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The Green Old Party
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| Contributor | FreedomDemocrat |
| Last Edited | FreedomDemocrat Jun 26, 2004 02:56pm |
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| Category | Commentary |
| Media | Interest Group - Sierra Club |
| News Date | Saturday, June 26, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Republican conservationists want to reclaim the GOP.
Once upon a time, the Republican Party was a leader on environmental issues. In fact, it was the environmental leader. If you came of age between the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981 and the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001, you probably think that statement is nuts. When I speak to college audiences, in fact, I find that almost all of them think that a Republican is supposed to be anti-environmental, and that if you care about protecting the environment you must be a Democrat. And that's a shame. It reflects an indifference to the historical record, and more important, poses a danger to environmental progress.
Conservation is fundamentally conservative. Republican Party values of fiscal prudence, reducing waste, love of country, and responsibility to future generations mesh neatly with environmental goals. So it makes perfect sense that Republican President Theodore Roosevelt protected 240 million acres of wildlands, exceeding the combined land areas of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. TR quadrupled the acreage in national forests, invented the National Wildlife Refuge System, and proclaimed 18 national monuments, including 868,120 acres of the Grand Canyon and 639,200 acres of Mt. Olympus. He even dispatched the Marines to Midway Atoll to protect the Pacific's Laysan albatross–prized by feather collectors–from poachers. |
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