Carbon & Conservatives

Somewhere in our evolution the human brain split into two types: One is sentient and shows awareness of surroundings. The other brain type is static and unchanging, and prefers to adapt to the status quo rather than change it. Both brain types are needed to provide balance in our species. It's like our own sun, where a balance between the outward push of pressure is balanced by the inward pull of gravity.

In the U.S. this divide has become more apparent than ever before, especially in our politics. In Congress I believe the deep crack started with the Robert Bork Supreme Court hearings of 1987. This was the first major example of "Borking," where attempts are made to defeat a nominee or political appointee through character assassination. Borking is now commonplace in our country and it has created a nastiness, cynicism, and distrust that has poisoned and paralyzed our political system. At a time when both sides of the aisle need to work together like never before, we create fake outrage and get the hysterical bases of both political parties emotionally worked up.

It is in this atmosphere of political malfunction that our country sinks deeper into debt and morphs into an oligarchical theocracy, while our warming atmosphere takes us to self-destruction. This is a time in our history when we need to stop the petty fighting and start listening to the other side.

Conservative Minds

So, I've started listening in an effort to understand my ideological counterparts. I've been viewing conservative social media, listening to right-wing radio shows, and having discussions with Republicans. The end result is that I still don't understand. See, in my mind the process is simple. You identify a problem facing our country or world, you write up the needed legislation, you get the votes, and you go after it. But now, there is endless debating over every minor point on any issue.

I am amazed and dumbfounded when conservatives say that global climate change is "a natural warming trend" or a "hoax." Despite the fossil fuel industry's efforts to throw confusion and misinformation into the debate, the evidence is solid that our industrial society is quickly warming the atmosphere. This is the consensus of 97% of climate scientists.

Burning fossil fuels into the atmosphere is the same as littering. We are compromising and degrading our planet, which is unfair to our children. Everyone on both sides of the political spectrum should be wearing out the phone lines to Congress as we demand action now.

But, instead, do nothing.

The whole point of my blog post is this: The inaction and indifference toward climate change, which is perpetuated by the Republican Party, is a crime against humanity, wildlife, and the Earth. At some point, someone will pay, and it's the future generations and animals who are going to suffer. I now see conservatism as a danger and threat to our planet.

Diving into the Static Mind

A common theme in articles that I read, about the differences between conservatives and progressives, is how we process fear. But the issue is more complex. If you look at a map from the 2016 presidential election you see that the "reds" dominate rural America and the "blues" are strong on the coastlines and large cities. Many people are simply born into an ideology and religion and spend their lives surrounded by people who think the same way. I believe the way to open the minds of these individuals is to expose them to people, ideas, and cultures that are different than their own. I'd love to see "Centers for Enlightenment" across the country where people of all political, religious, and cultural types just sit down and talk, and more importantly, listen.

Critical Thinking

Another commonality of conservatives is that they grasp onto a particular dogma and they tenaciously defend it, without questioning it. Everything you hear should be questioned. People who just "drink the Kool-Aid" become the lemmings and pawns for others who have political agendas. Those who don't challenge information are easily manipulated and serve as the robot army for special interest groups.

All the time, I read the comments of progressives who are perplexed by the lack of conservative action on the environment, gun control, or anything that threatens the status quo and their way of life. Conservatives resist change.

Lately, I've come to think of right-wing thinkers as people who live life inside of a box. They seem unaware that we are living animals on a hunk of rock that's flying through space. Their brains are hard-wired and locked into set behavior patterns. No amount of reasoning, logic, or debating will shift their positions an inch.

But I have seen people change and awaken. These are individuals who often immerse themselves into different groups of people who open them to new ideas and thinking. People who are well traveled and well read are definitely more openminded than those who stay isolated in their neighborhoods and churches, who home school their children, and rarely venture out into the mainstream of society.

If we are ever going to defeat the climate change crisis, we need a nonpartisan effort. We also need to:

• Listen to those with differing political and religious views.
• Encourage the development of critical thinking in schools.
• Find ways to "shuffle the deck" to give isolated people exposure to differing viewpoints.

My Story

I've been called a libtard a few times, and I don't mind it at all. I now realize that my first step into liberalism was in 1970, when I was 9-years-old. For a class assignment I wrote and acted in a short play that depicted life in an environmental control room, set some time in the future. My classmates and I were struggling to keep the last oxygen factory from breaking down, and when we failed we all suffocated. Around that same time my friends and I would rough up construction sites in an effort to slow the home construction that was consuming the open land where we played. At 10-years-old my friends and I somehow knew that rearranging the spark plug wires on a bulldozer would keep it from starting, and if it did start it would run very rough. 

I continued messing with construction sites for six years, until I was finally caught by some off-duty cops who were squirrel hunting in the woods. I was arrested and given community service. So, for me, there's no turning back. I became a sentient being. I became AWARE that developers were destroying the natural environment. Once I started dating, went to college, got married, and had a family, this powerful love for the environment was suppressed in me for 19 years. I became a church leader and president of a computer club, and focused on my career and family. But in 1997 the rapid development in my county triggered me again and I joined several environmental organizations and became a green activist. It was during this time when I met progressives from liberal religious faiths who exposed me to new ideas and new ways of thinking. Email "listserves" allowed me to meet with and engage in environmental discussions with fellow activists around the country. From these listserves I was exposed to books and various campaigns and movements in the environmental community that opened my mind and changed me forever.

My point is that once you break out of the box, and once you take a stand for something, you are changed forever. You develop an AWARENESS of the past, future, and world around you, instead of just living in a bubble.

At age 9 I do not remember the specifics but I do remember all the worries and concerns about pollution in the U.S. At one point U.S. rivers were so polluted that a river near Cleveland, Ohio caught fire on June 22, 1969. That was the wake-up call for our country and it's when a serious effort began to clean our rivers and streams, and it led to the creation of the EPA, you know, that organization that so many Republicans and Libertarians hate. We need another, similar wake-up call again to reduce the carbon in our atmosphere. Is there any backbone left in our country to do this? I'm not sure, but I will always remain hopeful.

Sources:

Climate Change Fork blog, Micha Tomkiewicz, PH.D.
Turning Conservatives into Liberals, John Bargh, The Washington Post
Climate 101 website, The Climate Reality Project

Photo: Kamil Feczko