Andy Revkin interviews a frustrated David Jenkins, of Republicans for Environmental Protection, a group that has been around for decades, but has been pushed to the edge of irrelevance this century:
Jenkins speaks out:
…the Republican Party has been hijacked. I maintain that it is being unduly influenced by what I call “pretend conservatives.” These are the radical libertarians that dominate right-wing talk radio and outlets like Fox News. If you listen to people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck you cannot really find any traditionalist conservative ideas in their world view.
The policies being peddled by these folks reflect a live for today-let me do what I want mentality that has nothing to do with the conservative notion of protecting the interests of future generations. Their support for fiscal restraint is primarily due to their desire to starve and weaken the federal government, not to protect our children and grandchildren from debt. Otherwise, they should be able to recognize the fiscal stewardship and environmental stewardship are equally conservative. Their energy and environmental views promote waste, pollution, and overdependence on finite resources. Is there anything less conservative than waste?
I personally would call them liberal, because their attitude reminds me of the liberal “if it feels good do it” mantra of the 1960s, only the vices are different.
On this topic, a well-known American had a pertinent thought:
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Thomas Jefferson
As David Brower liked to point out, those who would waste our natural resources, our lands, the air we breathe, and would do nothing to stop climate change, bind future generations to our mistakes.
Kit Stolz 