Conservatives and the Environment
Buckley, James L.
James L. Buckley Conservatives and the Environment • It happens that since my earliest days I have been fascinated with nature, particularly birds. I grew up in the country with a host of pets,...
...Putnam's Sons from If Men Were Angels, by James L. Buckley...
...So it has been with lakes and streams and the atmosphere across the country as we discharge increasing volumes of wastes into them...
...The 64 gallons poured into the tank on the seventh day will drain out as fast as they arc introduced...
...My leisure reading for more than thirty years has included books and articles on natural history, and in the course of this I have absorbed some knowledge of the intricacy of ecological relationships, and of man's ultimate dependence on the health of his physical environment...
...Arctic vegetation grows so slowly that it may take a century to erase the sledge marks left by explorers...
...For many years the wastes disappeared from view and were thought to be harmless...
...Only when the limits of that self-cleaning capacity are reached do we notice that a problem exists at all, and by then it is almost out of hand...
...First, they are put off by the excesses and politics of the "eco-freaks," who seem to be demanding a return to the days of the horse and buggy...
...What is far less evident is how we are to achieve our essential environmental goals without incurring unnecessary cost or dislocation...
...and they acknowledge a moral obligation to conserve the inheritance received from generations past for the benefit of those to come...
...Many organisms are highly sensitive to even minor changes in their environment...
...Many synthetic compounds have been broadcast into the environment without any understanding of their ultimate biological effects...
...Reprinted by permission of G.P...
...Second, they are unlettered in matters ecological...
...In recent times, I have developed a particular fascination with the Arctic, where vast areas can still be seen in their untouched state—but a state so fragile that unthinking human action can cause the most long-lasting damage...
...A body of water or an atmospheric basin has a certain capacity to absorb, to dissipate...
...1975 by James L. Buckley...
...Yet the incontrovertible fact is that they are real...
...Too few acknowledge that unless man learns to modify some of his habits, this generation of "temporary possessors and life-renters" could well (in Edmund Burke's words) "leave to those who come after...
...Conservatives can and should take a direct and informed interest in these problems...
...During most of man's history he has utilized naturally occurring materials and chemicals in his manufacturing processes...
...By noon of the eleventh, the tank will be overflowing...
...Too few conservatives seem to appreciate the extraordinary complexity and sensitivity of the interdependent ecological systems on which life literally depends...
...One gallon of liquid is poured into the tank the first day and the amount is doubled every day thereafter: two gallons on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on...
...I suspect that in matters concerning the environment too many conservatives suffer from three sets of intellectual blinders...
...For my part, I frequently wince when reading articles in conservative journals—even that excellent one, National Review, edited by my brother Bill—that do nothing but illustrate their authors' ignorance of elementary questions of biological cause and effect...
...Certain chemicals such as DDT are subject to biological concentration as' they move up the food chain, and once injected into the environment they cannot be reclaimed...
...Clearly this is a situation that requires safeguards that only government can impose...
...By way of oversimplified illustration, let us take a 1,000-gallon tank with a 100-gallon-a-day outflow...
...It was in the Arctic, on two expeditions to capture musk-oxen, that I was introduced by John J. Teal, Jr., to a concept of human ecology in which man consciously adapts naturally occurring biological resources to meet his needs...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator April 1976 9...
...Another factor has compounded the pollution problem...
...This is the result of what is known as the "exponential" effect of introducing ever larger volumes of pollutants into a system...
...The wastes he generated, the goods he discarded, in due course rusted, dissolved, or rotted away, and their component elements were recycled into the earth's soil, air, and water...
...I worked in a school zoo, banded birds, and at age 16 spent a summer month working in New York's American Museum of Natural History helping classify a collection of Venezuelan birds...
...In sum, our technology has propelled us into a new era where we have the power to disrupt the very rhythms of life...
...But ultimately, as the systems became overburdened, the rate of degradation proceeded with alarming speed and often with sudden biological consequences...
...In other words, by the time a problem is first detected, it has achieved a momentum that may require herculean efforts to bring it under control...
...My conservative brethren often charge me with inconsistency because I favor federal legislation to bring air and water pollution under effective control...
...While it is impossible to detail here all the factors that have combined to bring these dangers to a head, I will try to sketch certain of those that explain why the problems posed by pollution have suddenly loomed so large...
...This phenomenon saddens me because their every instinct ought to propel conservatives into the forefront of the environmental movement...
...In the past few decades, however, men have begun to produce a formidable variety and quantity of synthetic materials and chemicals that resist those natural recycling processes...
...It is a fascinating attempt to find new ways in which man can coexist with rather than exploit his surroundings, and represents a fresh viewpoint that needs to be encouraged...
...Add a few degrees to the temperature of a body of water or increase the presence of a given chemical by a few parts per million, and overnight you will have eliminated whole populations of fish or plants...
...The need for environmental legislation is self-evident...
...and equally clearly, as the flow of water and air ignores political boundaries, only the federal government is in a position to impose them...
...Only toward the end of the eighth day will we notice any accumulation...
...Our production of these biologically indigestible substances has grown from virtually zero to hundreds of billions of pounds annually over the past thirty years...
...Conservatives pride themselves on their understanding of the dangers that can accrue from the thoughtless destruction of systems or in-stitutions that have successfully served man's needs...
...That they have, in effect, handed over the issue of the environment to the liberals is, I am convinced, one of the great failures of the conservative movement...
...Over the years / have developed an appreciation of man's interrelationship with his biological and physical environment...
...Finally, they rebel at the thoughts that the dangers cited by environmentalists could have developed, as it were, overnight...
...The state of our technology is still such as to make it virtually impossible for even scientists, let along legislators, to define necessary goals or the methods by which they are to be achieved with any degree of precision...
...they perceive the existence of natural laws that man in his own highest interest is bound to observe...
...I grew up in the country with a host of pets, ranging from the conventional to such exotica as armadillos and flying squirrels, pythons and tortoises, and Cooper's hawks and South American honey creepers...
...We have learned the hard way that when we deal with persistent substances there may be no such thing as "safe" concentrations when utilized on any scale...
...For more than twenty years, Teal has been working to domesticate the musk-ox, a large mammal that ranges naturally as far north as land extends, in order to provide Eskimos and other peoples living north of the permafrost line with a form of agriculture that can take the place of their fast-disappearing hunting and fishing economy...
...a ruin instead of a habitation...
Vol. 9 • April 1976 • No. 7
