Stasis and Change in Left-Wing Politics and the Environment

Originally Published on Dr. J and Mr. K

The discussion in my last post about how the political left advocates change of every sort yet appears terrified of any change in the environment – or has adopted such a pose, at any rate – left the environmental portion for another day.

The quick and easy hit about refusing to “embrace change” in this one important area struck me as pointing to an important idea. Why do certain people think the environment should remain exactly as it was, when nature continually provides evidence of its (or, as another era would have put it, “her”) ability to produce unpredictable events and inflict cataclysm at every turn?

Some conservatives attempt to explain the fundamental weirdness of so many liberal or progressive policy prescriptions – especially on the environment – as flowing from the increasing disconnect of urban residents from the natural world. That seems to have merit. But this view is undermined by two things: first is the ubiquity of information media that bring nature’s acts – tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes killing tens of thousands – into the home or office, second is the burgeoning popularity of recreation out in the natural world, made possible by the very mass prosperity and personal mobility the left opposes. Nature’s real nature is on display before you, if you’re willing to look. Many appear unwilling.