During last week’s 12th Republican debate, Ohio Governor John Kasich did the extraordinary by confessing the ordinary. “I do believe we contribute to climate change.”
Now for someone who has gone through middle school science, this might not seem like much of a story. “Presidential candidate professes belief in science,” said no news headline ever. However, for Republicans this is a big deal.
It has become commonplace for Republicans today to reject the science behind climate change. In fact, Republicans have distanced themselves almost entirely from taking hard environmental stances. Believing in environmental protection of any kind is viewed more as a liberal agenda.
The Republican Party believes fundamentally in the efficacy of free markets. But why can’t conservatives also support environmentalism? A false dichotomy has convinced many, including most Republicans, that ecology and economics are mutually exclusive disciplines. If one is adhered to, the other must be altogether abandoned.
But environmental concern does not, and should not, preclude a Republican from believing in freer markets. At the heart of capitalism lies a profound respect for private property, the protection of which should be a key component in any environmental policy.
American ecologist Garrett Hardin was best known for his work, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” He argued that when land is privatively owned there is a greater incentive to protect its resources than there would be if the land was commonly owned. Even he understood that “most ecological problems reduce to a single problem of balancing supply and demand.”
The first environmental lawsuits during the Industrial Revolution were not so concerned with the ecological impact of pollution. They were more concerned with the impact pollution had on a person’s right to own property. There is a solid argument to be made that environmental protection in the United States owes its existence to economic and libertarian thought.
The reason why Republicans should be concerned about the environment is not because pollution deteriorates some nebulous “common good” but because pollution infringes on an individual’s right to his person and property. Any infringement on these rights is an infringement on conservative principles. I am obviously simplifying an otherwise complex issue, but conversation must start somewhere, and it is about time the Republican Party began talking.
After all, the Republican Party has a rich heritage deeply rooted in environmental consciousness. The Republican Party is the party of Ulysses S. Grant, founder of Yellowstone, America’s first national park; it is the party of American conservationist Theodore Roosevelt who established five national parks and preserved 150 million acres of national forest, and it is the party of Richard Nixon who called for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air Act.
How quickly history has eluded the Grand Old Party. Environmentalism used to remain at the forefront of conservative ideology; today, it is treated as a liberal afterthought in need of repressing. I wonder what the Republicans of yesteryear would have to say about the environmental crises we face today.
“Here is your country,” Roosevelt would say. “Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
Tyler Grudi is a staff writer for the Bona Venture. His email is gruditj15@bonaventure.edu
