Conservative Poll on the Environment, Tigers and Forests
The results of the 2022 poll done by Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina were released in May 2023. They found that there was broad support for clean energy and over half of voters believe that the effects of climate change are “already apparent,” and that “ unaffiliated voters are more in line with Democrats on the causes of climate change and the need to address it.”
They do stress the agreement with the conservative approach of competition, that is let the cheaper alternatives be chosen, with cost as the primary consideration. In fact, wind and solar have become more and more competitively priced. However, given the urgency and importance of climate change, we can’t rely just on competition, and certainly the field is not level given the vast fossil fuel subsidies and the lack of accounting for the costs of the harms perpetrated by fossil fuel extraction and use. Still, the fact that these results from a conservative group in a “red” state are reason for hope.
Good news/Bad news, Forest Edition:
It is more important to stop cutting down trees than to plant them. Planting a tree takes years to start paying off. The harm from cutting down a tree is immediate, and particularly if it is a tree in a natural habitat/ecosystem that is not easily restored by planting trees.
A great example of environmental co-benefits is that preserving forests for tiger conservation in India results in less greenhouse gases. An article in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution reported that tiger conservation efforts “avoided emissions of 1.08 ± 0.51 MtCO2 equivalent [Mt=megatons] between 2007 and 2020. This translated to US$92.55 ± 43.56 million in ecosystem services from the avoided social cost of emissions and potential revenue of US$6.24 ± 2.94 million in carbon offsets.” Carbon offsets are often a ploy for inaction and a form of greenwashing, but in this case they may be useful in protecting a vastly diminished ecosystem with many benefits.
The Guardian on June 1 and 2, 2023 published a series of articles on how the Amazon is being ravaged and who is doing most of the ravaging. Let’s keep in mind that much of this is for beef and dairy. Certain corporations dominate this deforestation, including multinational corporations. In addition, it is very attractive to criminal elements. As we noted before, the new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Sila (“Lula”), has pledged to do something about it, and the good news in the bad is that it seems he is starting to.