A New Environmentalism

Primetime Politics ^ | April 24, 2008 | Victor Davis Hanson

[moderatewolverine]

Tuesday was Earth Day, and it reminded us how environmentalism has helped to preserve the natural habitat of the United States — reducing the manmade pollution of our soils, air, and water that is a byproduct of comfortable modern industrial life.

But now we are in a new phase of global environmental challenges, as billions of people across an interconnected and resource-scarce world seek an affluent lifestyle once confined to Europe and the U.S.

No longer are the old environmental questions of pollution versus conservation so simply framed. Instead, the choices facing us, at least for the next few decades, are not between bad and good, but between bad and far worse — and involve wider questions of global security, fairness, and growing scarcity.

One example of where these diverse and often complex concerns meet is the debate over transportation. Until hydrogen fuel cells or electric batteries can power cars economically and safely, we will still be reliant on gasoline or similar combustible fuels. But none of our current ways in which we address the problem of transportation fuel are without some sort of danger.

We can, for example, keep importing a growing share of our petroleum needs. That will ensure the global oil supply remains tight and expensive. Less-developed, authoritarian countries like Russia, the Sudan, and Venezuela will welcome the financial windfall — and keep polluting their tundra, coasts, deserts, and lakes to pump as much as they can.

[moderatewolverine]

VDH makes his case better than anyone else today, imo.

[steelyourfaith]

 

[neverdem]

bump & a ping