Is there some common ground between a 'Green' philosophy and conservatism?

[Scam of God]

I think so. And by 'Green' I don't mean a sort of generalized concern for the environment - I myself am concerned for the environment, though not by any means an advocate of State-sanctioned environmentalism - but a political philosophy that unduly prioritizes environmental preservation, even at the expense of economic or technological development.

To be sure, most parties that label themselves either 'conservative' (in America and parts of Europe) or 'liberal' (Europe more generally) tend to be more in favor of, for instance, the development of nuclear energy than their left-winged counterparts. And I think there's a pretty solid explanation as to why - it's the price they pay for their continued co-option of laissez-faire elements. But I do not think that this position is really grounded on any philosophical basis.

Prior to the Cold War, most conservative parties in the Western world were the parties of the landed agrarian gentry: what they opposed was industrialization and the unwashed masses that teemed into the cities as a result. Perhaps the finest example of authentic conservatism in this vein was Bismarck - and he, too, enacted the very first environmental reforms in Germany, which were quite popular among his farmer base.

Now, needless to say that prior to the twentieth century what we might call 'right' and 'left' were a little different: Bismarck was an economic interventionist and a protectionist, as were most conservatives of the day - economic nationalism is the original conservative political economy, an heirloom of the mercantilist stage of economic development. And it seems quite fitting and proper that these were the original 'greenies' of Western political history.

If it can be agreed, then, that there are some underlying philosophical commonalities between the two, then what changed? I can only believe that the rise of international socialism changed it: the nationalists picked up most of the right of the liberal movement, and were forced to dilute their original preference to preserve the coalition. If so, then might it not be that the rise of the so-called 'evangelical left', which isn't really left at all but which has nevertheless seen fit to appropriate concerns like environmentalism, is actually a reversion to pre-Cold War politics, and hence a natural continuation of the unfolding of conservative philosophy?

I like to think so, because it fits neatly into a point-of-view that I've come to believe in very greatly: that the Cold War, and World War II to a lesser extent, distorted the political process of the West, forcing alignments where there would otherwise have been opposition and causing everything political to skew, and that we now are in the midst of a great unraveling of that period of history.

But that's for a later date.