{"id":2459,"date":"2024-04-17T15:23:15","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T15:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/?p=2459"},"modified":"2025-03-11T13:44:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T13:44:01","slug":"conservative-environmentalist-benji-backer-polarization-pressures-to-conform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/04\/17\/conservative-environmentalist-benji-backer-polarization-pressures-to-conform\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Environmentalist Benji Backer Talks Polarization and the Pressures to Conform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benji Backer, Starts With Us Movement Partner, Founder and Executive Chairman of the <\/span>American Conservation Coalition<\/span><\/a>, and author of the new book <\/span>The Conservative Environmentalist<\/span><\/i><\/a>, argues that \u201cconservative principles are the key to climate solutions that actually work.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Benji doesn\u2019t fit the usual political stereotypes. We recently talked to him about the pressures we face to align with \u201cour team,\u201d and how he sees liberals and conservatives amplifying division on the climate issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Benji said when we talked to him: \u201cWe all have individual experiences that make us complex beings, and we should never expect to agree completely with someone else on everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Truthfully, many of us are like Benji in having beliefs that are out of step with our preferred political party. (Did you know <\/span>roughly 30% of Democrats and Republicans<\/span><\/a> don\u2019t agree with their party\u2019s stance on abortion?) In his book, Benji writes that many younger conservatives have views similar to his on the environment. \u201c82 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds polled indicated that climate change is important to them, including 77 percent of right-leaning and 90 percent of independent respondents.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The more polarized we become, the more pressure we feel to align with our political tribe. Polarization pressures us to become stereotypes \u2014 or perhaps it\u2019s more accurate to say there\u2019s a pressure to <\/span>act<\/span><\/i> like stereotypes due to our discomfort at talking about how we differ from \u201cour team.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Benji often takes flak from people on the right AND the left:<\/span><\/p>\n

In our increasingly tribal culture, news outlets and politicians on the right and left want my message to fit their political narrative. Conservatives want me to hammer more on extreme climate policies, over-focus on the importance of fossil fuels, and honestly try to make liberals look crazy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberals often want the same. They want me to highlight conservative-side climate change denial, over-focus on solutions like solar and wind \u2014 while vilifying fossil fuels \u2014 and try to make conservatives look crazy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

People often rely on simplistic, divisive narratives that flatten nuance and ramp up tensions. For example, on the liberal side, some people speak as if \u201cliberals care about the environment and conservatives don\u2019t.\u201d But many conservatives, Benji points out, <\/span>do <\/span><\/i>care about the environment \u2014 and speaking as if they don\u2019t is unhelpful and divisive.<\/span><\/p>\n

A conservative living in rural America cares deeply about protecting their environment \u2014 but to them it\u2019s an issue local to their community. When these people hear the word \u201cclimate,\u201d because the word has become so associated with the left, they immediately assume \u201cclimate\u201d equals \u201cbig government\u201d \u2014 as well as top-down solutions that will harm their livelihoods.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just because someone is scared of climate policy hurting their communities doesn\u2019t mean that person hates the environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And just because a person is worried about the effects of climate change, doesn\u2019t mean that person wants to rip your livelihood away from you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Toxic polarization grows when we have distorted views of people on the \u201cother side\u201d and see \u201cthem\u201d as a scary, all-the-same monolith. One way we can break the cycle is by remembering that we are all complex beings and not stereotypes. Keeping this in mind helps us see our political opponents as individuals instead of caricatures or representatives of an entire political group.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This explains why Benji can have a depolarizing effect on the people he meets:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberals are often shocked that a conservative can be pro-environment and pro-climate; it always lowers people\u2019s guard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s pro-LGBT conservatives or pro-capitalist liberals, the more voices that normalize politics not being so black and white, the better off we\u2019ll be as a society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The more we can shatter simplistic political stereotypes and focus on people as individuals, the more we\u2019ll reduce team-based, us vs. them animosity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Want to join the movement to reduce toxic political divides in America? <\/span><\/i>Sign up for our newsletter<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benji Backer, Starts With Us Movement Partner, Founder and Executive Chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, and author of the new book The Conservative Environmentalist, argues that \u201cconservative principles are the key to climate solutions that actually work.\u201d\u00a0 Benji doesn\u2019t fit the usual political stereotypes. We recently talked to him about the pressures we face…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"collection_feed":[],"type_feed":[77],"class_list":["post-2459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nConservative Environmentalist Benji Backer Talks Polarization and the Pressures to Conform - Builders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/04\/17\/conservative-environmentalist-benji-backer-polarization-pressures-to-conform\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conservative Environmentalist Benji Backer Talks Polarization and the Pressures to Conform - Builders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Benji Backer, Starts With Us Movement Partner, Founder and Executive Chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, and author of the new book The Conservative Environmentalist, argues that \u201cconservative principles are the key to climate solutions that actually work.\u201d\u00a0 Benji doesn\u2019t fit the usual political stereotypes. 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