Conservation.
It is (or at least it used to be) a concept that conservatives embraced. In fact, Teddy Roosevelt was on the vanguard of the conservation movement through the establishment of our national parks. Now, conservatives routinely deride the setting aside of public lands for preservation.
In fact, very often today I hear conservatives mock the concept of conservation. As an example of that, it's not uncommon for some conservatives to come on this board on Earth Day and proudly proclaim that they fully intend on turning on every light in their homes with the intention of leaving them on all night.
What happened to the conservative movement to make them abandon one of their core beliefs and instead embrace waste up to and including the destruction of our natural environment?
No...what you hear is us mocking the fake conservation of the left......they hate people and want to limit what people can do.....and capitalism lead us to having the clean environment we have today...rich, wealthy countries like to live in green, clean places....it is the socialist countries of the world that allow their governments to destroy their environments...
We want clean energy...and the left blocks nuclear energy.....they instead want energy that is unreliable and unpredictable......
Capitalism nearly consumed all wilderness areas until the conservation movements in the 60's started up....capitalism by itself is designed to consume, consume, consume. That isn't to say socialism "doesn't"....it just means they both do.
Also the left doesn't block nuclear energy by itself, there are plenty on the right that are against it as well. It's a mixed issue.
Oh,......and what made it possible for Roosevelt...the king of American Conservation to be that conservation champion.......he was rich......his family was rich.....and he used his wealth to make things better.....not so the poor guy working 16 hours a day just to survive.......
Wealth creates a better environment, that is why capitalist countries will always be cleaner........
Cherry picking 1 person doesn't change the facts. Besides Roosevelt just came along at the right time, the industrial revolution was in full swing and there were rampant fears of running out of wood going around the country (coal and oil were not as developed back then as energy sources). There were also growing understanding of nature and wildlife. Back before Roosevelt's time if you saw an endangered animal you usually shot it...so it could be stuffed and put into a museum or collection.
It was basically only "after" most of the wilderness areas in the Eastern US were destroyed that people started to wise up about preserving them. Hence why the vast majority of National Forest are in the western US.
Capitalism, by nature, does not preserve wilderness or wildlife. If left to it's own without outside influence it will cut down all the trees for profit and farmland, it will shoot all the animals for furs and meat or whatever else. How in the world else do you get extinctions??? Did government officials go out and kill all the eastern woodlands bison? Was there no profit motive to create all the farmland we have in place of forest? Your argument is pretty silly in light of facts.