I like to think that reasonable people can disagree on the issue of global warming. Take, for example, its first visible proponent, NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen and… my mother.
It’s not an arbitrary pairing; Dr. Hansen and my mom went to school together in Denison, Iowa back in the 1950s, and there has always been some dispute as to which of the two was class valedictorian. They’re two reasonable people who disagree on global warming (and yes, a layperson can disagree with a NASA scientist simply by citing reputable, conflicting research). What they don’t disagree on, though, is the need to be good stewards of our natural environment. Green issues are valid; there’s nothing ignoble, fascist, or even anti-capitalist in the basic conservation of natural resources.
Unfortunately, many of my conservative friends are squandering opportunities green popularity provides. Instead, they’re hung up on Hansen’s financial connections to Soros, Gore’s faulty data, the eco-terrorism of Earth First. But while conservatives frown at these, the mainstream environmental movement has caught fire around the globe. And because we let them, Democrats have hijacked the term “eco.” They’ve taken advantage of a pretty captive audience of mostly reasonable greenies, without interruption.
I know lots of reasonable greenies because I’m one of them. We’re interested in the basic and the homespun: things like non-toxic cleaners, sustainable agriculture, voluntary simplicity, with a complete disdain for consumerism. We’d rather make it than buy it. My handy husband, for example, has made a lot of our furniture, and I make our laundry soap, mill our flour, and bake our bread. We love vinegar and baking soda. We don’t want green behaviors mandated, but we do like to promote our views and share tips. And people like us are primed and ready to hear how Obama’s preferred system of economics – Keynesian tax and spend measures – will be responsible for an increase in our culture’s consumerism and consumption levels.
You may already know that Keynesian economics tinkers with the demand side of the economy, stimulating demand and consumption (spending). Keynes actually blamed a lack of shopping for the Great Depression: “Therefore, O patriotic housewives, sally out tomorrow early into the streets and go to the wonderful sales which are everywhere advertised. You will do yourselves good… and have the added joy that you are increasing employment, adding to the wealth of the country…” [John Maynard Keynes, from a 1936 radio address] Keynes believed that saving causes unemployment: this belief is the antithesis of sustainability, and the foundation of consumerism.
President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are only too happy to oblige this thinking. The $787 billion stimulus bill was put together under the mistaken assumption that spending creates jobs. Spending here just diverts from spending that would have happened there – it doesn’t grow anything. And if you’re borrowing to spend, you’re depleting wealth. To create jobs we should be saving and investing to stimulate innovation and more efficient production – something that slows the rate of consumption (destruction), and actually grows an economy.
So it really doesn’t matter if Dr. Hansen’s climate data is accurate or not; the country’s desire to go green transcends even Al Gore, and gives us an enormous opportunity to criticize Obama’s Keynesian spending. And the cool part? The Left can’t argue back; in fact, they continue to defend Keynesian policies. Reasonable environmentalists aren’t yet aware that Democrats defend Keynes and consumerism; only boring Republicans reading The Wall Street Journal are aware of that.
Let’s make reasonable people more aware.
Oh, and that debate surrounding events back in Denison, Iowa in 1959? At their 25th class reunion, Dr. Hansen told my mom he was pretty sure she was the valedictorian.
9 responses so far
1 nealjking // Feb 18, 2009 at 1:18 am
- I don’t quite understand why you say, “Spending here just diverts from spending that would have happened there – it doesnt grow anything. And if youre borrowing to spend, youre depleting wealth.” The point of the governmental spending is to do spending that only the government can do, with money that only the government can create (by going into deficit spending). It is a kind of force-feeding to break a cycle of spiraling contraction of confidence. Agreed, it would be better if the spending actually does constitute an investment in the future – but the stimulative effect is separate from that. I’m not enough of an economist to critique Keynes, Krugman, et al. – are you?
- With regards to doubts about the science of global warming: a lot of ideas have been taken off the scrapheap of scientific history and recycled as reasons why global warming cannot be happening, or is not increased by CO2. 53 of the most “popular” of these specious arguments have been individually explained and refuted here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php . I recommend that honest skeptics on GW take a look at this site to see if their rationales withstand the discussion presented therein.
2 R.E. Munn // Feb 18, 2009 at 6:20 am
While Ms. Herman allows that she does not want green behavior mandated, that position has become moot, because it is being mandated. The current ’stimulus’ is loaded with huge amounts of our money, and this money will be shoveled into various green deep-holes, mostly (perhaps) involving renewable energy, but other areas as well. This is putting the cart before the horse, because such technologies are not yet economically efficacious, and will not show ROI for many years, if ever. Meanwhile, we are doing nothing to increase our domestic oil production, a failing that will become all to painful when the next spike in demand comes, which is, of course, inevitable. This too is a mandated green behavior, proponents of which have been arguing for years that the price of oil should be increased by whatever means necessary, in order to reduce green house gases. President Obama is a proponent of this particular device as was made clear by his his mostly overlooked remark last year, during the rocketing oil price period, that he had hoped the increase would have been slower, clearly implying that he believes the high price of oil is desirable. Anyway, saying greenies do not want behavior mandated is disingenuous at best.
Most people do not have the time, nor the inclination, to mill their own flour, make their laundry detergent or build their furniture. And while the shortcomings of Keynesian devices are well documented, Ms. Herman has failed to make the case that saving is the answer, and she seems to be saying that to disagree with her on that point one must necessarily be either ill-informed or unreasonable. No thoughts of mandating there, right?
3 JJWFromME // Feb 18, 2009 at 8:09 am
Interesting post. There are many more-than-legitimate arguments against big government, technocrats, and a society based on consumerism. On the other hand, you have to work on practical solutions. And Keynsian economics isn’t the whole story, and doesn’t bring about Utopia, but it’s useful at solving at least some of our problems… (By the way, I’m speaking as one of this site’s gadfly liberals…)
4 sinz54 // Feb 18, 2009 at 10:43 am
Conspicuous consumption, and the GOP’s embrace of it, really took off in the 1980s, as a euphoric reaction to the stagflation and constraints of the Carter presidency of 1977-1980. But conspicuous consumption needed to be reined in at some point. “Irrational exuberance,” as Greenspan called it, just continued to build on itself, feeding one speculative bubble after another. And each bubble was tapped by consumers as a checking account with which to buy an endless stream of consumer goods. I’ve been a conservative for much of my life. I happen to believe that the philosophy of conservatism isn’t just about opposing abortion or favoring low taxes. It’s about LIVING conservatively too. It’s about finding value in virtue and in the simple things in life. And, as the author says, it’s about CONSERVING for the future–both in your own nest egg, and in the future of America herself. Using up all the oil on the planet (which took millions of years to form) in a century, makes about as much sense as spending every last dollar in your 401(k) and then having nothing for retirement.
5 Rhampton // Feb 18, 2009 at 11:20 am
The conservative GW deniers do so on political, not scientific, grounds. They are convinced that it is a socialist/communist plot to destroy American & Western civilization. Thus they feel obligated to contest every single point despite evidence to the contrary. To their way of thinking, GW is as dangerous as the “Red Menace” during the McCarthy era. Consequently their unfounded fears must be alleviated before an actual debate can begin. All I can say is, good luck with that. I’ve been trying for years and as of yet have not found an effective argument. Sad to say, but I think this group of conservatives are unreachable and must be written off as a loss.
6 dendup // Feb 18, 2009 at 11:23 am
I Googled “sustainability republican”and at the top was the Republicans for Environmental Protection. As I exlored the site I stumbled on the section on wetlands. Its first recommedation was “Wetland protection and rehabilitation should be accorded a high priority in all federal, state, and local planning documents and policy statements. The loss of wetlands to agriculture and urban sprawl should stop.” I thought of the Stimulus Bill and the GOP effort to reduce it to one wetland preservation project, and that project to a mouse in search of a spotted owl. Then I thought of your assertion that “Democrats have hijacked the term eco.” How can the Dems hijack something that the GOP ridicule at every opportunity?
7 blindman // Feb 18, 2009 at 6:59 pm
The one issue I have noticed that conservatives and conservative christians are promoting on radio, and satellite CTN; is this issue of simple living, and living healthy in spite of Rx drugs and doctors. Almost all of the vital info one needs to live healty and naturally come from conservatives, and the democrats have indeed not noticed what they are really advocating. My wife and I agree with Stephanie Herman. Her life describes ours mostly. This ‘green’ issue, as well as the simple life, is a conservative issue.
8 dendup // Feb 19, 2009 at 6:02 am
The issue is I think public policy reather than personal behavior. Certainly I have known very conservative people who live a sustainable lifestyle in ervery sense of the phrase. But as Cheney obsevered about energy conservation, the conservative view is that it’s a private virtue and not the basis for public policy. On the level of Ghandi’s quote along the lines of be the “change you want to see” there is a convergence. But this is not the usual thought for a political conservative, versus a lifestyle conservative.
9 sinz54 // Feb 21, 2009 at 1:15 pm
dendup: I guess you don’t understand the difference between a planning document and a stimulus package. The purpose of a stimulus package is short-term stimulus to an economy that has temporarily stumbled. Preserving wetlands, global warming, anything that has more than a 3 year time horizon does NOT belong in a stimulus package. This so-called “stimulus package” that Obama signed into law is nothing of the sort. Maybe one-fifth of it is actual stimulus for the economy in 2009-2010. The rest of it is liberal wet dreams for remaking American society along eco-freak lines. The fact that environmentalists love it is sufficient proof that it’s not a stimulus package. Teddy Roosevelt did a lot of things to promote conservation. But he didn’t justify them on the grounds of economic stimulus. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are lying when they claim that all those things in the “stimulus” package are there for real stimulus. They’re there because they’re liberal proposals for re-engineering American society that were simmering for years, until this economic crisis gave Obama an excuse to shove them all down our throats.
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