Putting the “conserve” back in “conservative”
Peter Dykstra, Environmental Health News
Last Sunday, an influential British conservative sent up a red flag in the Times of London. Sensing a sharp turn in the policy direction of new Prime Minister Liz Truss, William Hague wrote “conservatives must always be environmentalists.”
In other words, the British Right is in
deep trouble if it follows the path of America’s Right.
But — from Teddy Roosevelt to Richard
Milhous Nixon to Ronald Reagan — it wasn’t always that way here.
So, in this sharply divided country, how
do we get back to a time when millions of us don’t equate clean air with bad
taste? Maybe a tour of more than a century of Republican history could guide
us.
Even a few (but not all) GOP leaders with overall lousy environmental track records make the list.
The Lacey Act
Congress passed, and President William
McKinley signed, the Lacey Act – the distant forerunner of the U.S. Endangered
Species Act — in 1900.
The issue of the day was the plumage
coveted for ladies’ hats. Lacey set sharp limits on the taking of feathery
birds, and the importation of birds killed for their plumage.
"What nature once so bountifully supplied"
Teddy Roosevelt was the eco superstar of his day, ushering in the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and more.
In 1907, he issued “A Message to the Schoolchildren of the United
States," saying, in part, "We of an older generation can get along
with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and
womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so
thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for
what we have used, but for what we have wasted.”
From the EPA to the Clean Air Act
The president who once said that environmentalists wanted to “live like a bunch of damn animals,” had an impressive string of environmental achievements.
President Richard Nixon signed
laws that created the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, limited pesticide use and required environmental
impact statements for development projects.
He also signed the Clean Air Act and the
Endangered Species Act but vetoed the Clean Water Act as too expensive.
Congress overrode that veto.
Montreal Protocol
In 1987, the world’s nations gathered in Montreal to hammer out a solution to a recently discovered growing menace: the ozone hole over Antarctica, caused by ozone-depleting chemicals.
The Montreal
Protocol was supported by President Ronald Reagan (as well as fellow
conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher). The protocol has
reversed ozone damage as one of the few truly effective global environmental
treaties.
Reagan’s successor was his Vice
President, George H. W. Bush. As president, he signed into law powerful
improvements to Nixon’s Clean Air Act.
Then came Newt
In the 1970’s, an ambitious professor at
West Georgia College raised some hell as advisor to the campus Sierra Club.
Elected to Congress on his second try, Newton Leroy Gingrich learned there was
no path to House Speaker for a GOP treehugger.
The 1994 Newt Gingrich rode his
anti-regulatory Contract With America to the Speaker’s chair and a couple of
failed presidential bids.
Even W.
George W. Bush, considered by
environmentalists to have an awful track record, scored green points by backing
several sprawling marine protected areas in
the Pacific.
Then came the Tea Party, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that surrendered the last shred of integrity in campaign financing, and the Trump era.
Climate denial became a Merit Badge for rising Republicans. Climate concern vanished from the speeches and deeds of Romney, McCain, Christie, Jindal, and a dozen more.
Even
Sarah Palin, in her brief turn as Alaska governor, created a “Climate Sub-Cabinet”
to help prepare her vulnerable state. The sub-cabinet never met, and it quietly
disappeared after Palin resigned.
At least mild concern from Republican
leadership is long overdue. Let’s hope it’s science, reason and integrity that
bring it back, and not the next wave of droughts, wildfires, or Hurricane Ians.
Peter Dykstra is EHN's weekend
editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.