On Earth Day, conservation and conservatism
Earth Day is a day specially marked to honor the earth and show concern for its state. Many conservatives may have a dislike for this holiday because, like Rush Limbaugh, they associate it with what he labels “environmentalist whacko.†It is unfortunately true that concern for the well-being of the environment is often expressed by those whose beliefs are extreme and have a distinctly anti-human flavor. Conservatives naturally recoil from the more bizarre beliefs of the “eco-freaks.â€
However, it should be remembered that “conservation†could easily be viewed as an intrinsic part of “conservatism.†After all, both words share the same root: to conserve. Conservation is about preserving the environment; conservatism is about preserving traditional cultural and political practices. They fit together when they work to preserve that which is good about both nature and culture for posterity.
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Stumble It!
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 am
Unfortunately Denise conservatism has come to mean tyanny and is simply another form of oppression by those who get their kick from controlling what others say and do…
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am
I only worship the moon, sun, and a couple of bird species. I await a movement to codify their recognition. Oh wait, those days of worship were recognized a few centuries ago.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
I think most conservatives understand that for many practical reasons we should not unnecessarily dump pollutants into Lake Washington and Puget Sound, and we are glad that Victoria, British Columbia is finally getting around to installing some decent sewage treatment equipment.
The phytoplankton are getting enough carbon dioxide, to provide them with phosphates and ammonia nitrates from human bodily waste in addition to the fish droppings and the marine mammal contribution is a bit much in the yuck factor department!
And I understand that when we burn coal and smelt steel the stuff going up the stack other than carbon dioxide is cause for concern.
But what we are dealing with in the modern environmental movement is an unreasonable and unscientific political religion. They require us to WASH empty bottles and cans, using water, electricity and heat, so as to CONSERVE resources!
On television today, I watched a “news” story about a dairy farmer using the non-dairy product of his herd to generate methane, CH4, to burn it, creating water and CO2, to generate electricity. Fine as far as that goes. But he was doing it to sell “carbon offsets” to companies forced to play such silly games by liberal politicians who have drank the Global Warming Kool-Ade.
The proposition that carbon dioxide is a pollutant is the essence of environmentalist whacko-ism. To illustrate the unsung BENEFITS of liberating carbon that has been buried for millions of years and restoring it to the CARBON CYCLE I wrote this on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer comment blogs:
Every speck of carbon in the food we eat was in the air as carbon dioxide, not so long ago!
On land the plants our farmers grow, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, tomato, onions, cilantro, carrots, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, loganberries, marionberries, grapes, apples, plums, pears, peaches, and citrus galore, broccoli, celery, nuts, and sweets from cane and beets, corn syrup, have you walked in a maise maze? And wheat, barley and rye, you hungry yet?
But not all that plants that grow is edible by humans, so we feed it to horses, pigs, goats, sheep, cattle, and it is eaten by the deer and antelope, chickens, ducks, and geese, and not only do we eat the meat, dairy and eggs, but we wear the leather and sleep on the feathers, and use the fibres of flax, hemp, and cotton, not to mention everything made of wood and rubber and sisal, and that is not
even including the products of the sea.
For phytoplankton turns carbon dioxide into fish food and that means we have halibut, cod, and salmon, even a whale for the Makahs, not to mention crabs, clams, and lobsters, even our ice cream is made with kelp products as well as milk and cream.
Now it seems to me that when our food is hauled and processed and shipped using engines and electricity burning fuels that have been in the ground for millions of years, coal, petroleum, oil shale, tar sands, and gas too, we but add carbon dioxide, to the supply from which all of the wonderful products of nature and agriculture are made,
by the magic of chlorophyll, water, Sun, and
carbon dioxide.
200 billion tons of carbon cycle in and out of the biomass each year, to which we add but 6.5 billion tons from the combustion of fossil fuels. The IPCC Report is not based on these numbers, but on a “presumption” that the natural production and consumption of carbon dioxide is much less! Such carbon released by our burning of these fuels is photosynthesized into the biomass, including the good things we eat and use.
That which once was buried in the ground for millions of years, is now part of the biomass, including 6.3 billion human beings, all of whom need to eat and have shelter, and clothing, most of which is supplied by the biomass, to which we add the carbon formerly buried in the ground.
The climate warms up, it cools down, even stays the same for a little while, and past performance is no guarantee of future results!
But we know this:
However much the quantity of carbon dioxide is produced for a bushel of wheat,
without carbon dioxide,
there is no wheat.
So I thank the Industrial Revolution and the Lord,
for the food we are about to eat.
You can find this at
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=312511
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 am
Its the Feminists. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus and the women are recreating the Venusian climate here. Send them all back where they came from and things will cool down. Conserve Men! Men are Cool.
PS. Nice one Roger.