There can't be a conservative environmentalism, at least for any recognizable definition of "conservative" or "environmentalism." In particular, the stewardship metaphor is terrible for both nature and man; its only saving grace being that nobody takes it seriously.

Make it a moral issue and the environment will play a vital role in the Right's politics.

I didn't realize that we had control over what is moral and what is not.

Much of conservatism has implications for how we treat the environment and, more importantly, conservatism, freedom and capitalism lead to the rise of the bourgeiousie and, always and everywhere, it is only the rise of the bourgeiousie that leads to an improved and protected environment.

But conservatism is not conservatism without freedom and respect for property rights, and environmentalism is not environmentalism unless freedom and property rights are trampled underfoot. That such a program will ultimately lead back to environmental degradation is unforturnate and ironic, but oddly satisfying to conservatives.

Why did you think we were prevailing on social issues?

We own what, 30% of the property in the country?

Property rights aren't rights if you exercise them to destroy the rights of others.

Why did you think we were prevailing on social issues? Because we understand which positions are morally correct, and follow through on them. But also because we've started to take an incrememtal approach that doesn't scare off the mushy middle and that compares nicely to the absolutists on the left.

We own what, 30% of the property in the country? We do? Geez, you own a huge amount of property then.

Property rights aren't rights if you exercise them to destroy the rights of others. As conservatives should know better than others, rights aren't rights just because people really, really, really want them to be. Using the language of rights to cater to people's policy preferences is a tool of the left, and in this case -- as I noted -- destructive of the very end you hope to achieve.

As I said, conservative environmentalism either won't be recongizably conservative or recognizably environmentalism.

Yes, the muchy middle likes the notion that it is environmental and a conservative approach, but one that's vocal about the environment will appeal to them

Yes, a huge portion of the country isn't private.

Yes, rights are rights because God gave them to us. He's fairly silent about property but vocal about life. Just because you own a property does not give you a right to impact the surrounding properties.

Conservative environmentalism will be conservative, it won't be libertarian.

Mr. Judd;

If you are alive, you are impacting surrounding properties. If you don't have that right, you don't have the right to life either. This is the basis for the anti-human environmentalists who'd be happier if mankind went extinct. And here I thought you claimed that it was the other side that was the culture of death.

Two of the Ten Commandments are explicitly about property rights, and all of them are metaphorically about property rights, as is "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and unto G-d those things that are G-d's."

As AWW notes, "impact" is a nonsense word, but the extent to which we can impact our neighbors is entirely a question of property rights.

Sorry. AOG

There is a large difference between having 'dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth'(Gen 1:26) and being given 'every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit..'(Gen 1:29) and tree hugging or Gaia worship.

If the Left thinks that this document is some leap from either the 'Wise Use' or 'Stewardship' notions of the Reagan era, then they are once again delusional.

David:

So in the formulation property is God's but not Caesar's? That's a remarkable view of a passage in which He tells us to surrender taxes to the state.

AOG:

You stumble towards genuine insight. Yes, we are all intimately interconnected, including what we do on our own property. The notion that such things should be protected from everyone else is risible.

It's perhaps easiest to see what's wrong with what you and David are saying if we do a simple thought experiment:

You and I live next door to each other. I start storing, burning, and dumping chemical waste on my property. Your health begins to deteriorate from airborne pollutants. Your drinking water is comtaminated. Your house is coated with ash and residue. Your property value plummets.

You two are at least implying that since I was exercising the vright to use my own property as I see fit that I am absolved from any of the impact on you and others. That's absurd on its face.

Mr. Judd;

So, you think that your statement, that no impact should be allowed, is risible yet it's David and I who need to see what's wrong with what we are saying? You sound like a Democratic Party hack lecturing President Bush on how he should now accept the wisdom of Senator Kerry's view on Iraq.

The "no impact" criteria is obviously a utopian one, which I think for the readers here is sufficient to explain what's wrong with it. As David pointed out, it's a matter of how much impact is allowed.

Your instructional example is quite silly as well. It makes just as much sense as showing that free speech is absurb on its face because it's unacceptable for me to play my stereo at 120 DB 3 feet from your window night and day.

Why you think that the only choices are "no impact at all" or "any impact at all" is unclear to me. I'm confident that there is a middle ground in there somewhere. Perhaps a simple thought experiment would make it easier to see what's wrong with what you're saying.

Suppose you live next door to me and purchase a computer. Computers are made with some toxic substances, including arsenic. Because of this, a single atom of arsenic drifts off your computer's motherboard and lands on my property. Are you now guilty of endangering my family? Is there a difference between my scenario and yours? Note that the view propagated by David and I is capable of distinguishing between these, while your original view of "no impact" is not.

"no impact should be allowed"?

Just because you own a property does not give you a right to impact the surrounding properties

Yes. Impact is a term of art where the environment is concerned, thus impact statements.

surely you aren't arguing that your rights on your property are so profound that you can lower the property values of your neighbor. It doesn't seem a coherent legal doctrine.

Mr. Judd;

That's an even slippier slope than the previous. It would prevent things like

* Painting my house in non-attractive colors
* Selling my house to the "wrong sort of people"
* Removing an improvement one I earlier
* Failing to shovel my driveway promptly

This is the same logic that supports the unyielding obstructionism of the modern environmentalists, whom I thought you had mocked previously.

What I'm arguing for is a set of "de minimus" rules. In a society, you have to cut your fellow citizens some slack so that every tiny little imperfection doesn't become a legal issue. So, yes, I believe that your property rights are so profound that you can lower the property value of your neighbor's property to a limited extent.

"I believe that your property rights are so profound that you can lower the property value of your neighbor's property to a limited extent." is little more than an implicit acknowledgment that you're responsible for anything more than the limited lowering, even despite the putative sanctity of your property right claim, which is all a conservative environmentalism would require--responsibility to your fellow men.

Real enviromentalists don't want to solve problems, they want to be problems.

OJ could be a problem, but the Wife has him safely confined to cyberspace.