G-File Author Comes to Town.
Last night I heard a talk by Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of National Review Online.

It was a folksy, informal talk. Goldberg sat at a desk, in front of approximately 50 people (two-thirds of whom appeared to be college students). As befits his reputation, one of his first remarks was "If I had known I would be sitting behind a desk, I wouldn't have worn pants."

Since the talk was sponsored by a student environmental group, his talk focused on environmental policy. It's not one of Goldberg's specialties (nor mine), though as a pundit, he has written about it from time to time. He took a special interest in oil drilling in Alaska (ANWR), both because it was requested by his hosts, and because he has family ties to the state.

Here are a few comments I took from his talk. They are very loosely paraphrased representations of Goldberg's remarks, not my own. It should be pointed out that he was speaking in generalities; there are obvious exceptions to characterizations of "the Left" or "conservatives."


On being a conservative humorist:
Sometimes I am described as a humorist. This is based on a stereotype of conservatives. Since they are mean and without endearing personal qualities, any conservative who makes a few jokes stands out from the rest.

On conservative environmentalists:
I thought I knew the entire conservative environmental community. We play poker together.

On debating:
Hannah Arendt observed that leftists question motives, not facts. If you disagree, it's not that you have the wrong facts; no, you are a bad person.

This is tied in with ideas of false consciousness and identity politics.

Another cheap form of argumentation is to say "It's for the children." Disagreements over means becomes disagreements over ends, with only one side ("the children") having the laudable end in mind.

Rhetorical tricks are especially strong in debates over environmental policy; pragmatic questions--how is this going to work--are seen with an evil eye by many environmentalists.

On animals:
I like animals, especially tasty ones.

On wealth and environmental quality:
If you want to fix the environment, get rich. Across time, and across societies, wealthy societies are cleaner than poor ones. They can afford to take environmental concerns into account.

On religion and environmentalism:
At the end of the day, the left makes quasi-religious arguments, not scientific ones. For example, it invokes rituals, like recycling, that have no obvious benefit. It also involves an end-of-the-world scenario common to many religions. ANWR, the oil reserve in Alaska, is "the dome of the rock of the environmental movement."

On aesthetics and the environment:
One talking point about ANWR from the anti-drilling side is that we can't drill there because it is pristine and beautiful. But pristine does not always equal beautiful. ANWR is beautiful; the north slope of ANWR is "not quite." The north slope is largely a collection of two-inch deep mud puddles. In the winter, it's a frozen darkness; in summer, it's a place where enormous mosquitos (and insects of worse reputation) hunt humans.

Environmentalism past and future:
If environmentalists want to take credit for clean-up progress from the 1970s through 2000, fine. But we're heading for new challenges, and the standard environmentalism is not helpful any more.

Do something about what you can do something about:
Global warming is real. But what can we do about it without drastically harming our economy? Nothing, and even then, the benefits are negligible. Better to spend the money we would throw away on those efforts on something that is achievable, such as ensuring clean drinking water for the world population.

On the law:
I like my constitutions dead.

On the future of the environmental debate:
We're at a tipping point; Republicans currently and will continue to control the federal government, and environmentalists are coming to terms with that.

On forests:
Do you want more trees? Subsidize logging.

On the value of libertarians to conservatives:
They are like Celtic tribes: they are useful to unleash on your enemies, but you don't one of them on the throne. (permalink)