Gallup: Americans rank economy over environment…

…for the first time since Gallup started asking the question.

They are also still firmly in favor of nuclear power: (59/27, if the video doesn’t work on your browser)

Neither conclusion should surprise anyone who isn’t an anti-progressive religious fanatic*. Environmentalism is a luxury indulged in by societies that have determined that they can afford it; poor societies that are trying to industrialize their way out of poverty tend not to care at all whether the peppered moth is suddenly being forced to evolve or not in response to new factory development.  This fairly elementary observation will no doubt infuriate environmentalists, who have been accustomed to being able to portray their beliefs as having an unimpeachable, universal morality.  Again, that is because they have been operating in a society that has thought itself rich: now that it considers itself not-so-rich, certain priorities will be reconsidered over the next few years.  Including the priority of how important it actually is listen to environmentalists.

What makes this more-or-less amusing is that blame for this can be squarely laid on the shoulders of the environmentalists’ chief ideological allies in the Democratic party: if they hadn’t melted down the American economy** the American people wouldn’t be now apparently starting to contemplate this particular issue in terms of marginally decrease CO2 production vs. freeze to death. Or start thinking about just who wants them to risk the latter.  Trust me: this is starting to be not a good time to look like a pampered, out of touch elite.

Moe Lane

*I may have linked to it at first solely for the nuclear power quote, but read the whole darn thing.

**Actually, they haven’t really stopped yet.

Crossposted to RedState.