It seems to be this stereotype that all conservatives hate the environment and all liberals hug trees no matter how many contrary examples are shown. Why do one’s political views have to affect how he feels about the environment? Shouldn’t it all be scientific/moral/ethical than based around politics?
What if the rest of my political views don’t match these other "green" parties?
What about the evironmental policies of conservative groups that are very green?
What about liberals who don’t care about the environment?
I’ve yet to see an answer that looks beyond stereotypes to real world cases.
Because many environmental issues are red herrings for government control. Read up on UN Agenda 21. The UN’s own documents say they should get more control over all countries energy, power supplies, & transportation because "we are polluting the earth." It is a good way for the UN to tax western countries & take the money for themselves.
Then after we spend a couple billion on "research" we find out the entire premise is crap. Like Global Warming. After we saw Inconvenient Truth we though we needed to do something. Then it comes out, the movie was riddled with mistakes. Did you know In 2007, the UK High Court ruled “Inconvenient Truth” contained “Nine Key Scientific” errors?” The judge ruled it, a "political film" not a science film!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3310137/Al-Gores-nine-Inconvenient-Untruths.html
Then the Climate-gate emails came out, and the Universities that got millions in grants investigated their own professors. Guess what, they found nothing wrong. If BP investigated itself and said there were no problems would you be OK with that? How can an organization do an objective investigation of itself?
And there is no consensus on this either,
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=10fe77b0-802a-23ad-4df1-fc38ed4f85e3
in 1974, the same geniuses were warning us about Global Cooling!!
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
As far as conservation goes, it is also political. How would you like it if some bums crapped on your lawn every night? Well there are millions of illegals who have devastated the deserts of the US. Image 1,000 people a night coming through a couple of acres. They leave plastic bags all over, crap all over and put their toilet paper over cactus, and leave thousands of plastic water bottles laying on the ground. Those 1,000 people come every night. Those areas is now considered a biohard area, from waste, dirty diapers, soiled cloths, drug needles, etc. But you never hear a peep from "green environmental groups" about that. Why is that?
That is just because you live in a place called the United States of America – where a lot of poorly educated people see environmental protection and economic growth as antinomic.
Here are just two examples of highly intelligent conservative women who held PhD’s in physics and have been or are country leaders : M.Thatcher – A.Merkel and have been vocal in adressing global warming.
Sorry that it’s only your country that is like that.
In other places there are even green right wing parties.
So now the reasons? What is different in your country:
– dogma
– extreme party loyalty
– low level of rationality
– bipolar politics
– lack of moderate fraction in the political field
– anti-intellectualism
– rejection of science and logic
– lower level of education
– high level of lobbyism
– corporate-funded politics
– and the list goes on and on….
EDIT: It started with a misconception that Milton Friedman was 100% right on everything and that neighbouring effects (destruction of common goods) resulting from a linear sum of individual seeking their own interest – could be just outright dismissed for being too small. This has been proven wrong in many cases where one’s interest actually harmed directly or indirectly other people’s interest. Some examples:
– smoking in public places
– using ozone depleting substances
– overuse of fuels which burden the environment and the trade balance
– use of fossil fuels which affect the climate
The reality is we choose our political parties based on their alignment with our own views — at least we should….. So if you’re environmentally concerned, you’re going to register green, liberal or democrat…. because those are the parties that are more concerned with the environment. That’s not to say that no Conservatives or Republicans are concerned with the environment… but they are less concerned with it than they are with say…. tax breaks for the wealthy, unConstitutionally embedding their religion in things of State, and keeping gays from getting married…. so it’s lower on their scale of importance.
I’m sorry — WHAT environmental conservative groups? I have yet to hear of any.
And bottom line is that you weigh what matters most to you and register with the party that supports that most…. if the environment matters enough to you, you align with a party that has that as one of their top priorities — if it’s lower on your list, you align yourself with a party that does fit your top priority(ies)…. no party is going to spot-on and 100% for any individual…. you go with the one that fits your beliefs and attitudes best and weigh the platforms based on how important each point is to you.
If tax breaks for the rich are higher on your priority list, you’re likely going to register Republican…. if the environment is more important to you than that, you’re likely not going to register as a Republican
<<Why do one’s political views have to affect how he feels about the environment?>>
maybe the question might be better phrased as, "Why does one’s views of the environment affect one’s political views?"
then the answer becomes pretty obvious.
if one is concerned about the environment, clearly one should support the democratic party.
if one does not care about the environment, then one’s views are more in line with those folks who belong to the republican party.
generally, someone does not join a political party, and then try to change that party to suit his, or her views.
one picks a party because it more closely supports the ideas that a person has.
often it’s not a perfect fit.
it may be that i think that a balanced budget is a good thing.
and that we should not use services that we’re not willing to pay for.
and that paying for the care that our veterans need is the right thing to do.
it’s just that my ideals fit in with the democratic party better than they do with the republican party.
<<Shouldn’t it all be scientific/moral/ethical than based around politics?>>
it is.
you just got the sequence of events wrong.
Edit: "What about ….? What about ….? etc" What did i say? "often it’s not a perfect fit." Far to often, people seem to have to vote for the, "Least worst candidate" rather than for one that they would really like. There’s an old adage, "democracy is a terrible form of government, but it’s better than any of the alternatives."
<<What about the environmental policies of conservative groups that are very green?>>
Name one such group. Just one. But keep in mind that "very green" implies that they need to support the environment in many different areas, not just one that they happen to like, and will benefit from. For example, "We need to preserve our national forests" (so i can continue to go hunting and fishing) is not an environmental attitude. It’s a selfish attitude. The outcome is beneficial, but the motive has nothing to do with environmentalism. I bet you can’t do it.
You’re right. It’s supposed to be like that. But that’s not the way things work around here. Unfortunately most people are morons and politicians cater to them since they are the majority.
It should be more scientific/ethical/moral but each of those 3 things contain both subjective & objective elements that can be manipulated- depending on the agenda of the person espousing a particular point of view.
Too often, politicians will try to appeal to a particular segment of society by focusing on only one issue, knowing that there are a lot of people who will vote on that single issue rather than what is good for us as a sociaty. For instance, I am incensed that the political appeal to women voters is either abortion rights or pro-life. It’s as if our entire identity consists of what is going on in our uterus! It makes it appear that we women are ignorant of issues such as national security, energy, education, etc.
Unfortunately, a great many of us are too busy to really look deeper into the issues. It is like those ‘Headline Soccer Moms’… good people but too busy to get beyond the headlines that they see in the newstands. Same with many social issues.
Take green energy- many foundations and non-profits sustain themselves on fear tactics. Wind and solar power sound good and could be credible augments to our existing energy needs along with nuclear energy. However, there is no infrastructure to support solar and wind energy. Most of our large tracts of land that could be developed for green energy are in the desert or in remote areas. We need roads, bridges, grid tie-in, etc. before ‘clean’ energy could begin to become a reality.
If the stimulus $$$ had been used on infrastructure development for clean energy, just think of all the jobs that would have been created in each state. Instead, we continue to support nebulous theory, touchie-feely groups, and think tank mentality instead of a coherent plan to decrease our oil dependency. The same can be said for most environental issues where politicians and Hollywood idiots get involved.