Tag: theodorerooseveltandclimatechange

2024 Election, Domestic Policy, Environment, Politics

2024 American Nationalist Voting Index – Conservation and the Environment

Bob Claude |

Theodore Roosevelt and Sierra Club founder John Muir in Yosemite

Score

Harris + 6 Trump -5

Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as the farmer behaves with reference to his own children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, August 31, 1910

Theodore Roosevelt’s name is synonymous with the cause of conservation in American history. In both action and word, he called the nation to value and preserve the unique beauty of the American wilderness and to husband our natural resources for future generations. The more recent cause of environmental health and safety regulation sprung from this ideal as well as his advocacy of healthy working and living conditions.  However, he differed with Sierra Club founder John Muir in that TR believed sustainable development could occur consistent with the conservation of those resources.  The struggle to reconcile these two ideals still resonates in today’s environmental politics and policy and thus, in this election.

Climate Change

The Biden Administration made the challenge of climate change the centerpiece of its domestic and foreign policy. Its (unfortunately misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act invested $380 billion in new clean energy projects and technology while continuing oil & gas leasing on federal lands (see this previous post). Meanwhile, the EPA increased the price for purposes of costing carbon emissions. To reclaim our legitimacy on the issue overseas, President Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accord and appointed John Kerry as our first ambassador at large on climate change. These are just a few of the administration’s initiatives that put America at the forefront of addressing this challenge.

Donald Trump could not be more different.  He has ridiculed the very concept of climate change, though he did not actively prevent state and private clean energy projects while President. The only saving grace of his neglect of the issue was his unwillingness to sacrifice American economic security to carbon reduction goals to which China, Russia and the rest of the world were equally uncommitted.

Both candidates, however, have failed to coherently address the one climate issue which should be non-partisan – climate adaptation. Most scientists now admit the world will not reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the 1.5 -2 C increase in world temperatures necessary to avoid the effects of global warming. Meanwhile, the increasing number of wildfires here in the West and Hurricanes Helene and Milton have strained the resources of the Federal Energy Management agency to the limit (see this article from the Council on Foreign Relations).

The American people deserve a climate adaptation policy that prepares the nation for  all of the changes we face in the future. It should address issues as diverse as land use,agricultural policy, housing affordability and potential population relocation as well as the impact on American foreign policy.  It is not climate defeatism to start pivoting our focus to this challenge.  Unfortunately, the Biden Administration seems to believe so, simply because they have not featured it in their policy.

The good news about Vice President Harris is that she will undoubtedly continue the current arc of the Biden climate policy. The bad news is that she has advocated more radical approaches in the past that would hobble the American economy. Thus, she deserves only a plus 2 on the issue while Trump continues to deserve a minus 2 on it.

Parks and Public Lands

An inscription from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt on the Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park declares the park to be “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” . The same goes for all of our national parks, monuments and public lands, which stand as a common heritage of all Americans. Indeed, they have been a model of conservation for the entire world.

President Biden has fully embraced this heritage. He added more than 12.5 million acres of monuments and protected lands and invested billions in land conservation efforts (see this article for more background). The Bureau of Land Management now considers conservation equally important to land development . The only drawback is the backlog of unused land locked up by the Wilderness Act, which could be released for development or joint use. (see this previous post) .

The Trump Administration was a friend of the established national parks and, for example, signed the Great American Outdoors Act appropriating billions for park infrastructure.  However, he was hostile to other public land preservation, reducing the size of several established by the Obama Administration. Moreover, the Project 2025 platform prepared by former Trump officials actually advocates the repeal of the Antiquities Act that TR’s used to preserve the Grand Canyon and authorized Biden’s preservations.

At the same time, both Vice President Harris and Trump have strangely advocated  the construction of housing on public lands despite the fact that the vast majority of it is located in the Western states. Governor Walz qualified her position during the Vice-presidential debate, saying a sale of lands was unnecessary. Nevertheless, the past policies of The Biden administration still earn Harris a plus 2 on the issue while Trump receives a minus 1.5 .

Environmental Regulation

The Biden environment program began by prioritizing climate change and environmental justice initiatives. In addition to reinstating many of the rules abolished by the Trump Admini8stration, the Biden EPA issued a series of regulations to limit the use of and clean up PFAS chemicals found in drinking water, packaging and other consumer goods (see this article). It also acted to protect workers from increasing heat risk by issuing the first outdoor and indoor heat standard (see this article).

These rules address important health and safety issues, but also push the boundaries of agency jurisdiction.  While the Supreme Court just refused to issue a stay of an EPA rule to require power plants to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2037, the litigation over the issue continues in the lower courts. One of its PFAS rules also is in serious legal question after the Supreme Courts’ Loper Bright decision (see this article).  The next administration must commit to protect necessary health, safety and environmental regulation by reviewing and updating relevant legislative authorization in light of the Loper Bright decision (see the Draining the Swamp post in this series).

Vice President Harris clearly supports this kind of health and safety regulation, but it is unclear whether she has the will or the interest in working with Congress toward new legislation to better define agency jurisdiction.  She thus receives a plus 2 in this area. Meanwhile, Trump has shifted to a more hostile attitude to such regulation than he previously exhibited during his presidency. It is possible that Robert F Kennedy, Jr.’s historic environmentalism will moderate the influence of Trump’s new corporate allies, and so he receives just a minus 1.5 score.

Conclusion

In the last century, TR’s conservation and environmental ideals have moved from being a novel proposal to becoming a centerpiece of American public policy. Their implementation, however,  remains controversial. The next president must find a way to use the common blessings of our national beauty and our respect for the health of our fellow Americans to unify the nation and reignite our hope for the future.    

2020 Election, Domestic Policy, Environment, Politics

An American Nationalist Voting Index – Conservation and the Environment

Bob Claude |
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir in Yosemite

Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as the farmer behaves with reference to his own children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, August 31, 1910

Score

Biden +.5 Trump -.5

The two men pictured above represented different conservation philosophies reminiscent of today’s environmental movement. Unlike Roosevelt, John Muir believed that conservation and development could not be reconciled.  Despite Muir’s famous overnight camping trip with TR in Yosemite Park, he voted for William Howard Taft in the 1912 election.  Muir eventually went on to found the Sierra Club.

The contrasting philosophies of TR and Muir are reflected in the environmental approaches of Biden and Trump. However, in the end, their policy differences largely even out.

Climate Change

The differences here could not be more stark.  Trump’s denial of climate science would have met with nothing but scorn from Roosevelt, but Biden’s elevation of the Paris Accord to totemic status despite its wholly voluntary nature would also have met with his disapproval (see my post “Theodore Roosevelt and Climate Change”). This earns Trump a -.5 while Biden receives a +.5.

Environmental Regulation

The Trump Administration embarked on a campaign to spur economic growth by rolling back environmental regulation, especially regarding climate change.  In the process, they threw out a lot of long-standing rules that provided important protections. For example, there was no need to relax auto emissions standards that were not affecting car sales but reduced our gasoline consumption. The withdrawal of rules limiting toxic air emissions from major industrial polluters will expose hundreds to mercury and other known hazardous air pollutants. These unnecessary rule changes mean the Administration deserve a -.5

Biden would restore both the necessary rules, but pursue its climate agenda through more rule-makings similar to those of the high-handed and elitist Obama EPA.  This would likely be a net drag on the economy and so earns Biden  a- .5 as well.

Parks and Public Lands

Here in Montana and the West, we have a love-hate relationship with our parks and public lands. We love the spectacle and the solitude of the wilderness but resent the arbitrary limits on agriculture and other uses imposed from Washington.  For example, the Wilderness Act of 1964 allowed the federal government to temporarily designate thousands of acres off limits to even some recreational use for decades.  The Trump Administration decided it was time to finalize those designations and begin to release some of the land for other uses.  This caused a huge controversy and became an issue in the campaign. Biden has established a goal of designating 30% of US land as wilderness, which would potentially end this review.

Trump has generally been a friend of the parks system, vetoing an attempt by his Interior Secretary to raise the entrance fees to national parks to $70. He also signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which dedicated $2 billion per year to rebuilding park infrastructure (see this post for more). However, he also has reduced the size of some new national monuments previously established by President Obama.

Both Trump and Biden earn +.5 scores on this issue.

Conclusion

Conservation was dear to Theodore Roosevelt’s heart precisely because he loved America and the beauty of its land.  A true American nationalist would seek to protect that beauty for both the present and future. Trump’s denial of climate change hurts his standing on the subject, while Biden’s commitments to the Muir wing of the environmental movement suggests a potential radicalism on environmental regulation and public lands that would stifle development.  Instead, the next administration should adopt the practice of Roosevelt’s farmer and seek to responsibly reconcile the many competing uses.

Domestic Policy, Environment

Theodore Roosevelt and Climate Change

Bob Claude |

Theodore Roosevelt’s devotion to the preservation of American natural resources is legendary.  The challenge of climate change speaks to the depths of and potential conflicts between TR’s interests in conservation, social justice and national security.  While it is always risky to speculate about how a historical figure would deal with current issues, applying his philosophy to the problem may be helpful as we develop the national consensus necessary to address the issue.

First, as one of the foremost natural scientists of his day whose works are still used as references, TR would have accepted the basic science of global warming and been alarmed by its effect on forests and the environment.   He would have had nothing but contempt for climate change deniers. Indeed, he probably would have come up with one of his pithy insults to describe them.   

At the same time, his sympathy for the common man and inherent nationalism would cause him to bristle at the idea that Americans should bear the primary sacrifice of reducing world carbon emissions.  The man who rode with poor cowboys and led them up Kettle and San Juan Hills would have remembered the average American’s sacrifices to win two world wars, defeat communism, and build an international system that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty.  He would not ask them for further sacrifices without being able to assure them with a straight face that others were sacrificing equally.

However, as a student of international relations dedicated to keeping America safe and strong, he would know he could not make that kind of guarantee while China and the rest of the world continued to increase their rate of emissions.   The man who foresaw the rise of Japan would have understood the desire of these nations to develop their economies and gain respect in the international community, as I discussed in a previous post.  He would hesitate to embark on an international crusade to force them to reduce carbon emissions if it would significantly damage American national security and create an equally damaging economic upheaval at home.

So how would he have reconciled these conflicting priorities?

Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and vitality of the nation.

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism, August 31, 1910

Because of Roosevelt, America led the world in natural resource conservation. He would have expected it to do so again on a threat like climate change, but only to the extent other nations were willing to follow.  He would remember it was China and the developing world, not the United States, that insisted the limits in the Paris Accords be voluntary and unenforceable.  The agreement was a start, not a sacred totem, that bound the United States no more than other signatories. Instead, it freed us to negotiate as the great power we are to develop more stringent limits that were enforceable.  TR would have pushed carbon emission limits in bilateral trade and other agreements with China and other leading nations.  In particular, he would not have entered into the Obama Administration’s climate agreement with China that allowed them to avoid any real limits on their emissions until 2030, effectively ceding economic leadership to them for the next decade.

Nevertheless, he would have insisted it was our moral duty to reduce America’s emissions as much as possible.  In addition to phasing out coal generation plants, he would have pushed for stringent leak detection systems on energy facilities, though he would not have sought the immediate end to oil & gas production because of the economic shock it would cause.  Roosevelt would have been a fan of distributed electric generation in the form of rooftop and small solar and hydrogen fuel cell units, mainly because they give the common man, not corporations, control of a family’s energy supply.   Any mandates and subsidies for preferred clean energy sources would have come with corresponding utility-style rate and quality of service regulation of those industries to prevent excess profits. Displaced workers would be re-trained and new clean energy companies would have been expected to hire them at decent wages. Hopefully, these initiatives would have been accomplished through congressional legislation, though TR would not have hesitated to use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency and executive power to achieve them if necessary. 

All of this would have been contingent on the effect on the American family and our national and economic security, even if it extended the goal of carbon neutrality another few decades.  Carbon reduction goals would have been calibrated to the reductions of other nations to insure the American people were not carrying too much of the load.  The “big stick” of tariffs and other trade sanctions would always be available for use against willfully profligate countries, but it would have been used only when it did not damage other national security goals.  

These limitations, however, would have caused the scientist and political realist in Roosevelt to reluctantly admit that the Paris Accord’s goal of reducing the increase of global temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius was unattainable.  To protect both our resources and our people, adapting America to global warming would have been his highest priority.  In addition to flood control and other infrastructure projects to protect communities from future sea rise and temperature changes, federal funding would have been made available to move people to safer ground.  Agricultural research would concentrate on developing crops that could withstand higher temperatures.  Smart, energy–efficient construction would be required so long as the average family could still afford their own home.  Some of these programs already exist, but they would have been a central plank in any Roosevelt political platform.

Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on.

Theodore Roosevelt’s career proves that responding to climate change is not just a globalist mantra.  It is an American nationalist issue that affects our own economic and national security.  Nationalist solutions exist that meet the future needs of the American people without enslaving us to globalist guilt or greed.  They are not without sacrifice, but the preservation of our independence and the American Dream for ourselves and our children are worth it.