Get Back in the Game

[Geee]

American Spectator:

Rob Sisson is green and proud of it. As president of ConservAmerica, the conservative organization promoting the stewardship of our natural resources, Sisson is fighting a lonely, acclivous battle. Most conservatives have forsaken environmental issues and left the field entirely to extremists. This is unfortunate, says Sisson, because conservatives are the ones who historically have been the stewards of our natural resources. TAS contributor Christopher Orlet spoke with Sisson via email.

TAS: Besides the obvious etymological similarity, is there a philosophical connection between the Conservative and the Conservationist?

ROB SISSON: Absolutely. The etymological similarity reflects an underlying conceptual linkage, rooted in the traditional conservatism articulated by Edmund Burke. A core element of Burke's thinking was the intergenerational contract -- the obligation of the present generation to preserve its inherited legacy on behalf of unborn generations. While natural resources stewardship was not a pressing matter in Burke's time, when the Industrial Revolution was in its nascent stages, the intergenerational equity principle applies to contemporary issues. The present generation has an obligation to be mindful in its use of natural resources. Wasteful consumption that is heedless of future generations is irresponsible. As Margaret Thatcher said in 1988: "No generation has a free hold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy -- with a full repairing lease."

Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver developed Burke's ideas further during the 20th century. Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind, wrote of the inseparability of freedom and responsibility, behind which lies the practical reality that freedom can be enjoyed most fully in an orderly society in which traditions, expectations, cultural norms, and, where necessary, rules look after the common good. In his 2009 encyclical Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI cautioned: "Rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere license." Weaver, author of Ideas Have Consequences, called for a humble respect for nature, an inscrutable creation with which man does not have the moral authority to tinker without heed for consequences. Weaver wrote: "Nature is not something to be fought, conquered, and changed according to any human whims. To some extent, of course, it has to be used. But what man should seek in regard to nature is not a complete domination but a modus vivendi -- that is, a manner of living together, a coming to terms with something that was here before our time and will be here after it."

That's a lot of philosophy, I know. Ronald Reagan was supremely talented in finding ways to communicate abstract conservative ideals in grounded language that appealed to ordinary Americans. In 1984, he said: "What is a conservative after all, but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live.… And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live -- our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it."