Irrational Economist_ Making Decisions in a Dangerous World - Erwann Michel-Kerjan [102]
I think there are two answers to these questions. One is that there has been a change in conservative ideology, and the other concerns the rise of climate change and its threat to powerful corporations in the United States.
When I say there has been a change in conservative ideology, I am speaking loosely: Conservatism was for many years without an overarching ideology, and has recently developed one: belief in the power of free markets. Reagan was referring to this when he stated that the government is the problem, not the solution. From about the 1980s on, a strong component of American conservatism was a belief that unaided and unfettered markets represented an ideal state. In this respect, conservatives were following the preaching of their demi-god Milton Friedman. From an economic perspective this faith is unfounded, and Friedman in his role as a scholar was aware of this fact and even alluded to it in footnotes. But his followers were not aware of it, and are still not. From the perspective of an ardent free-marketer, environmental problems are a threat: They require government intervention in the economy. It’s hard to believe both that we need to solve environmental problems and that the government is the problem and not the solution! Believing both leads to cognitive dissonance. Many conservatives ignore environmental problems, pretending that they don’t exist. Roosevelt and Nixon did not have this conflict: In their day, conservatism was consistent with a role for the government.
Compounding this ideological change is an empirical one: the rise of climate change as an issue. Climate change threatens the fossil fuel industry, the oil, coal, and gas industries. They are the sources of most greenhouse gases and stand to be affected most by restrictions on their emissions. The United States, more than any other industrial country, is a major producer of fossil fuels. In fact, though relatively few know this, it is the world’s third-largest oil producer. First is Saudi Arabia at 10 million barrels per day, then Russia at about 8 million, and then the United States at about 7 million. No other country consistently produces more than 4 million. So America is a petro-state, and the oil industry is a powerful political force. The United States is also a major coal producer, and the coal industry, too, has been active in lobbying against the reality of climate change: When the reality was accepted, it moved to lobbying against the need for action.
Worth mentioning is one other possible contributor to the conservatives’ lack of interest in conserving the environment: the growing hostility to science in some parts of the conservative movement. This originates, at least in part, in the conflict between those who take the Bible literally and the scientific consensus that life on earth evolved by natural selection. Skepticism toward science bred of religious disagreement spills over to the belief that one can pick and choose which parts of science one wishes to accept. As climate change and the ozone layer are invisible and we need sophisticated science to measure and understand them, someone who can reject natural selection simply because it conflicts with his prior beliefs can surely do likewise with any other science-based argument.
The rise of free-market conservatism and the power of the coal and oil lobbies, coupled perhaps with a willingness to reject science when its conclusions are inconvenient, explain why American conservatives no longer wish to conserve the environment, notwithstanding the fact that their predecessors played a noble and very decisive role in this endeavor. There is a chance that this may change: As I write, in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the belief in the power of unadulterated markets is visibly waning. It will be interesting to see in the coming years if conservatives redevelop a taste for conservation