The GOP envisions itself as staunch supporters of America in all of its beauty. In 2020, former president Trump ordered that public architecture imitate classical styles in order to “inspire the human spirit” and “ennoble the United States.” This is a definite step in the right direction, and should be applauded by anyone who appreciates our heritage.
But the vision comes off as insincere given the ways the Trump administration neglected the environment. These include attempts to slash the budgets of the EPA and the LWCF, and to halt the land acquisition efforts of the National Park Service. If conservatives care about the longevity and beauty of our country, this ambivalence toward nature must stop. We must make conserving our natural heritage a pillar of the program again.
Trump had a mixed record on conservation. It is true that he signed the Great American Outdoors Act, increasing funding for National Park infrastructure and conservation grants. But he also shrank the size of the iconic Bear Ears Monument by 85 percent and the Grand Staircase-Escalante by 47 percent, all at the behest of energy companies seeking access to coal and uranium deposits in those areas. Can conservatives forsake America’s most breathtaking landscapes – what Theodore Roosevelt recognized as a unique American inheritance – under pressure from corporate lobbyists?
Protecting America’s landscape should not be viewed as a purely symbolic endeavor. Our heedlessness toward the natural world often comes back to bite us. Chemical fertilizers provide a striking example.
The three-element mix typically spread in farming operations is simplistic and misapplied, depletes the soil, and yields lower-nutrient food. Farmers then apply fertilizers more heavily, heightening the soil’s susceptibility to erosion. Next, rain washes the exhausted earth and fertilizer into our waterways, pooling along our coasts in vast “dead zones” for aquatic life. These broken ecosystems make our populated coastline vulnerable to increased flooding and shrink our already overharvested seafood supply.
Conversely, when we limit our impact on the natural world, we see enormous economic benefits. New York State incentivizes farmers to use low-pollutant agricultural methods to avoid contaminating the Catskills watershed. The result? New York City drinks clean, cheap water, and city residents save the $10 billion or more that a filtration system would cost them.
Healthy landscapes don’t impose burdens on farmers, either – they actually increase agricultural output. In Costa Rica, coffee plantations within a kilometer of tropical forests saw 20 percent higher yields than average due to pollination from native bees. Researchers are increasingly discovering how forests might benefit crop growth. Nature is the friend, not the enemy, of economic self-sufficiency.
Rather than cutting the Park Service budget, Republicans should be expanding protected lands. Besides being a boon to local economies, conservation is a growing sector with good pay, few educational barriers, and career mobility. Increased conservation could even cultivate the technical expertise necessary to bring manufacturing back to our shores.
Conservatives should feel an affinity for conservationism. Leftist grievance politics, unchecked immigration, and radical gender ideology are eroding the very foundations of society. They threaten to shred the fabric that holds together our most basic notions of sex, family, and nation. Conservatives see society teetering over a social abyss, and try to keep it from plummeting down.
Yet we have experimented on our ecological fabric with equal nearsightedness. Social and ecological caution are two sides of the same coin. Good morals and healthy landscapes both enable generational growth. The world we pass to our children should promote these systems that work and have always worked.
We must invest our biological capital in sustainable projects and conserve it against both human and environmental degradation. Otherwise, present-day carelessness and live-for-today thinking will jeopardize our future.
In the meantime, Biden is showing up the GOP on conservation. In 2021, his administration launched an ambitious effort to nearly triple the amount of land we conserve, protecting 30 percent of US holdings by 2030. Once in power, Republicans must double down and ensure that land protections don’t simply cover regions of “rock and ice,” but favor locations with high biodiversity and threatened species.
Such motions are already popular on the right. Last year, a critical conservation bill passed the Florida legislature unanimously and Governor DeSantis signed it into law.
But more effort is needed. America must fund the glaring infrastructure backlogs in National Parks; halt carbon emissions and restore our energy independence by building nuclear power plants; invest in sustainable farming projects; and divest from the agribusiness lobby, which cares only about next quarter’s earnings, and not whether the food system is built to last or if it promotes America’s health. These green initiatives have bipartisan potential – all we need is the political will to get them on the table.
The state of wildlife across the world is dire; the current species extinction rate is comparable to that of the dinosaurs. American self-sufficiency depends on proper environmental stewardship. Will we do the conservative thing – and conserve the very land that makes America, America?
The above is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
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