On a message board that I frequent, someone asked “What are some things that European conservatives do better than American conservatives?”
I scanned through about 10 answers, and have (so far) not seen anyone mention the environment, pollution, and renewable energy—and that might tell you something about how conservatives in America think on this issue.
American conservatives are downright hostile to environmental regulations (“job killing regulations”), protected lands (“drill baby drill”), pollution taxes, or even that man-made climate crisis is happening.
Solar and wind are much more prevalent in Europe—especially Germany—and these are some of the cleanest, least polluted countries on the planet.
EVERYBODY wins with clean energy. By now, fossil fuels and the pollution they wreak actually kill more jobs than they create (farming, fishing, ranching, real estate, timber, park ranger, forestry, agriculture). And ALL of America’s biggest enemies run on fossil fuel exports (Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, ISIS). And the three biggest companies in China? State-run oil, gas, or coal companies.
With renewables, you’re creating jobs, stopping pollution that kills people, avoiding the sky-high healthcare costs of pollution, freeing the economy (fuel and energy costs become cheaper), and hurting enemy nations by driving oil/gas prices and exports down to nothing.
But the American right gets a disproportionate share of their campaign donations from fossil fuel giants (Charles Koch, Exxon-Mobile), and that’s why they’re so weird on this issue.