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The debate is hardly nuanced, the conservative party (the GOP, supported by almost all self-described conservatives) has been notoriously anti-environment, both tonally and in terms of actual policy. Tonally: the conservative US President (supported, again, by almost all self-described conservatives) has said that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." He has called for an end to the "war" on "beautiful, clean coal". This kind of anti-environment, pro-fossil fuel bombast isn't restricted to the clownish Trump. "Drill, baby, drill" is from the 2008 election cycle. Republicans have projected an attitude for decades in which dirty, polluting, environmentally destructive activities are seen as manly, powerful, patriotic, American; whereas environmental concerns are played down as trivial, wasteful, overblown, anti-American, effeminate. Policy-wise, the GOP has supported drilling in ANWR, supported the Keystone XL pipeline, supported coal subsidies, opposed carbon caps, on and on and on. There's no nuance. The GOP has been on the wrong side of every environmental issue for years and years. We are one of the only countries in the world not part of the Paris climate accord. Here is a long quotation from the RNC's 2016 platform. It barely even pays lip service to environmental concerns, instead harping constantly on the importance of extractive industries, the virtues of coal, etc. US conservatism is not nuanced about environmentalism, it's for the extractive industries and against the environmental concerns that sometimes get in their way. """
The Democratic Party does not understand that coal is an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource. Those who mine it and their families should be protected from the Democratic Party’s radical anti-coal agenda.The Democratic Party’s campaign to smother the U.S. energy industry takes many forms, but the permitting process may be its most damaging weapon. It takes an average of 30 days for states to permit an oil or gas well. It takes the federal government longer than seven months. Three decades ago, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leased 12.2 million acres. In 2014, it leased only one-tenth of that number. Our nuclear industry, cleanly generating almost 20 percent of our electricity from its 99 plants, has a remarkable safety record, but only a handful of plants have been permitted in over three decades. Permitting for a safe, non-polluting hydroelectric facility, even one that is being relicensed, can take many years because of the current President’s hostility to dams. The Keystone Pipeline has become a symbol of everything wrong with the current Administration’s ideological approach. After years of delay, the President killed it to satisfy environmental extremists. We intend to finish that pipeline and others as part of our commitment to North American energy security. Government should not play favorites among energy producers. The taxpayers will not soon forget the current Administration’s subsidies to companies that went bankrupt without producing a kilowatt of energy. The same Administration now requires the Department of Defense, operating with slashed budgets during a time of expanding conflict, to use its scarce resources to generate 25 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2025. Climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue. This is the triumph of extremism over common sense, and Congress must stop it. We support the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower. A federal judge has struck down the BLM’s rule on hydraulic fracturing and we support upholding this decision.
""" Pretty tired of "conservatives" who are either not aware of or not willing to stand behind the policies of actually existing conservatism, or intentionally gaslighting. |