Henry Haslam: Conservatives must make environmental politics their own | Conservative Home

Henry Haslam is an active member of the Taunton and Wellington Conservative Association.

Henry is a regular poster to the ConservativeHome comments section and responded to an invitation from the Editor to posters to submit articles for the main site.

Conservatives should be taking the lead in environmental policy-making. It’s in our name and our nature.

We seek to conserve all that is best in our society, our institutions, our natural environment and our world. We care about our legacy for those who will come after us.

In recent years, however, we have carelessly allowed the left to take the lead. Roger Scruton wrote that the environment movement had come to be recognised, by supporters and opponents, as somehow on the left – a protest movement. This bias can be seen (1) in the way the way the climate-change message has been presented and (2) in the political emphasis on leaving it all to government.

The era of fossil fuels is waning. A new kind of economy is rising, based on clean electricity. Economics and technology are driving change. Scientists, governments, business and industry throughout the world accept that rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere will affect life on earth and are taking steps to reduce emissions. Change takes time, but all over the world the trend is towards renewables.

In spite of this, there are some people who regard the climate-change argument not just as exaggerated (which it is) but as mistaken and many who ignore it. The reason, I suggest, lies in the way the argument has been presented to the public by climate campaigners: bad science, bad advocacy, bad politics, bad psychology.

Bad science. James Lovelock wrote in 1995 that Rachel Carson, in her influential 1962 book Silent Spring, “presented her arguments in the manner of an advocate, not a scientist. In other words she selected the evidence to prove her case. … It seems to have established a pattern … I cannot say too often that, although this may be good for the democratic process, it is bad for science”. Climate campaigners follow this practice of presenting only the favourable evidence.

Bad advocacy. A good advocate recognises the strongest arguments on the other side and takes them into account. I devoted a whole chapter in my book The Earth and Us to discussing reasons why readers might disagree with me. Climate campaigners, on principle, refuse to engage in this way.

A good advocate will also try to express the case in a way that relates to the hearers’ own experience and understanding, enabling them to take the argument and make it their own. Climate campaigners, in contrast, rely on ‘We know; trust us’.

Bad politics. The climate message is designed to appeal to a restricted group of people, mostly rather left wing. Many Conservatives find it off-putting. Many others, less political, simply ignore it.

Bad psychology. There are reports that many young people, even including primary-school children, suffer from eco-anxiety, to the extent that some require therapy. This is cruelty. How much better it would be to inspire the young – and the not-so-young – with a vision of the attractions and benefits of sustainable lifestyles.

The reasoning used by the opponents of climate policies are no better. I often read, for example, that we shouldn’t bother to limit carbon dioxide emissions because other countries are emitting much more. This is the logic of the litter lout: there’s so much litter around that my contribution doesn’t matter. Both sides use exaggerated scare tactics: we’re doomed if we use fossil fuels, and doomed if we don’t.

What is so regrettable is that this dismal debate distracts from the serious and important issue of how we could live sustainably, how we could live with the future in mind. Politics is compromise. Sustainability takes account of the future’s needs as well as our own. Hannah Ritchie’s recent book, Clearing the Air, provides sensible, evidence-based answers to 50 of the questions that are often raised.

Another problem with present climate and environmental policy is the over-emphasis on government. Government does, indeed, have an essential role, but its actions have to be acceptable to public opinion and they must be complemented by public understanding of the significance of individual lifestyles. A 2022 report from the House of Lords emphasised “that 32 per cent of emissions reductions up to 2035 require decisions by individuals and households to adopt low-carbon technologies and choose low-carbon products and services, as well as reduce carbon-intensive consumption”. This is not taken on board by the government, nor by climate campaigners.

So, the left-led approach to environment policy, characterised by poorly argued scare stories and failure to recognise the importance of public participation, has failed to inspire the public. Conservatives need to take back control of environmental politics.

Roger Scruton in Green Philosophy set out to reclaim the environmental lead for the right, arguing that care for the environment rests on a love of place, a love of our home and its surroundings. Following Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, he stressed the importance of the ‘little platoon’ that we belong to. There are problems that need to be addressed by the power of the state, but they must be addressed in such a way that the local community spirit is amplified and not extinguished.

We take it for granted, as responsible citizens, that our decisions, large and small, take account of other people as well as ourselves, so it should come naturally to us to take the future into account when we think about our lifestyles.

We are aware that the way we live today has an impact on the world that we leave for future generations: depletion of non-renewable resources, degradation of soils; loss of biodiversity and destruction of the habitats that support it; and pollution of soils, waters and atmosphere with man-made substances and waste. As Margaret Thatcher said, “We have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.’ When you start an experiment, the outcome is unknown. Thatcher also emphasised that we have ‘a full repairing lease on this Earth”.

As for coal, oil and gas, we may call them ‘fossil fuels’, but they are better thought of as valuable resources. Petroleum is a feedstock for manufacturing. It is wasteful and destructive just to burn them, as well as being dirty and polluting. In fifty years time we’ll wonder that we tolerated it for so long. If we use copper and other metals, we can recover them and use them again. Coal, oil and gas, once burnt, are gone for ever. As for climate change, the publicity campaign certainly has its faults, but the conclusion that we should reduce carbon-dioxide emissions cannot be dismissed.

A Conservative approach would attach more importance to the role of individuals – to people power. There are several arguments in favour, one of which is that government action has to be paid for through higher prices and/or taxes (for which the public may not feel prepared), whereas many of the changes that individuals can make would save them money at the same time as reducing environmental damage.

John Redwood ends his 2021 booklet Build Back Green with the words: “Only if a top-down revolution fires the popular imagination and becomes a bottom-up revolution will the passage to a green future be affordable and quicker.”

The challenge for Conservatives is to fire the popular imagination.