The Florida everglades mark just one of the many regions threatened by recent political dialogue on conservation (Photo: jwkeith/flickr)
By Michelle Hardy
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Short-term schemes for economic growth largely instigated the financial crisis we face today. Similarly, a short-term economic view recently caused a 16% reduction in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and a movement to loosen state control of conservation policy, all for the sake of balancing budgets. Can one short-term economic strategy alleviate the failings of another?
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Recent debates are sharply divided across party lines, but a bit of context reveals conservation as a bipartisan economic philosophy. While some people relate conservation to a tree-hugger’s battle, this is historically inaccurate.
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20th Century conservationists, the most famous of whom was conservative Teddy Roosevelt, wished to regulate the use of US land and wildlife to ensure there would be enough resources to benefit future generations. Conservatives nationalized a great deal of protected land and water in order to provide the greatest number of people with resources for the greatest amount of time. They equated these policies with stability and national security.
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By the late 60′s, another mass movement erupted to protect our land for future generations. Most environmentalists of the 60′s and 70′s identified as liberal, but another collaboration between parties led to a tremendous environmental feat. For reasons similar to those of his predecessors, President Richard Nixon signed the largest grouping of environmental laws ever accomplished by any president. This led to the Endangered Species Act, The Clean Air Act, The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act that created the EPA.
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Flash forward almost four decades, and the EPA is offered up for sacrifice with a whopping $1.6 billion budget cut. Much of Congress and conservative state governments continue fighting to open up environmentally protected land for economic development. You don’t have to be a tree hugger to realize these actions endanger much more than “tree frogs and Canadian lynx,” as mentioned sarcastically by Maine’s governor. Limiting the strength of the EPA and state conservation efforts will create short-term growth while endangering long-term stability.
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In other words, a government bailout of the environment will be much trickier. Just as our generation and our children’s generation will be paying off the debts of our financial crisis, we will be struggling to survive on improperly managed national resources if we short-sightedly devalue historically effective conservation policies.
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Admittedly, I do find myself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to politically-charged environmental debates. My reasons for supporting environmentalism are almost entirely apolitical. Some of my reasons are even spiritual. I also have friends and family members of drastically opposite political persuasions, and it’s hard to completely disregard any of their perspectives on natural resource management while knowing where those perspectives come from.
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But emotions aside, the current debate in Congress is an economic one. Reconciliation will be possible only if politicians recall the mutual benefits of strictly managed finite resources, as well as their mutual party ties to such policies.
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This is all to say that in the end, we must live by one chilling bipartisan reality; we can write the rules of our economy, but we can’t write the rules of nature.
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Check out Leslie Kaufman’s article from Friday’s New York Times – it does a wonderful job of showing just how dangerous this debate has become.
