not be changed, hell, the misery such people would inflict upon themselves and their compatriots would encourage others to put anyone who proposes similar measures into the loony bin. A similar, but non hypothetical scenario is the recent plastic straw bans - even though the countries implementing such a radical and inconvenient measure upon their populations tend to have decent waste management policies, and in general terms they are negligible contributors to the sea plastic garbage problem that such bans are supposed to address. Obviously, the leading ones don't even think of it, getting them to adopt half decent waste management in the style of aforementioned countries is hard enough.

In conclusion, i think GOP or any right wing party can be a very reasonable voice on any type 2 and 3 issues, stay careful and grounded in precedent in type 1 (can stick to national parks and such established protections, but expanding environmental protectionism is where far left ideological environmentalists lie), and leave type 4 to idiots, ideologues, and as a source of talking points to throw at the aforementioned and a reserve of convenient silly complaints to throw at foreign governments that may need to have one thrown at them in political discourse.
That is a good way to break down the different aspects and challenges in making good environmental policies while not letting the radical greenies control the narrative and policies implemented.

I do however believe there are areas where extending environmental protections is necessary to the continued good health and economic stability of some regions. Celebs and CEOs don't need homes at the end of a ten mile road back in otherwise undeveloped, or mostly undeveloped, wilderness. As well, some industries should move to less...I won't say environmentally 'damaging', but certainly environmentally 'disruptive', tech and methodologies. Horizontal drilling in the petroleum/NG industry and selective logging of overgrown areas are good examples of what these sorts of polices should look like.
 

Marduk

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I do however believe there are areas where extending environmental protections is necessary to the continued good health and economic stability of some regions.
Quite the opposite i think. Extend them too much, and the place will be too much of a nuisance to bother living in.
Celebs and CEOs don't need homes at the end of a ten mile road back in otherwise undeveloped, or mostly undeveloped, wilderness.
It doesn't matter if they need them or not. Are they willing to pay for them? They aren't going to get those for free, certainly shouldn't either... Thanks to the money paid by them the local government can get those regions better infrastructure, in turn improving the local economic opportunities.
As well, some industries should move to less...I won't say environmentally 'damaging', but certainly environmentally 'disruptive', tech and methodologies. Horizontal drilling in the petroleum/NG industry and selective logging of overgrown areas are good examples of what these sorts of polices should look like.
That's a numbers question. If these alternatives are too costly, then using them may well make the whole business not worth doing, with all the consequences of that.
 

lloyd007

Well-known member
I consider myself a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist. I love green spaces, parks (both sculpted like Central Park and more wild like most National Parks) and try my best to recycle and leave as efficient a footprint as I can on the world...

...and I consider the modern environmental movement to be a sociopolitcal cult abomination. It is the Church of Climatology that doesn't give a fuck about preserving the environment but rather using global things that can't be solved outside of nuclear war (such as the whole carbon emissions) to gain as much money and political power as they can. You saw that with the Obama Admin maliciously abusing the National Monuments Act to seize unremarkable scrubland by fiat and with the whole 'Clean Power Plan' that wasn't anything more than social punishment of 'carbon sinners'. You also see this with the Euros green garbage that has resulted in nothing more than throwing money to the climate racket with less actual results than the USA.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Quite the opposite i think. Extend them too much, and the place will be too much of a nuisance to bother living in.
Extending them too far is counter-productive, but that is not the same as extending them at all.

It doesn't matter if they need them or not. Are they willing to pay for them? They aren't going to get those for free, certainly shouldn't either... Thanks to the money paid by them the local government can get those regions better infrastructure, in turn improving the local economic opportunities.
Except that isn't what happens in practice; they get the houses, are their maybe a month or two out of the year, and the money the local government sees from them is not that much due to off-shore banking havens.

That's a numbers question. If these alternatives are too costly, then using them may well make the whole business not worth doing, with all the consequences of that.
Except those methodologies are actually creating more money than normal, not less.

Horizontal drilling requires a couple more motors on the derrick, and that's about it, in exchange for massively increasing how much you can produce from a single well-pad.
 

Marduk

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Extending them too far is counter-productive, but that is not the same as extending them at all.
Still, i don't see any economic benefit in extending them.
Except that isn't what happens in practice; they get the houses, are their maybe a month or two out of the year, and the money the local government sees from them is not that much due to off-shore banking havens.
Rural local governments don't operate on massive budgets. "A little" money spend by someone like that is still waaaay more than a piece of undeveloped land would have given them.
Except those methodologies are actually creating more money than normal, not less.

Horizontal drilling requires a couple more motors on the derrick, and that's about it, in exchange for massively increasing how much you can produce from a single well-pad.
There probably is some kind of a catch there. What's the change in price per barrel?
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Still, i don't see any economic benefit in extending them.
Consider the following then: Many areas depend on tourist money that is brought in becasue of the environment in their area. In places like this, extending certain protections will generate more for the economy in the long run, where as reducing the protections or just leaving them as is could see more money in the short term at the cost of long term earning potential.

We shouldn't let the radical greenies steer this conversation, and that means admitting that environmental protection can have short term costs for long term gains, and acting accordingly.

Rural local governments don't operate on massive budgets. "A little" money spend by someone like that is still waaaay more than a piece of undeveloped land would have given them.
Not necessarily; undeveloped land can still be used by hunters, ranchers, hikers, and tourists which bring in money as well from permit fees and such.

It may not be as much all at once, but in the long run it can bring in more via secondary spending of people buying gear/food at local businesses. Let someone put a house on that same plot of land, it can drive off/discourage other types of use, and suddenly that's less money coming into the local economy as a whole.

It is all a balancing act of different interests, but from my view more people are served, and more money generated, by not developing some areas.

There probably is some kind of a catch there. What's the change in price per barrel?
Not enough to be noticable, based off how often my friends in the oil fields work on rigs doing horizontal drilling.

It's a few more motors, and their maintenance, in order to easily access miles and miles of additional production areas from a single pad/drilling crew.
 

Marduk

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Consider the following then: Many areas depend on tourist money that is brought in becasue of the environment in their area. In places like this, extending certain protections will generate more for the economy in the long run, where as reducing the protections or just leaving them as is could see more money in the short term at the cost of long term earning potential.
Tourism is a very fickle thing. There are *many* areas competing for it, and in the end it also requires certain infrastructure of its own, particularly the kinds of tourism that involve lots of spending.

Hell, many third world countries that traditionally are big tourism destinations and have rather low local prices still struggle with this sort of stuff these days, so i would not bet on this kind of tourism in developed countries.
Not necessarily; undeveloped land can still be used by hunters, ranchers, hikers, and tourists which bring in money as well from permit fees and such.

It may not be as much all at once, but in the long run it can bring in more via secondary spending of people buying gear/food at local businesses. Let someone put a house on that same plot of land, it can drive off/discourage other types of use, and suddenly that's less money coming into the local economy as a whole.
Seems like it boils down to management and comparing revenue streams, something to be decided locally on case by case basis.
It is all a balancing act of different interests, but from my view more people are served, and more money generated, by not developing some areas.
If it's money we are talking about so, so it's impossible to say without a balance sheet, and the correct answer probably will be different for different cases, "views" have nothing to do with it.
Not enough to be noticable, based off how often my friends in the oil fields work on rigs doing horizontal drilling.

It's a few more motors, and their maintenance, in order to easily access miles and miles of additional production areas from a single pad/drilling crew.
Seems like neither of us is familiar with the technicalities, but from what i've seen on the internet, its feasibility is very situational.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
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Tourism is a very fickle thing. There are *many* areas competing for it, and in the end it also requires certain infrastructure of its own, particularly the kinds of tourism that involve lots of spending.

Hell, many third world countries that traditionally are big tourism destinations and have rather low local prices still struggle with this sort of stuff these days, so i would not bet on this kind of tourism in developed countries.

Seems like it boils down to management and comparing revenue streams, something to be decided locally on case by case basis.

If it's money we are talking about so, so it's impossible to say without a balance sheet, and the correct answer probably will be different for different cases, "views" have nothing to do with it.

Seems like neither of us is familiar with the technicalities, but from what i've seen on the internet, its feasibility is very situational.
Most, if not all, environmental issues are situation/local/regionally varied.

It's part of what's caused the problems in addressing issues. Everybody wants a silver bullet solution for their particular area or pet cause, but none exist and every local situation will be differently affected by broad changes in laws or directives.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
I think that the modern environmentalist attempt that focus on re-educating the population, change the behavior of humans, convince them to consume less etc is doomed to failure. Human nature is human nature, and humans tend to want more shit, and tend to care less about the long-term, distant consequences of their behavior. And forcing humans to behave in "environmentally desirable" ways is even worse, since that's a guaranteed way of making environmentalists despised, and lessens their chances of helping the planet as a result.

The focus, IMO, should be on a bigger scale rather than educating the little guy - switching to less polluting energy sources (nuclear is probably a better bet than solar or wind), large scale recycling projects, cleaning up the sea, etc.

Instead of angering people by forcing them to pay "pollution taxes" and shit like that (because the average guy isn't already taxed up to his ears, right?) how about creating cheap and convenient alternatives to polluting activities that people will WANT to flock to? Tesla is a good example (if only we can find a way to make the batteries with less pollution or something) - an affordable, quiet, super-fast car which is much cheaper to use since electricity is cheaper than gas.
 

GoldRanger

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Taxation will turn (hell, HAS turned) the environment issue into a political battleground. A rival administration could feel completely justified in canceling an unpopular tax imposed on the population by a political rival, and then what happens to the vaunted long-term plan?

In planning to save the environment you MUST also plan for human psychology, otherwise you will fail.
 

Marduk

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It's still a terrible idea due to said "internalization" working only within the scale of a single country or organization of countries that actually are willing and able to enforce it.
In the real world, plenty of countries won't be too eager, and on the other hand will see their economic competitivness in international markets rise with non-enforcement of such internalization. Talk about perverse incentives...
With more localized issues like fresh water pollution one or few countries agreeing to it is feasible, depending on the countries involved, but with global ones, like CO2 and oceans? Fat chance.
How big of an issue non-enforcement of such climate related bans is?
If China is enforcing this so poorly, do you think they will honestly enforce economically damaging CO2 limits, soft or hard?
 

Gastaph Hediatrix

Fabricator-General of Mars
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It may not be as much all at once, but in the long run it can bring in more via secondary spending of people buying gear/food at local businesses. Let someone put a house on that same plot of land, it can drive off/discourage other types of use, and suddenly that's less money coming into the local economy as a whole.

It can reduce certain types of use, yes, but property taxes on that much land is going to be worth *far* more than most undeveloped tourist options for a chunk of land of the same size, like hunting or fishing.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
It can reduce certain types of use, yes, but property taxes on that much land is going to be worth *far* more than most undeveloped tourist options for a chunk of land of the same size, like hunting or fishing.
This really depends on the location we are talking about, the size of the plot, and what the local environmental issues are.

Part of why ecological issues like this are so hard to take from the theoretical level to the practical/real world level is that, quite simply, no two areas or examples will be the same or have the same issues. Two plots only a mile apart could have significantly different issues to account for.
 

Marduk

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The "rules based order" is a much beloved concept of some kinds of still popular ways of political thinking, but the order itself is... chipping away. It's an relic of the late XX century global political situation and US economic victory in the cold war...
But this is changing. Many losers of that situation were forced into building more competitive economies, and behold, now few big economies are increasingly capable of ignoring some of the rules and it's not a problem for them, it's a problem for those who follow those rules - and no one even dreams that USA will lead another cold war over CO2 emissions.

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In light of the above, "do nothing" it is. Build infrastructure to tank the consequences, and hope technological developements make CO2 generating power sources economically inferior even without artificial pricing impulses added to them with taxes or something.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
<deleted content>
The "rules based order" is a much beloved concept of some kinds of still popular ways of political thinking, but the order itself is... chipping away. It's an relic of the late XX century global political situation and US economic victory in the cold war...
But this is changing. Many losers of that situation were forced into building more competitive economies, and behold, now few big economies are increasingly capable of ignoring some of the rules and it's not a problem for them, it's a problem for those who follow those rules - and no one even dreams that USA will lead another cold war over CO2 emissions.


In light of the above, "do nothing" it is. Build infrastructure to tank the consequences, and hope technological developements make CO2 generating power sources economically inferior even without artificial pricing impulses added to them with taxes or something.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration tech says hello

There are ways to keep CO2 emitting tech and industries running, while make new jobs that actually take carbon directly out of the atmosphere.
 

Marduk

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Carbon Capture and Sequestration tech says hello

There are ways to keep CO2 emitting tech and industries running, while make new jobs that actually take carbon directly out of the atmosphere.
It's a great element to add to a carbon tax based system, but outside of that, it falls completely to the "commons" issue.
It's not a profitable enterprise in itself, so someone has to pay for it, in fact pay quite a lot even with optimistic near future tech, because of physics.
Who, why, and how much?
A carbon tax answers these questions, and as for the how much, we can do the math - "below 100$ per ton" is the optimistic figure linked, so if we go with 100$ for convenience and a bit of realism, and go with 1 kWh coal power = 1kg CO2 (it's not exactly that, but close enough), we get a 0.10$ carbon tax per kWh.
Going by this, we are talking a doubling of general electricity taxation for most countries, though some that already have major "green" taxes included into that may do it by replacing them with this one, making it an interesting option for these few.
But that's the EU, it has green policies and heavy taxation already, and can (barely) afford them so far.
How does it work for Russia or China?
What are your bets, will Russia and China increase electricity prices by a factor of 2.5 just because of CO2?
What will the greens do about it?
Will American taxpayers sponsor the carbon sequestration of Russia's and China's emissions instead?
My respective answers are "hell no", "get beaten up by their police and decide it's easier to go and have ridiculous demands in nicer countries", "lolnope".
 
D

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Carbon Capture and Sequestration tech says hello

There are ways to keep CO2 emitting tech and industries running, while make new jobs that actually take carbon directly out of the atmosphere.

Technology is a good way to approach dealing with the threat posed by global warming, but private corporations won't implement such solutions on their own unless there's something in it for them. That might mean meeting a popular demand for greener technology (cultivated in part by consciousness-raising from environmentalist organizations) or it might mean responding to tax incentives, research grants, and pollution penalties imposed by the government. That still calls for some sort of large-scale government intervention and planning as well as international agreements to avoid a "tragedy of the commons" situation where because some nations dodge doing their fair share by free-riding on the efforts of other countries nothing actually gets done.

That means conservatives need some sort of comprehensive policy beyond repeating paens to the free market and insisting that the Invisible Hand will solve the problem. Because it won't. The existence of externalities which can be forced upon the general public without the responsible party having to account for them in their particular economic calculations makes that impossible. And disputing the reality of climate change due to a massive increase in carbon emissions is worse than useless; it makes conservatives look like anti-science kooks who are charitably sticking their heads in the sand and less charitably backing the private interests of their wealthy donors at the expense of the public good. Carbon capture and nuclear energy are a good start, of course, but you also have to look at improving efficiency standards to reduce fossil fuel consumption, improving land use and promoting reforestation and re-wilding, aiding poorer Third World countries to do their part, etc and etc.

Nor is environmentalism all about carbon emissions even if that is the most pressing matter at hand. At the root of conservatism is the verb "to conserve." What is conservative environmental policy aimed at conserving? The ability of private actors to ruthlessly generate profits at the expense of the land and future generations? It is short-sighted to burn through the available biostock of the planet in pursuit of a single generation's fleeting interest (and often enough the profit from say tearing up a protected area or overfishing goes into very few hands and produces little enough compared to the overall size of the economy) and a violation of man's responsibility to act as a steward of Creation (if you believe that). Looking at conservation as a matter of economic development in any case just furthers the extreme materialism that reduces everything and everyone to a factor of production or consumption, atomizing society and destroying traditional values in favor of "maximizing economic efficiency."

That certainly doesn't mean conservatives ought to accept every environmentalist proposal or choose between more and less effective policies, or even weight costs versus benefits; but it does mean we need to take conservationism far more seriously than we do and to incorporate intangible values in our calculations as readily as we do crude dollar value.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Technology is a good way to approach dealing with the threat posed by global warming, but private corporations won't implement such solutions on their own unless there's something in it for them. That might mean meeting a popular demand for greener technology (cultivated in part by consciousness-raising from environmentalist organizations) or it might mean responding to tax incentives, research grants, and pollution penalties imposed by the government. That still calls for some sort of large-scale government intervention and planning as well as international agreements to avoid a "tragedy of the commons" situation where because some nations dodge doing their fair share by free-riding on the efforts of other countries nothing actually gets done.

That means conservatives need some sort of comprehensive policy beyond repeating paens to the free market and insisting that the Invisible Hand will solve the problem. Because it won't. The existence of externalities which can be forced upon the general public without the responsible party having to account for them in their particular economic calculations makes that impossible. And disputing the reality of climate change due to a massive increase in carbon emissions is worse than useless; it makes conservatives look like anti-science kooks who are charitably sticking their heads in the sand and less charitably backing the private interests of their wealthy donors at the expense of the public good. Carbon capture and nuclear energy are a good start, of course, but you also have to look at improving efficiency standards to reduce fossil fuel consumption, improving land use and promoting reforestation and re-wilding, aiding poorer Third World countries to do their part, etc and etc.

Nor is environmentalism all about carbon emissions even if that is the most pressing matter at hand. At the root of conservatism is the verb "to conserve." What is conservative environmental policy aimed at conserving? The ability of private actors to ruthlessly generate profits at the expense of the land and future generations? It is short-sighted to burn through the available biostock of the planet in pursuit of a single generation's fleeting interest (and often enough the profit from say tearing up a protected area or overfishing goes into very few hands and produces little enough compared to the overall size of the economy) and a violation of man's responsibility to act as a steward of Creation (if you believe that). Looking at conservation as a matter of economic development in any case just furthers the extreme materialism that reduces everything and everyone to a factor of production or consumption, atomizing society and destroying traditional values in favor of "maximizing economic efficiency."

That certainly doesn't mean conservatives ought to accept every environmentalist proposal or choose between more and less effective policies, or even weight costs versus benefits; but it does mean we need to take conservationism far more seriously than we do and to incorporate intangible values in our calculations as readily as we do crude dollar value.
I agree with most of this. Trying to make it a economic numbers game, and only reasoning via that level of dialog, is absolutely counter-productive.

Yes, some people do need economic incentives to get them to care about our ecosystem. But there are also plenty of conservatives who are less Reaganite and more Roosevelt, who understand the value of our ecosystem goes beyond mere dollars and spreadsheets.

However I think there are ways to deal with this that don't necessitate globalist intervention or regulation. No one wants to live in squalor and smog, and everyone would like to keep the oceans from becoming toxic cesspools. Using something like the UN as a pulpit to encourage growth of eco-friendly, but not radical greenie, industry and tech is about as far as I feel the 'global' arena can truly help the situation. Anything more gets bogged down in bureaucracy and budget/interest fights between powers.
 

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