The kitchen's a mess, but my plate is full.

I have often wondered how the other side thought. I am curious by nature. I wanna know why folks think the way that they do. So I Goggled 'why do conservatives hate the environment?'. The site that caught my eye the first was (Right Wing News), I might as well go straight to the source. I found a link to a piece on their site called 20 Frequently Asked Questions About Conservatism (link). Had I stumbled upon a map of the conservative psyche (I wondered if I needed a secret decoder ring)? But where was I? Oh yes, I wanted to know why the conservative movement had such disdain for environmentalism. Here it is, in their own words:

Why do conservatives hate the environment?: Unfortunately, most environmental activists today tend to be radical luddites for whom economic considerations are practically irrelevant. We're talking about people who try to stop almost every new power plant from being built, who oppose drilling a desolate Alaska wasteland laden with oil because they fear it might upset the caribou in the region, and who'd happily drive the US economy into a depression by supporting the Kyoto Accord.

Conservatives want clean water, clean air, and a clean planet as much as the average person. However, unlike radical environmentalists, we're not purists. Conservatives have a sense of proportion, and we're not willing to drive America's standard of living back 50 years for some unnoticeable environmental gain. So in effect, conservatives are pro-environment, we're just moderates about it compared to the zealots in the environmentalism movement.

So there, aside from the name calling (luddite = One who opposes technical or technological change. Huh?), conservatives dislike environmentalism because they believe that the well being of humanity is of more importance than the well being of the planet. I believe they can justify this thinking by proclaiming that climate change/global warming are theories. (kinda like evolution... there I said it) Why, they believe, put pressure on the economy, if there is no real 'proof' that the planet is in fact in peril? Let's party like it's 1999, let's mess shit up!

Environmentalism it seems is a liberal ideal. One of those romantic, dirty hippy notions, like peace and rock'n'roll. It's the farting of rainbows. The grown-ups, the clear headed conservatives among us, will have you know that it is business as usual. Fire up the 'clean' coal, lay waste to those Alaskan 'wastelands', you betcha, there is oil in them hills. There is money to be made, the economy is in the shitter, cut it, burn it, pave it. Don't trust them liberals, those environmentalists, those fuzzy scientists, they hate the American ideal, the have no appetite for success. Oh and the planet be damned.

To which I respond. The economy be damned. I am sorry dear friends, but if we are serious about cleaning up the mess we have made, than it's gonna hurt. The economy is going to take a hit, industries are going to fail. Coal is an archaic and dirty source of energy, it may be cheap, but it has to be deemed unfit, it is not a modern energy source. There might be oil in Alaska, but oil, like coal, is dirty, not all that cheap to produce, it is pretty much the cause of all that is wrong with the planet, whether it be global politics, socio-economics or environment. Scrap it. Move on. It is time to invest not in the discovery of new veins of oil in Alaska, the Sudan or Tadzhikstan, but in the research and development of new, clean sources of energy. It is time to shit or get off the pot. We can make a concerted effort to clean things up, we can care about the present and the future... or we can stick to the status quo, we can rape and pillage, we can cross our fingers and hope that it will all sort itself out in the end.

I was never one to leave anything to chance and my mother always taught me to clean up after myself, hell I might even be a tad obsessive compulsive, I dunno? All I know is, that supper was great as usual, but I have dishes that need to be scrubbed.