A Greener Shade of Right

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The appeal of fusionism lay in its promise that the West could embrace, at one and the same time, both traditional morality and the cult of individual freedom. At a time when the West had only just defeated one totalitarian tyranny (Nazism) and was seemingly locked in a death struggle with another (communism), that promise was especially attractive. But in the face of the totalitarian threat, religious, communitarian, localist, and romantic aspects of conservatism, which could have been sources of a positive environmental approach, were intentionally de-emphasized. Over time, most conservatives came to see the state, not individualistic capitalism, as the primary evil facing the world. The rise of fusionism prevented the development of a conservative environmentalism. Think tanks depend on money to survive, and the funding for such institutions came—and still comes—largely from wealthy individuals, a few relatively small foundations, and a handful of big corporations. Not only does this system discourage intellectual risk-taking among conservatives, it also clearly biases conservative organizations toward the promotion of those things that wealthy individuals and corporations are comfortable with. (Woe to the outspoken conservative critic of individualist, free-market ideology who seeks to raise funds from those who most benefit from that ideology!)

So, today, so-called conservatives stand as enemies of environmental health. “Conservatives” have funded campaigns aimed at convincing the public that the concept of global warming is nothing but leftist anti-growth propaganda. They have broadcast stories about landowners being shoved around by thuggish environmental bureaucrats—stories that are in many cases completely bogus. And they try to tar anyone seeking even the most minimal environmental protections with the brushes of socialism and pagan nature worship.

Andrew Kimbrell, an attorney and president of the International Center for Technology Assessment, points out that the right is so accustomed to looking for the old “red menace” that they now dogmatically substitute a new “green menace.”

Indeed, the inflexibility of establishment conservatism has obscured the fact that genuine conservatism often has more in common philosophically with the political left than with the political right on issues of conservation. Note the downright reactionary nature of anti-sprawl movements, including New Urbanism, which, though many of its supporters would decline the label, is a deeply traditionalist movement. Consider the following paragraph, from Suburban Nation, by leading New Urbanists Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck:

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