Battle for environmentalist ideas

A liberal commentator thinks that the government has finally realized the mobilizing power of green ideas, and will now try now to appropriate political environmentalism. A pro-government columnist accuses left-liberals of trying to monopolize green ideas, and use ecology for partisan purposes.

On 444.hu, Márk Heczeg contends that the government side has been confused about protecting the environment. The liberal commentator recalls that some leading pro-government opinion makers lambasted green ideology and accused the Left of trying to use environmentalist ideology to attack Christian and national politics (see BudaPost July 25). Meanwhile, PM Orbán said that climate change is a real and grave threat, and called for global cooperation to contain it, while the Christian Democratic Party (KDNP) also openly embraced the fight against global warming as part of its mission. Herczeg thinks that in the end, the governing parties have realized the importance of environmentalist politics, and now they are trying to incorporate green ideas in their programs in order to prevent left-liberals from representing this important cause.

Magyar Hírlap’s Dániel Kacsoh accuses liberals of trying to monopolize ecological ideas to rebrand themselves. The pro-government columnist thinks that mainstream left-wing parties want to pre-empt the further rise of alternative green parties that attract many of their voters, and therefore they co-opt their environmentalist concerns to spearhead the increasingly popular conservationist wave. Kacsoh also claims that the Left exaggerates the threat of global warming. Alarmist concerns over imminent climate change are being used to advocate lower birthrates in Europe and also to promote gender-neutrality and a philosophy of open borders, he claims. Kacsoh calls on the Right to challenge such efforts, suggesting that Christian conservative thinking is fully in-line with the core principles of reasonable green politics. In a passing remark, Kacsoh welcomes the government’s policies in support of both nuclear energy and renewable energy.

Tags: climate change, environment, Fidesz, KDNP, Orbán