The Arctic Refuge isn't everything

Posted by David Roberts at 2:41 PM on 21 Dec 2005

Environmentalists won a key victory today, blocking a truly risible attempt by Sen. Ted Stevens to cram Arctic Refuge drilling through on the back of the defense bill. It's a good thing.

Why am I not more celebratory? Well, because I'm not just an environmentalist. My muted feelings are well explained in this post by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson:

The scorecard that most political analysts will probably post after today's big Senate showdown is one for two. Republicans -- with the help of Dick Cheney, who rushed back from the Middle East to cast the tie-breaking vote -- managed to squeeze through their big budget package, complete with around $40 billion in spending cuts focused mostly on the least advantaged. However, when they tried, in their second audacious move, to cram ANWR oil drilling into a must-pass defense appropriations bill, they were narrowly rebuffed by a successful filibuster.

The normal give and take of politics, right? Win one, lose one?

Wrong.

The budget is far and away the more important of these two battles, and here the Republican leadership showed that it's not in the slightest bit willing to relinquish control to GOP moderates or change its overall course. The big lesson of today's Senate showdown is that on the overriding tax and budget issues that have defined the GOP's course over the last eleven years (and especially over the last five), Republican leaders and most of their rank-and-file are still willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their larger conservative goals.

Environmental goals are not achieved in isolation. A country with enormous disparities in wealth, with a weakened, denuded public sector, with crippling health care costs, can never be sustainable.

Like it or not, people protect the environment when they can -- when they do not feel physically or economically threatened. Shared prosperity is the best thing for environmental protection. The kind of budget priorities pursued by the modern-day GOP simply are not compatible with ecological health.

Of course, this sentiment is not universally shared among environmentalists. If you disagree, please say so in comments.

For story: The Arctic Refuge isn't everything
7 Comments | Post a Comment

GOP enviro?

Sorry, Dave, but you won't find many folks in this crowd to argue that one. Every conservative I know is also anti-conservation. There seems to be a link. Conservatives are really about conserving their own property, their personal investments and interests. That just doesn't jive with the conservationist outlook- we look to the future and hope to make it better for all living things- they look at their bank book and want to make it better right now. Look at the pitiful number of GOP conservationists these days- LCV and Sierra Club have been tracking Republican votes on the environment, and more and more, they don't care. If you are pro-business, pro-growth, your not likely to be too worried about preserving the environment for the future. Perhaps it's because those who tell themselves that the poor are poor solely because they are lazy and/or stupid also tell themselves that conservation is lazy and stupid. That land could be turning a profit, providing fodder for consumers, why let it sit 'wasted', just waiting for someone else to take it for profit later?

Why should those who don't believe that opportunity is a limited resource believe that the Earth has limited resources either? I submit that the only real environmentalists are also liberals. Surely someone will object to that?

a liberal in redsville

by birdboy at 5:11 PM on 21 Dec 2005

Making Connections

people have to stop thinking of the environment as separate from the business community and our own human endeavors. Categorizing this small victory (that'll we'll only have to win again a few months down the road) as a landslide victory for environmentalists everywhere is just another way of hyping the Sierra Club masses. yes its good news...for now. But really all that was accomplished today was a fresh towel on a bleeding wound.

What we should be doing is drawing connections between the benefits of a green, sustainable, organic, eco-friendly (and whatever else you want to call it) economy will do for not only business but also our natural world. Look at the growth in CSR (corporate social responsibilty) and SRI (socially responsible investing) over the last 5 years. The trends are growing more green but the key is to show that it does actually pay to invest in sustainability.

RE: birdboys' comments: I do agree that, on the whole, there is a trend that conservatives aren't about conserving (at least not like the Teddy Roosevelt's of the past -- but he was more populous than neo-con) but I do think the trend is starting to lean the other direction. Recently, Sam Brownbeck (R-KS) declared that since we are "stewards" of God's green earth we should be caring for it, not exploiting it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Also, there is a strong religious movement (especially coming out of the christian right) that preaches similar doctrines about conserving God's gift (the earth) to mankind.

Whether you are a believer or not, we all (religious greenies, hippies and scientists) share a common goal of not allowing this natural world go to waste under corporate dominated profit margins and unregulated markets. However, I don't think I could sit down with them and have a convo about abortion or international policy. That would only result in a rather intense food fight (which I would win because hippies aren't afraid to get messy).

Jay Els Educate, Motivate and Bring About Change. www.ran.org

by Japhet at 5:31 PM on 21 Dec 2005

broad or narrow?

Dave: A country with enormous disparities in wealth, with a weakened, denuded public sector, with crippling health care costs, can never be sustainable.

I can't argue with that. And yet, it also seems to me that we cannot possibly hope to achieve major environmental improvements if it is only the liberal 30% of the population supports them. Work for change on a broad front, yes, but also work to remind conservatives of the importance of conservation. And point out that most of the Republican party's elected representatives consistently vote anti-environment, when (according to polls) their constituents tend to favor environmental protection.

With some conservatives, the best we can hope for is to forge alliances on a few discrete issues. The most obvious example is the growing pro-environment evangelical faction (discussed above by Japhet). In dealing with the many religious-right voters for whom abortion is the chief issue, we should point out that people who believe in the protection of the unborn have every reason to care about exposure of pregnant women and infants to mercury and other toxins. And, other than an unthinking fealty to the Republican party, they have zero reason to serve as foot soldiers for the electric utility lobby. Likewise (as discussed plenty in Grist, there are conservative foreign policy hawks who have become very green on energy issues -- e.g., former CIA head James Woolsey. (Along these lines, this article in Audubon was interesting.)

Liberals will always be more likely to be environmentalists, but we shouldn't assume they all are. Think of the Teamsters' efforts to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling.

This is verging on the Reaper debate again, but I think that the trick with merging environmentalism into a larger progressive movement is doing so in a way that increases rather than decreases the number of people you reach. I'm dubious that it can be done. If we start saying that the only true environmentalists are the people who support every cause on the progressive wish list, we'll end up with a pretty small movement.

by Michael Boydston at 8:13 PM on 21 Dec 2005

A Lie Repeated Often Enough

"Shared prosperity is the best thing for environmental protection." Ridiculous baloney. I'm getting more turned off by leftists and to their policies by the second and am beginning to agree with my friends in AIM who say they generally dislike leftists as much as right wingers, because they both want to take their land, just for different reasons.

"Prosperity" in the sense that you mean it is nothing but a horrible euphimism for overconsumption, which is one of the root causes of environmental harm and is a solution to nothing. What we should advocate is a major simplification of lifestyles, not more gluttony.

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 8:52 PM on 21 Dec 2005

And Another Thing

To complete my last post: Saving ANWR from destruction by the oil industry is far more important than who gets how many green pieces of paper. My definition of an environmentalist is someone who gives the environment priority over other issues, not someone who finds reasons to place environmental concerns behind them. Ask the birds and trees if they give a damn about a budget bill! (And yes, I hate the Republican pigs who are stealing from the poor to give to the rich, but concerns of some members of an overpopulated species are nowhere near as important as the rest of the planet.)

Jeff Hoffman

by jdhlax at 9:34 PM on 21 Dec 2005

25 year supply?

I heard on a news report that oily lobbyists and their puppets in congress are claiming that arctic wildlife refuge drilling will yield enough oil to replace US Saudi oil imports for 25 years.

This pernicious propaganda has to be challenged, but how? Oil companies themselves control the information flow about potential oil reserves.

The reality of arctic drilling is that it won't produce signifigant quantities of oil for 10 years, and even then only supply a small fraction of US oil needs, which will be exported to japan.

In 10 years of plugin vehicle production and wind and solar power investment all imported oil could be replaced. That's not propaganda!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 11:17 PM on 21 Dec 2005

ANWR isn't everything but it means a lot to me

I've lived in Alaska for 40 yrs now, and witnessed its degradation firsthand. ANWR may not be everything but it means a lot to me, now if we could only preserve the Tongass National Forest.

And personally I am overjoyed at the blow dealt to Governor Murkowski, his daughter, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Stevens, and Representative Young, of course that includes all their oil buddies, and contracting buddies, etc. etc. But as Governor Arnold Terminator said "de vill be back" unfortunately.

by TikvaKay at 1:53 PM on 22 Dec 2005

ADVERTISING POLICY

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