Look — conservatives who believe in global warming!

And they're doing something about it. Too bad they live in Europe. Why can't we have smarter right-wingers?

Topics: Global Warming, Environment, Republican Party,

Look -- conservatives who believe in global warming!Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Angela Merkel delivers her speech during an election campaign tour in Hamburg September 18, 2009. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., left, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 22, 2009

When eminent scientists, elected officials and diplomats of all political persuasions gather in Copenhagen in December to renew the worldwide effort against catastrophic climate change, there will be at least one discordant voice in the house. Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated,” has vowed to bring the conservative message of doubt, in person, to Climate Conference 2009.

No doubt Inhofe’s appearance will embarrass the Obama administration and irritate environmentalists, just as the eccentric Oklahoman intends. But nobody will be more frustrated and perplexed than the European conservatives who are hosting the conference in Denmark and whose governments in Germany, Sweden and France have made the most sustained progress toward the energy and carbon reduction goals set out in the original Kyoto agreement. Those leaders cannot understand why their ideological comrades in the United States refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the problem — and insist that “conservatism” is synonymous with freedom to pollute and ruin.

The division between American and European conservatives over climate change came up during the Clinton Global Initiative’s meeting in New York City this week, when Danish environmental minister Connie Hedegaard, who is overseeing preparations for the Copenhagen conference, met with former President Bill Clinton. A leader of the Conservative People’s Party, which shares power in Denmark as part of the ruling coalition, Hedegaard has complained bluntly about the obstructions erected by Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Clinton agreed — and suggested that Hedegaard bring her message of conservative environmentalism directly to her American counterparts.

“Climate change is an issue that transcends all boundaries, impacts us all, and requires us to act,” he said. “Conserving our planet is a conservative position. Conservative governments now run most of the countries that are on track to meet their Kyoto targets. Their efforts on climate change have not undermined economic growth — in fact they’ve increased it.”



According to Clinton — whose foundation’s Climate Change Initiative is working with officials in 40 major cities around the world to reduce energy use and implement renewable sources — the four countries that have made the most progress to date are the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and Germany. Although Labour still rules Britain, the other three are indeed all governed by right-wing or center-right governments.

As a rule, of course, European conservatives tend to be more moderate and liberal, in the modern sense, than those on the American right. That is especially true in the Nordic countries. But even the more radical conservatives in Europe, who tend to emulate American and British conservatism, uphold environmental values and grasp the challenge of climate change.

In Sweden, for instance, conservatives hailed the 2007 ascension of a four-party coalition headed by economist Fredrik Reinfeldt as a triumph for free-market economics and a “revolution” in Swedish politics. Much in the style of Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan, the new Swedish prime minister has implemented a series of reforms, including tax cuts on personal income, abolishing wealth taxes, lowering property taxes, lowering unemployment benefits (among the highest in the world), reducing public benefits and privatizing state companies and services.

But the Swedish conservatives boast loudly and often about their country’s record in exceeding the goals set for Sweden in the Kyoto agreement. Although that agreement permitted Sweden to increase its carbon emissions by 4 percent, it actually reduced emissions by 9 percent. That reduction occurred between 1990 and 2006 — during a period when the Swedish economy grew by 44 percent.

The Swedish experience proved that there is no contradiction between conservation and growth, putting the lie to a central argument of American conservatives like Inhofe. Or as Sweden’s environmental minister politely explained, sounding a lot like Al Gore: “Developments in Sweden give us a chance to show other countries that are doubtful that it is possible to reconcile economic growth with emissions reductions. This means we can both encourage industrialized countries that have not yet done enough and convince developing countries that sustainable development of society is possible.”

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French prime minister whose rise was seen as an important victory for the right, is likewise determined to move his country toward a greener future — with a direct carbon tax. Although a carbon tax is unpopular on both the left and right in France, Sarkozy hopes that by levying a financial penalty on carbon emissions, he can advance clean technology and stimulate the next stage of economic growth.

Germany’s Angela Merkel is poised to lead the conservative Christian Democrats to another victory in elections this weekend, in no small part due to her coalition’s allegiance to environmental goals. She too sees no reason why the parties of the right should not be devoted to stewardship as well as freedom. Many American conservatives admire her and her fellow European conservatives for prevailing despite their continent’s hostile ideological environment. Perhaps someday they will realize that, at least on the issue of climate change, the admiration is not mutual. 

Joe Conason is the editor in chief of NationalMemo.com. To find out more about Joe Conason, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • 1 of 11
  • Close
  • Fullscreen
  • Thumbnails

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann & Kerascoët
    Kerascoët's lovely, delicate pen-and-watercolor art -- all intricate botanicals, big eyes and flowing hair -- gives this fairy story a deceptively pretty finish. You find out quickly, however, that these are the heartless and heedless fairies of folk legend, not the sentimental sprites beloved by the Victorians and Disney fans. A host of tiny hominid creatures must learn to survive in the forest after fleeing their former home -- a little girl who lies dead in the woods. The main character, Aurora, tries to organize the group into a community, but most of her cohort is too capricious, lazy and selfish to participate for long. There's no real moral to this story, which is refreshing in itself, beyond the perpetual lessons that life is hard and you have to be careful whom you trust. Never has ugly truth been given a prettier face.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Climate Changed: A Personal Journey Through the Science by Philippe Squarzoni
    Squarzoni is a French cartoonist who makes nonfiction graphic novels about contemporary issues and politics. While finishing up a book about France under Jacques Chirac, he realized that when it came to environmental policy, he didn't know what he was talking about. "Climate Changed" is the result of his efforts to understand what has been happening to the planet, a striking combination of memoir and data that ruminates on a notoriously elusive, difficult and even imponderable subject. Panels of talking heads dispensing information (or Squarzoni discussing the issues with his partner) are juxtaposed with detailed and meticulous yet lyrical scenes from the author's childhood, the countryside where he takes a holiday and a visit to New York. He uses his own unreachable past as a way to grasp the imminent transformation of the Earth. The result is both enlightening and unexpectedly moving.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Here by Richard McGuire
    A six-page version of this innovative work by a regular contributor to the New Yorker first appeared in RAW magazine 25 years ago. Each two-page spread depicts a single place, sometimes occupied by a corner of a room, over the course of 4 billion years. The oldest image is a blur of pink and purple gases; others depict hazmat-suited explorers from 300 years in the future. Inset images show the changing decor and inhabitants of the house throughout its existence: family photos, quarrels, kids in Halloween costumes, a woman reading a book, a cat walking across the floor. The cumulative effect is serene and ravishing, an intimation of the immensity of time and the wonder embodied in the humblest things.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Kill My Mother by Jules Feiffer
    The legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist delivers his debut graphic novel at 85, a deliriously over-the-top blend of classic movie noir and melodrama that roams from chiaroscuro Bay City to Hollywood to a USO gig in the Pacific theater of World War II. There's a burnt-out drunk of a private eye, but the story is soon commandeered by a multigenerational collection of ferocious women, including a mysterious chanteuse who never speaks, a radio comedy writer who makes a childhood friend the butt of a hit series and a ruthless dame intent on making her whiny coward of a husband into a star. There are disguises, musical numbers and plenty of gunfights, but the drawing is the main attraction. Nobody convey's bodies in motion more thrillingly than Feiffer, whether they're dancing, running or duking it out. The kid has promise.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis
    This is a weird one, but in the nervy surreal way that word-playful novels like "A Clockwork Orange" or "Ulysses" are weird. The main character, a teenage schoolboy named Scarper Lee, lives in a world where it rains knives and people make their own parents, contraptions that can be anything from a tiny figurine stashable in a pocket to biomorphic boiler-like entities that seem to have escaped from Dr. Seuss' nightmares. Their homes are crammed with gadgets they call gods and instead of TV they watch a hulu-hoop-size wheel of repeating images that changes with the day of the week. They also know their own "death day," and Scarper's is coming up fast. Maybe that's why he runs off with the new girl at school, a real troublemaker, and the obscurely dysfunctional Castro, whose mother is a cageful of talking parakeets. A solid towline of teenage angst holds this manically inventive vision together, and proves that some graphic novels can rival the text-only kind at their own game.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    NOBROW 9: It's Oh So Quiet
    For each issue, the anthology magazine put out by this adventurous U.K.-based publisher of independent graphic design, illustration and comics gives 45 artists a four-color palette and a theme. In the ninth issue, the theme is silence, and the results are magnificent and full of surprises. The comics, each told in images only, range from atmospheric to trippy to jokey to melancholy to epic to creepy. But the two-page illustrations are even more powerful, even if it's not always easy to see how they pertain to the overall concept of silence. Well, except perhaps for the fact that so many of them left me utterly dumbstruck with visual delight.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Over Easy by Mimi Pond
    When Pond was a broke art student in the 1970s, she took a job at a neighborhood breakfast spot in Oakland, a place with good food, splendid coffee and an endlessly entertaining crew of short-order cooks, waitresses, dishwashers and regular customers. This graphic memoir, influenced by the work of Pond's friend, Alison Bechdel, captures the funky ethos of the time, when hippies, punks and disco aficionados mingled in a Bay Area at the height of its eccentricity. The staff of the Imperial Cafe were forever swapping wisecracks and hopping in and out of each other's beds, which makes them more or less like every restaurant team in history. There's an intoxicating esprit de corps to a well-run everyday joint like the Imperial Cafe, and never has the delight in being part of it been more winningly portrayed.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew
    You don't have to be a superhero fan to be utterly charmed by Yang and Liew's revival of a little-known character created in the 1940s by the cartoonist Chu Hing. This version of the Green Turtle, however, is rich in characterization, comedy and luscious period detail from the Chinatown of "San Incendio" (a ringer for San Francisco). Hank, son of a mild-mannered grocer, would like to follow in his father's footsteps, but his restless mother (the book's best character and drawn with masterful nuance by Liew) has other ideas after her thrilling encounter with a superhero. Yang's story effortlessly folds pathos into humor without stooping to either slapstick or cheap "darkness." This is that rare tribute that far surpasses the thing it celebrates.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Shoplifter by Michael Cho
    Corinna Park, former English major, works, unhappily, in a Toronto advertising agency. When the dissatisfaction of the past five years begins to oppress her, she lets off steam by pilfering magazines from a local convenience store. Cho's moody character study is as much about city life as it is about Corinna. He depicts her falling asleep in front of the TV in her condo, brooding on the subway, roaming the crowded streets after a budding romance goes awry. Like a great short story, this is a simple tale of a young woman figuring out how to get her life back, but if feels as if it contains so much of contemporary existence -- its comforts, its loneliness, its self-deceptions -- suspended in wintery amber.

    Ten spectacular graphic novels from 2014

    Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
    This collection of archetypal horror, fairy and ghost stories, all about young girls, comes lushly decked in Carroll's inky black, snowy white and blood-scarlet art. A young bride hears her predecessor's bones singing from under the floorboards, two friends make the mistake of pretending to summon the spirits of the dead, a family of orphaned siblings disappears one by one into the winter nights. Carroll's color-saturated images can be jagged, ornate and gruesome, but she also knows how to chill with absence, shadows and a single staring eye. Literary readers who cherish the work of Kelly Link or the late Angela Carter's collection, "The Bloody Chamber," will adore the violent beauty on these pages.

  • Recent Slide Shows

Comments

0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>