Conservatives and Conservationists

I watched the Bill Maher live show on HBO the other day.  One of his bits talked about conservatives and their apparent lack of concern for conserving our environment.  Of course, if one were to research the conservative movement in America (and the world for that matter), it is clear that the basis of belief for conservatives has nothing to do with the environment.  Still, it made me think how the words conservative and conservationist have the same base, yet if describing a person or their perspective would rarely be used in conjunction with each other.

The Merriam-Webster definition of conservationist is as follows

someone who works to protect animals, plants, and natural resources or to prevent the loss or waste of natural resources

While the M-W definition of conservative is

believing in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society : relating to or supporting political conservatism

I would surmise that at some point in America's history, there were people who believed in the value of established and traditional practices and those practices included a respect for the land.  After all, early Americans depended on the earth for their daily food and water, there not being supermarkets and malls at the time.  I imagine that Americans of the 18th and 19th century especially, made it their business to make sure that they could provide their families with fresh meat, home grown fruits and vegetables, and pure water.  And, if someone were to shoot all the animals in the area, or poison the ground or water, they would have been upset.  Their traditional practices included taking care of the land in hopes that the land would provide sustenance now and in the near future.  In essence, many people may have claimed to be both conservatives and conservationists.

Now, of course, most people don't hunt for their food or grow it in their backyard.  We have a system which, to tell the truth, is more efficient at providing nutrition for the ever increasing population of our nation and our planet.  (I acknowledge that there is hunger and poverty, too much of it.  But most of it is caused, in my opinion, not due to a lack of food, but due to improper/unequal distribution, and more critically, greed).

Unfortunately, the down side of this improved ability to grow food is that we have concentrated all the growing in smaller areas.  We became dependent on chemicals to enhance the efficiency of the soil.  And, since we now needed to move the food to the consumer, we needed to improve our transportation systems.  In so doing, these new systems needed fuel, and we chose to obtain this fuel via digging holes in the earth, and polluting our air and water with the soot and effluence that came as a byproduct of "producing" energy rather than harnessing energy from the sun, the wind, and the water. 

In the meantime, the business community, generally an institution that would tend to be happy with the established and traditional practices, and especially large and successful business entities, turned to politics to help them maintain those practices.  So, while we accept a certain amount of pollution as long as the coal fired electric plants continue to enable us to turn on our lights, the conservative tends to work to maintain that established practice.  Whenever a proposal emerges to penalize a polluter, or cause that business to spend money to reduce or eliminate that pollution, it is the conservatives of the nation who balk at unnecessary government regulation.   Of course, hypocrisy rears its ugly head when those same conservatives are profiting at the lack of pollution controls, or do not live in the areas being polluted.

In the meantime, the conservationist is the one pushing for those pollution controls.  Unfortunately, there may still exist a bit of hypocrisy when those demanding more stringent pollution controls or a reduction in the use of coal to generate electricity complain when an increase in their energy bill occurs. 

Perhaps I have overly simplified it, but that is how I see it.  The business community turns to the conservatives, in our case the Republican Party, to counter the efforts of the conservationist, who believes that the established and traditional practices (of the business community) choose to sacrifice (and/or exploit) the animals, plants, and natural resources of the earth.

And, as always, there is a solution if we were to choose the path of cooperation rather than confrontation.  To read about one particularly hopeful effort, click on the following link.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/

And, for all you conservatives who believe you are conservationists, who vote Republican in every election, you may want to check the voting records of your party.  Whether it is removing the teeth from the EPA, relaxing water regulations for the fracking industry, decrying enhanced scrubber technology for coal fired plants, or just turning a blind eye to those mega corporations who send their jobs overseas where no one cares if the local people are poisoned, it is always, always, always the GOP proposing the bills and defending the polluters.