When I think of this argument about the environment and conservatism. It reminds me of this Dailyshow clip about oil.
Stewart Takes On America's Oil Dependence (VIDEO)
Towards the end, he was talking about the president that passed probably the most environmental legislation ever. And that person was actually Richard Nixon(a Republican). He was the one who created the EPA and the clean-water act(not to say I particularly like the EPA, because I don't).
As for the environment and conservatism. I think you should really be more concerned with the environment vs the free-market.
There is a reason we are using oil today, and that reason is because oil is just by far the most practical and cost-effective energy available. The alternatives are simply either too expensive, or too impractical. Electric cars are just too impractical until battery technology can be better. Hybrids are just too expensive, even after the huge tax-credit the government hands out for them.
Solar for homes is just too expensive and takes far too long to recoup the investment(if you ever do). T. Boone Pickens recently lost millions of dollars investing in wind farms, because it is just so much cheaper to produce electricity from coal.
So basically all attempts to "protect the environment" always end up substantially increasing costs, which tend to be transferred down to the bottom of the income tree disproportionately.
When I think of this situation, I think of the Tato Nano. It is a car made in India, top speed is about 65 MPH, gets 55.5 mpg.
According to
this website (http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/price_list.php - broken link), the base model of the Tato Nano costs about 142,000 rupees in Delhi, India. Currently 142,000 rupees is equal to about $2,800 US dollars.
A brand new car that gets almost 60 MPG and only costs $2,800?
They are supposedly bringing the car to America, but because of a lot of the government mandated requirements, it will carry a price tag of probably $7,000 or more.
2012 Tata Nano America Review and Prices - Consumer Guide Automotive
If we look at the types of vehicles that poor people drive today, they tend to be older cars which get really terrible gas mileage. If the government loosened up on their regulations, I believe new small cars with excellent gas mileage would be much more common than they are today. And small cars with good gas mileage, even with worse emissions, is better than these poor people driving around cars from the 70's that get ~10-15 MPG and generally have no emissions on them anyway.
Even the older cars with emissions, tend to burn oil, and blow smoke all over the place. Old cars tend to have bad rings and bad compression, as well as dirty carbs or fuel injectors. So they get lower gas mileage and dirtier emissions than they originally had.
Anyway, my point is, we need to be careful about legislation, and how it actually affects individuals and the market. For instance, if you passed a law tomorrow that said in two years that the cars allowed on the roads would be "zero-emissions vehicles". Sure, there would be a huge number of people switching over to electric cars. But, there would be a large percentage of the population who simply wouldn't be able to afford to drive, and probably wouldn't be able to get to work.
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