Environmentalism isn’t partisan — at least it shouldn’t be
A friend was helping me clean out my New York City kitchenette after a party at my apartment. While I was doing the dishes, she started putting away things in the fridge. When she opened my fridge, she found a huge bag full of food scraps, with little room for anything else.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “That’s my compost – I haven’t thrown it at the farmers market this week. See what else you can squeeze in.”
Photo: Brian Fulmer
“Wow,” she said. “That’s not very Republicans yours. “
This is the type of comment I hear a lot. Among my New York friends, I’m considered a “conservative.” I grew up on a small ranch between Los Angeles and the Idaho Panhandle. In my 20s, I worked in Republican politics in Texas. I have a strong cultural sense of belonging to both the red and blue states, and riding a horse is as comfortable as being in a coffee shop on the Upper West Side.
While these comments carry a slight sarcasm, they have always bothered me. Not on an individual level, but what they represent in the wider cultural and political context.
When did developing the habit of environmental awareness become a cultural tug of war? And, more importantly, what does this mean for the advancement of American environmentalism?
As a political moderate, now registered as an independent, I have always felt conservative in blue states and liberal in red states, and I have often seen environmentalism used as a weapon in identity politics.
Too many liberal friends of mine play the “environmentalist” card by simply identifying themselves as liberals, even if they never do anything to change their personal habits about the environment. Or, I see conservatives outraged at any thought of being “green.” After pestering my college roommate in Dallas to use the recycling bin, one responded, “I don’t. I’m not a libertarian.”
The conservative homesteaders I saw in Idaho knew more about composting than most Whole Foods customers I saw on any given night. But the fusion of “conservative,” “composting,” and “recycling” doesn’t follow the cultural parameters we set for identifying liberals and conservatives.
For those who say environmentalism is a bulwark of the left, look at the post-1970s Republican Party and they are right, at least in the public sector. But not always. Teddy Roosevelt helped protect more than 150 million acres of forest. Richard Nixon was responsible for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and signing the Endangered Species Act, among other important environmental legislation.These actions have a lasting impact on China
American environmental movement. But I don’t like to define a movement as the sole entity of a political party. Frankly, who cares who “owns” a movement?
As with any issue, there is disagreement over how to leverage the private and public sectors to bring about change. But subverting environmentalism in this arbitrary political dualism is neither effective nor accurate. With the boom in sustainability reporting, corporate sustainability teams, and the green goods and services industry, it’s clear that the public needs greener products, services, and alternatives to the status quo.
Seeing Republican environmentalists as an anomaly turns ardent environmental advocates into political apostates whose environmentalism is a warning to their conservatism, not real conservatism: an essential part of their worldview , but also the means and global cause of being an ally of a great ally.
Despite these partisanships, our current reality is markedly polarized and partisanship. So, if we must, we can define environmentalism differently through liberal and conservative lenses:
For liberals, environmentalism can be broadly viewed as the use of government as a means to protect environmental resources for the greater good. Conservative environmentalism can be seen as an opportunity to stimulate innovation and new industries in the private sector as a means of maximizing the use of resources.
These two schools of thought are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they talked more about what both sides have in common – namely that environmentalism is pervasive and there are many ways to solve the vast number of problems we face.
Let us not allow this important and universal cause to fall prey to partisanship. There is value on both sides, and yes, you can be conservative and compostable.
Blaine Fulmer is a student at Columbia University Master’s Programme in Sustainability Management.
