Benji Backer
speaker
52 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Benji Backer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
When people think of environmentalists, they don't think of people who care about the environment anymore. They think about AOC. They think about Bernie Sanders. They think about Leonardo DiCaprio or Greta Thunberg. And these are people who don't really care about the environment. They care about growing their own brands, and they...
They care about basically making a political statement that is actually not just a political statement, it's an extremist political statement. What politician's gonna look at soup being thrown at a painting and think, oh, now I know exactly what I need to do to help the environment. Like, that does not help at all. They're not even hearing from hikers and skiers.
They're hearing from radical people who don't have any ideas behind them. They just have complaining and they just have extreme actions. And so it basically has made the environmental movement completely ineffective.
Over 80% of Americans self-identified as environmentalists. back in 1990, because it was like everyone agreed that we love these places, we love our home, we love nature, and instead that got co-opted by partisan politics.
I would blame Al Gore and people on the left for that, but now when people think of the environment, when they go hiking, when they go hunting, when they go fishing, when they go skiing, they don't actually think about how much they're enjoying their love of nature only. They're also thinking about, you know, the fact that this is caught up in political culture wars and it's so unnecessary.
So much of what the climate community does is counterproductive. This is a perfect example of the hypocrisy of the environmental community, which is that we are going to destroy the environment to claim that we're saving it. I just think that the environmental movement's not honest with themselves. Like, there is no perfect solution to things, right? It makes sense.
that you have to create a road to have a conference in Brazil. But then don't lecture people on how evil they are when they're doing something much more minimal than that in their own day-to-day lives.
The environmental movement should stand for the 80% of Americans that care about the environment and want sensible policies to solve those problems. That's what the environmental movement should be about. There's no organization out there, and that's what Nature is Nonpartisan is dedicated to doing, is representing those people and also pushing for sensible policies that work for every American.
I think most of us are tired of the back and forth on a lot of policies, right? Like it's just radically left policies and then we have to undo those policies and then we just kind of go back and forth until we, if you look back, we don't really actually make progress because there's all this back and forth. If you don't have a,
sensible approach between the right and the left that actually stays true over decades of time and doesn't get undone by the next administration, you don't make progress. And the reason why that matters is, I mean, we've lost a third of the biodiversity in the United States since 1970. 95% of the biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean has been lost since 1970.
Around the world, like we're losing the nature around us. And we need reforms to help us, you know, make sure that we're protecting those places, but also doing so in a way that helps humanity.
So it's really easy to critique something. It's a lot harder to come up with solutions as you are critiquing something. So what conservatives should have done, and what we can do, it's not like too late to do this, is say, here's what we don't like about the left's ideas. Here's what we should do instead. We've done a good job of critiquing, rightfully so, bad ideas.
We've done a really bad job proposing our own ideas. And that has actually harmed us in the end as conservatives and the country. And I think, again, it's not too late to change that course.
I believe that we can reclaim that term as people who care about the environment, who want to conserve it in a smart way for future generations. No matter if you hunt, you fish, you ski, you take care of a farm, you ranch, we all have a connection to nature that is undeniable. That makes you an environmentalist, or at least it used to, and it should again.
This is an American identity, cultural opportunity to reclaim something that we all share, make it something that's all American again. and make it about the environment again. Make environmentalism about the environment again.
Well, look, it's great to be here and it's great to be with the Congresswoman. We were talking before we got on. She's the representative of my favorite state and the state that I hope to be a resident of very soon. So it's great to be here with both of you. I have this very deep frustration about the environmental movement, which is that it's been co-opted by partisan politics.
The environment is one of the few issues that should not be caught up in partisan culture wars. We don't actually have very different ideologies when it comes to solving this challenge when it comes to outcomes. And for so long, you know, before I was born, the environment was something that transcended party lines. But today it's been co-opted by the left to be made into a political issue,
Well, look, I completely agree with that. And, you know, caring about the environment is not only a privilege, but it's also something that is a hobby for most Americans. It's really tapping into the fact that caring about the environment, whether you hunt or you hike or you fish or you ski, it's something that we share as Americans.
And tapping back into that, putting the environment back into environmentalism. and taking the politics out of it is actually how you do it first. It's something that we have the same desired outcome for. We all love spending time outdoors. We know the importance of clean air and clean water. We know the importance of biodiversity and wildlife. This is something that we understand as Americans.
Almost half of the U.S. is biodiversity, and it's worse across oceans, which the congresswoman just mentioned. Over half our biodiversity is being destroyed by humanity. We have a duty to protect it, but we have to take the partisan politics out of it. And to do that, you have to look at sensible solutions.
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