A popular columnist recently wrote about the need to take “a more principled approach to environmental issues.” I wondered exactly what that means, but soon found that Googling the term “environmental principles” produces dozens of definitions, no two alike, and not even a universal agreement that there are such things.
One noted “environmental theory” expert published her PhD thesis questioning the very concept. “The idea that a principled approach is correct and correctly tracks moral reality is an, as yet, unfounded assumption made by environmental theorists.” Seriously. It is an “unfounded assumption” that following principles is morally “correct.” That really made me wonder, who decides what the environmental principles are?
The European Union’s official version embraces several popular old ideas. The “precautionary principle,” says protective measures should be taken before any actual harm materializes, and the “prevention principle,” requires preventive measures before environmental damage occurs. They are almost the same, in advocating government intervention – and sometimes punitive regulation – where there is no demonstrated need (yet?). That doesn’t seem quite right somehow, so I kept digging.
Private companies, like Chevron, publish their own “environmental principles.” So do the American Petroleum Institute, the Army Corps of Engineers, the State of California, and the government of India. Believe me, they are nothing alike. One environmental group in the American Southwest publishes what it calls the “10 environmental principles,” but many textbooks in the field say there are seven.
In Washington, D.C., leaders of the “R Street Institute” come a little closer to the mark, for me, shying away from the regulatory approach. As they remind readers of their blogs, many people who care about environmental protection also care about free enterprise. They call reducing our impact on the environment “a fundamentally conservative principle.” A different think tank, though, says the same principle is “a comprehensive progressive vision.”
The Encyclopedia Britannica says modern environmental law has been “shaped by a set of principles and concepts outlined in publications such as Our Common Future (1987), published by the World Commission on Environment and Development, and the Earth Summit’s Rio Declaration (1992).” But surely people didn’t just discover essential principles in 1987 or 1992, so that turned my thinking more toward timeless principles, the fundamentals that all Americans supposedly believe in, and that should apply to the environment – as to all other issues. Situations, technologies, and lifestyles change over the years, but not the essential principles based on right and wrong.
In American politics, we get so caught up in details and minutiae that we often forget to evaluate issues against our core principles, which are articulated in in the founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. What are those core principles, as they relate to the environment, natural resources, energy, public lands, wildlife, or water?
Nearly all Americans agree on the importance of protecting the environment, and we have done more to improve the environment than any nation in history. Yet environmental issues have become divisive, contentious, and partisan despite almost universal agreement on their importance. That is because in the heat of argument, we forget the basics.
The first principle outlined in the Declaration is equality. Yet the government owns much of the West, and almost none of the Eastern United States. Government agencies decide who can use public lands and who cannot, and enforce regulations strictly in some places while ignoring them in others. We believe our rights are unalienable, yet the government restricts the freedom of thousands of American businesses and individuals to use private property as they choose. We believe in limited government, because we believe in self-government. Yet the federal culture assumes a duty to protect the environment from the people, and even from state and local governments. That diminishes the value of personal responsibility and public virtue – the central attributes of a free society.
Limited government, though it is the central basis of the U.S. Constitution, is mostly a forgotten concept. Federal agencies dictate all activity on public lands and much activity on private land, the uses of minerals, the source and content of our food, the location of energy facilities, transportation of waste, design of cars and trucks, standards for building homes, where birds and animals can live, and what kind of products we can buy – from light bulbs and washing machines to shower heads and toys.
Personally, I think people should be allowed to live as they choose, so long as they take responsibility for any harm they cause. To me, that is the “more principled approach.”
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