A recent quip made by a friend of mine brought to mind the current problem of how we as conservatives treat the ongoing conversation about “the environment.” I had turned on a television program that was highlighting the great technologies that NASA had employed in order to get two small “rovers” to last longer than ever imagined in their quest to explore the planet Mars. The cost of the exploration and all that goes with it, let alone the rovers themselves, was no doubt obscene. However, the comment by my friend was made toward the end of the program after the designers of the rovers were done proudly explaining that with no weather around to destroy the rovers, they could outlast even humans. (I find the possibility of this doubtful for any number of reasons including that an asteroid strike would likely burn the rovers and send unrecognizable particles flying into the atmosphere.)

My friend’s comment was along the lines that we were now polluting other planets. While in my arrogant omnipotence I quickly retorted “What were we really worried about Mars for anyways, it’s not like we’ll ever need it or live there,” it struck me today as highlighting the arrogance of humans, like myself, to separate themselves from nature. It also struck me as a perfect example of living by the liberalism that is so pervasive in both political parties today.

On the one hand, we have Democrats who want to impose top down regulation of all of humanity’s activities in order to achieve a “greener” world, not recognizing the consequences for their imposition of Utopia gone green. (One consequence that can be seen thus far is the impact that restricting DDT spraying in Africa has had on the large number of persons who have died from Malaria.) On the other hand, the Republicans, in their “knee jerk” attempts to oppose the Democrats, see the world as a vast resource to be used to its ultimate profit making potential. Rather than acknowledging man’s place in nature, both arguments instead separate man from his “environment.” Both arguments are different sides of the same liberal coin.

In T.S Eliot’s Idea of a Christian Society, Eliot briefly discusses the problem that taking man from nature can pose. In separating all resources, including “human resources” from their natural source and place, it necessarily permits the “abuse” of those resources rather than their proper “use.” It seems to me that a truly conservative challenge to the liberal view of “the environment” would place man properly in his role as independent caretaker and nurturer of what he has been given. This conservative critique of liberal environmentalism could maintain roots in both the founder’s talk of “Nature’s God,” and the Christian tradition of “Creation.” It would also be a much more long term approach than the “here and now” of shoving green cars into the lives of those who are accustomed to driving larger vehicles, or the self satisfying view that all resources exist to be used to the utmost by humans capable of their exploitation.

Such alternative lines of thought might even get us to think about a way to bring back rovers that we leave on other planets, or about the usefulness of funding space exploration in general.