Roger Scruton: How to think seriously about the planet: the case for environmental conservatism

Abstract

The main thesis of Roger Scruton’s provocative and insightful book How to Think Seriously about the Plant is that local solutions are the best way of dealing with environmental problems, such as climate change, deforestation, and pollution. Local solutions include free markets that give people incentives to take care of their environment; taxes that require consumers to pay for the true costs of pollution, tort laws that allow people to sue polluters for damages; and community associations that promote environmental stewardship. Global and national solutions favored by the modern environmental movement, such as international treaties and government regulations, are philosophically confused and psychologically unrealistic, according to Scruton. Global and national solutions are philosophically confused because morality is based on personal responsibility and love of home and family, rather than on abstract notions of distributive justice or social utility. Global national solutions are psychologically unrealistic because most people are motivated to protect their environment for economic reasons or out of love for their home and habitat, rather than from a commitment to a social or political cause. Global and national solutions also can create unintended consequences that cause more harm than good because they do not take local needs and concerns into account. One of Scruton’s key insights is that environmental problems often arise because polluters are able to externalize the costs of pollution, which means that they do not bear the full costs of pollution. For example, automobiles produce hydrocarbons emissions that can negatively affect air quality, increase respiratory illnesses, and contribute to global warming. Consumers of gasoline are shielded from these costs, because gas prices do not reflect the impacts of gasoline consumption on the