2Sustain

by Jason Busch

Founder and Managing Director of Azul Partners and Editor of spend matters

Note from Tim:  Jason is guest blogging today and tomorrow on 2Sustain, and offers his own viewpoint on the intersection of sustainability and politics.  Welcome, Jason!

There are an awful lot of people like me in the world. I hope to meet more of them soon. Still, I find myself in a vocal minority at the moment in the United States – at least a public minority. You see, most people like me won’t speak up given the Pelosobama-esque Santa Ana winds which have swept left to right (with an emphasis on the former) across the entire country. People like us fear that if we voice our opinion (or take a forced TARP handout) that the government might try and attach a 90% marginal tax rate to our bonuses or give a tax break to bus companies that want to transport protesters to our front doors.

We are vocal minorities in the truest sense of the term, afraid to share our opinions for fear of public lynching (this time it’s our checkbooks at risk versus our necks which I suppose is an improvement, but not my much). Yet despite our minority status, you won’t find social programs designed just for us or quota-based affirmative action handouts directed our way. What type of minority are we? We’re one that defies race and gender – perhaps the greatest threat to the left-leaning status quo shaping American politics today.  We’re a minority that wears a new label — sourced via free (not-fair) trade policies – and embraces a new philosophy that I’ll term Sustainable Conservatism. And we’re a minority on the move – which is why you should read this.

Like other conservatives, Sustainable Conservatives hold the right of the individual above that of any collective group or state. Now, this doesn’t mean that we don’t believe government should have some role in the direction of the nation’s affairs (though we would support a concerted act of public disobedience whereby pet owners decided to collectively dump their poop bags on the front lawn of city hall or the local Federal building on Earth Day to protest government use of fertilizers – and government spending in general).

No, government is not all bad in our book – at least not as the Founding Fathers’ conceived it before everything fell apart during the first New Deal. We are objectivists at heart, though we also believe – and this is the big differentiator between our views and those of past conservative movements – in the importance of passing down the same rights we hold to our children and our children’s children. As a result, we share many of the same views of those on the far left when it comes to protecting the environment and natural resources. But we also take a pragmatic view that laughs at the audacity and downright silliness of such things as cap and trade programs and CAFE standards (for those who have analyzed such policies and how they work with a fine tooth comb, the only thing that seems even sillier is why Hillary remained married to Bill after all of his indiscretions).

We also have a sense of humor and laugh heartily when “environmentalists” like Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy insist on taking a carbon belching Gulfstream over putting their money and policy where their big socialist mouths are and flying commercial. Incidentally, you can’t call yourself a member of our movement unless you’ve made a pilgrimage to that fateful bridge in Chappaquiddick and cried about the environmental impact of leaving the scene of an accident and abandoning an Oldsmobile – let alone a 28 year old hottie – in such an environmentally sensitive body of water. But I digress – or maybe I just need another G&T to fully appreciate the mindset young Teddy K. was in at the time.

In contrast to government mandates to drive green behavior – let alone drivers ed – we believe that it is the role of individuals and the market to make decisions to protect the environment. Above all, our core philosophy holds that the role of government should be to encourage a decision path through incentives and investment, rather than artificially blocking doors and creating an unlevel playing field that will damage domestic productivity and cost jobs. We also believe that well-run companies know how to market their environmental conscience by building products that are greener than the competition versus simply complying with a forced mandate. And we see evidence of this in how they’ve been able to increase market-share (e.g., Apple, Toyota, etc.) In other words, when it comes to the corporate world, Sustainable Conservatives believe that good business practices must be sustainable in more ways than one – they must drive returns for shareholders while also remaining truly sustainable, than a more classic green definition would consider them.

Tune in tomorrow for Part II of “The Conscience of a Sustainable Conservative.  I’ll pick up where I left off, and give a personal perspective on what being a Sustainable Conservative means in my life.

Jason Busch is Editor of Spend Matters (www.spendmatters.com) and Managing Director of Azul Partners, an Advisory Firm. In his spare time, he is pioneering a PB-free bullet that promises to biodegrade without damaging the environment — while maintaining enough stopping power to get the job done.