Benji Backer
Benji Backer offers climate crisis strategies from his perspective on the political right. Author of "The Conservative Environmentalist," he started a new campaign called “Nature is Nonpartisan.”
Transcript
Benji Backer (00:06):
If I am pro-environment as a Democrat, I'm anti-environment as a Republican. This is how our politics is today: we have to oppose everything that the other side stands for, even if maybe traditionally we would've had a different opinion. How did this issue become so polarizing?
Ted Roosevelt (00:23):
Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. Today's discussion is with Benji Backer, founder of the American Conservation Coalition and leader of a new campaign called Nature is Nonpartisan. He's politically conservative and an environmentalist. Some might think that's a contradiction in terms, but we discuss why it is not. We explore different approaches to dealing with the climate crisis, and while we don't always agree on the ways to reach our goals, we align on two things: one, we need to act now and two, conservation should not be a partisan issue. His brand new book, "The Conservative Environmentalist," is out now. Here is our conversation.
(01:13):
I don't normally start a podcast with this question, but it's relatively unique for you once we start getting into your accolades. How old are you?
Benji Backer (01:21):
I'm 26 years old and have been asked that question a lot since I was 10.
Ted Roosevelt (01:27):
Well, you have quite a resume for somebody who's 26. You have quite a resume for somebody who's 46. You call yourself a conservative conservationist, and one of the things that I think is interesting to start with is just to come up with some of the definitions of what's what here. Can you define those two terms and what they mean to you?
Benji Backer (01:49):
Absolutely. Well, first off, I became active in conservative politics when I was 10 years old per my comment earlier. And that was because I was really inspired by John McCain in the 2008 presidential elections. I remember watching in my living room, the debates between John McCain and Barack Obama. I loved how much respect they had for one another. I remember John McCain sticking up for Barack Obama when a conspiracy theorist challenged John McCain about Barack Obama at his own event and called out his own voter for believing in something that was disrespectful to his opponent. I miss those days of American politics greatly, but that's what inspired me to get active in the first place. And I became super frustrated with my number one passion, the thing I care about most, which is nature and the great outdoors. That's something I care about above politics.
(02:44):
So to me, when I step out on a hike or I'm on a ski chairlift or I am fishing with my grandpa, I don't care about the politics. I'm not thinking about politics. But I am thinking about how I want to protect those places, which is inherently somewhat political, but partisan politics is what I'm talking about. So to me, I'm an environmentalist before I'm a conservative, but the right hasn't been at the table. So in 2016, I started this organization called ACC, which is called the American Conservation Coalition, because as a conservative, as a right-leaning individual, I believe that we need to have a place at the table at these conversations to make the environment nonpartisan again like it used to be. And kind of just to finish out this thought, I'm a conservative because of my beliefs in small government, small efficient government, fiscal responsibility, the power of individual liberty, the power of entrepreneurship, the power of American innovation, the power of the American spirit, those are the things that bring me to the conservative value set. I am not a nationalist. I do not buy into today's Republican party in the way that I wish I could based on what it used to be. And I'll stop there.
Ted Roosevelt (04:08):
I guess what I hear you talking about is this idea of you're a conservative, you're an environmentalist, and then you have partisan politics, which is really about identity and which kind of group you're associating with and less, I think, to do with actual policies and problem solving. And this is true on the right and the left.
Benji Backer (04:27):
Completely.
Ted Roosevelt (04:27):
And I think—and you tell me if I'm getting this right —what I hear you saying is there are a lot of traditional conservative values that can inform policies that are protective of the environment, but they're getting drowned out by identity politics, that we can't even think about policies to deal with climate issues because it's getting drowned out or getting positioned as an outgroup issue. Is that a fair framing? How do you respond to that?
Benji Backer (05:00):
I get asked all the time, how did this issue become so polarizing? Because, as you know, starting with the original conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt, to Richard Nixon, to Ronald Reagan, to George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and all presidents really until Donald Trump, this issue was something that they worked across the aisle on and it can return to that. But how did we get to this place? And the answer is not—it's not oil money in politics. I'm sorry, it's not. And it's not just Al Gore making climate change a Democrat term.
(05:35):
It is the destruction of American politics into the tribalism that we know it that's been the cause of that. If I'm pro guns as a Republican, you are anti-guns as a Democrat. If I'm pro-environment as a Democrat, I am anti-environment as a Republican. This is how our politics is today: we have to oppose everything that the other side stands for, even if maybe traditionally we would've had a different opinion. And that is not just a problem with climate and the environment. It's a problem on all issues. I do believe that the environment could be the first issue and climate could be the first issue that kind of leads us back to the days where we could find common ground and instead of debating the problem, we debate solutions. That's where I want to get to.
Ted Roosevelt (06:23):
I would say with the specifics of climate, the Democrats have certainly acknowledged the problem. You might call them alarmists, but I would say they identify the problem.
Benji Backer (06:33):
A hundred percent.
Ted Roosevelt (06:34):
The Republicans are somewhere between—in my assessment and you may disagree with this—"it's just a hoax" to "yes, it's real, but I can't acknowledge it's real because I'm going to get voted out of office if I do." It's a political liability. So how do you bring conservatives to the table to start with, "yeah, there's a problem and we have an idea of how to solve it."
Benji Backer (06:58):
When we started my organization in 2017, there were two Republicans in Congress who acknowledged climate change was real. Now that number is near 100 in the House. Now, they haven't done anything about it yet really. There's been a couple of small bipartisan bills and those are worth celebrating because every step in the right direction is good, but there hasn't been monumental progress. And of course the party's leader is not acknowledging it. So how do you get a Republican to lean into this issue when their base voters think that it's a liberal hoax, when they've been led to believe that for so many years? You don't want to lose that base. You don't want to be primaried out. I mean, I look at my friend John Curtis who's running in Utah for Senate. He started the Conservative Climate Caucus. He cannot talk about this issue because his voters automatically assume that he's more liberal than his conservative primary opponents, even though that might not be true, just because he's been trying to lead on common sense energy and climate stuff, and he's been doing it in an authentically conservative way.
(08:04):
So who's the honest broker to provide that alternative? Well, for seven years I tried to work within Congress to figure out who that was. And we started the caucus, we got this all off the ground, and I realized that I don't think it's going to happen under the Trump banner right now, and I don't think it's going to happen in this current Congress. So my goal is to be that person right now.
(08:24):
I want to propose an alternative agenda which I've done in the book that I'm releasing, and at the same time chart a path forward to make nature and the environment and climate nonpartisan. And someone's got to do it, so—no one in Congress has stepped up.
Ted Roosevelt (08:43):
So I want to go through some of the policies that you talk about in your book, which is excellent by the way. But I also, I guess I want to think about: can the policies themselves lead the way? Can people get excited about the policies first and then come around on climate change or publicly acknowledging climate change? Or, does the climate change transition, the sort of acknowledgement of climate change as a real problem, have to happen first?
Benji Backer (09:09):
We have to agree on a set of principles around these issues before we can start talking about the details. And I believe that 80% of Americans can rally behind 10 principles that I'm about to unveil in a campaign called "Nature is Nonpartisan." I don't think we need Americans to become super active on every policy discussion. I do believe that we need Americans to stand together and say we want sustainable agriculture, we want more efficient buildings, we want more efficient transportation. We want America to showcase its leadership in the clean energy transition and to bring more manufacturing and clean energy development back home. Those are the sorts of things that we need to agree on and then let the politicians represent us on that.
Ted Roosevelt (09:58):
You sounded like you alluded to three or four of the 10 principles. Do you want to share the 10 principles now or is there a grand rollout that you want to do later?
Benji Backer (10:07):
There is a grand rollout, but I'll give you the ethos of them. We can all agree on those four things. We can also agree on cleaning up our air and water. We can agree on lowering emissions from existing fossil fuels. I think anyone can get behind that because you're not saying you're going to ban them, you're not saying that you're going to "drill, baby, drill" into eternity, but while we're using them, let's make them more efficient. Expanding and accelerating clean energy is something that most Americans can get behind. Conserving and protecting wild spaces and the great American outdoors, encouraging pro-environmental entrepreneurs and businesses and implementing adaptation and resiliency measures to the existing climate changes that we're seeing—those are just a few examples of things that Americans see eye-to-eye on.
(10:55):
I hope by launching this Nature is Nonpartisan campaign to prove to business leaders, to elected leaders, to the rest of the world, to the rest of the country, to use this as a starting point to bring us back to reality on the issue. And there's going to be a whole host of very diverse voices endorsing these principles, and the goal is to get half a million Americans to sign on and ideally a pretty even split between both sides.
Ted Roosevelt (11:22):
Yeah. Let me push you a little bit on this idea in the specifics here. Do you have a sense of what is an acceptable amount of warming for this planet? Is there a target that you're like, "eh, one and a half degrees, it's fine, we're already there. Three is really kind of what we—is catastrophic and two would be a nice target," or is it, "we need to start moving in the right direction. Let's get the train rolling before we get too detailed on where the landing spot is"?
Benji Backer (11:54):
I am the king of building the plane as you fly it. I think that it's really important to stop thinking about the end goal all the time. In the early days when you're just trying to get off the ground, you got to throw everything at the wall just to see what sticks. You can't predict where you're going to be in a decade, you just can't. And you can't even predict what your budget's going to be for the next year, let alone what's going to happen in 10 years. So the same thing on climate: we just got to start moving and we should stop worrying about what net zero targets and what temperature we're going to—we're going to get nowhere if we keep debating that, because that's not what we should be debating. We should start getting our feet underneath us and start walking, then jogging and then running and eventually sprinting.
(12:37):
But we are not going to start by just sitting in the same place. That being said, I do think that we should be trying to get between the two and two and a half degree range, and I would prefer to stick between the one and a half to two range in terms of Celsius increase in the world. And I have a ton of hope that we could be there. I think if we keep debating and keep letting partisan politics get in the way, it'll be somewhere between 2.5 and three, and I don't want to let that happen. So let's start walking and start making things happen.
Ted Roosevelt (13:09):
Speed of change is increasingly a problem for climate change. And let me frame it this way: if you think about the built-in infrastructure that's already in place, just letting that infrastructure remain in place for its average life, just letting the internal combustion engine cars remain on the road gets us over two degrees warming. So the speed in which we need to change needs to happen really quickly, and that's just to get us between the two, two and a half degrees warming, which by the way, the scientific community will tell you is catastrophic warming. And I think that might be kind of the core of the tension here, which is you need to make a dramatic change quickly, but it's not most people's, and it's certainly not our leaders', top priority. But you can't go and beat someone over the head to try to make it their top priority when they have very real more immediate concerns like paying for their groceries and inflation.
Benji Backer (14:04):
Completely agree. And I think that that's why I do think the only way that we're totally screwed is if we can't make the costs work out for everyday people because unless people have the ability to pay less for the products, the transportation methods, all those things, they are never going to do it because to your point, it's not their number one issue. So we need to make it very implementable to people's lives for this change to happen. And that's where the private sector has such an important role. The private sector can come up with the solutions that make people's lives more efficient and more affordable, then they're going to buy into it. And you're starting to see that happen. You're starting to see that happen with solar, wind, so many different examples of things that have kind of scaled because the cost impact is there. My dad thought about putting solar panels on his house here in Arizona for the first time just because it was going to make more financial sense than using the energy from normal energy from the grid. That's a chasm breaking moment for people.
Ted Roosevelt (15:12):
You mentioned EVs and solar panels and wind. The reason those technologies have lower costs is because specifically of government subsidies, whether it's tax breaks or below market loans. The free market can now start to accelerate that adoption, but without the government support initially, it's a long time before these technologies become, would have become cost competitive, and your father's thinking about putting solar panels on his roof.
Benji Backer (15:43):
I completely agree with that, but I would add a caveat, which is that if something can't survive on its own eventually, then it's not worth it. If I'm being honest, I don't believe in the capacity of solar, wind, and EVs to help us solve this challenge. I really don't. I believe it's an important part of it, and I'm supportive of solar, wind, and EV measures. What I think we should be doing is allowing the government to step in and say, Hey, America should be leading on a lot of these technologies. Let's invest in helping lower the costs and let them fail or succeed. And maybe you start looking at other alternatives that might have more potential, I think. And obviously it's easier said than done, I understand that. But I do think that we have been putting so many of our eggs into these baskets, and we've forgotten until recently, geothermal wasn't on our radar.
(16:40):
Nuclear was not on our radar, hydrogen wasn't on our radar. Forest management and these sustainable agriculture practices were not on our radar. We didn't focus on any of that stuff for a very long time, at least at the scale that we could have, and I still don't think that we are, but I completely agree that the government's got to be involved.
Ted Roosevelt (16:58):
Yeah.
Benji Backer (16:58):
And that's probably a controversial opinion on the right for some people, but the government's always been involved in environmental protection and when it's gone wrong, it's been too involved and when it's gone wrong, it's been too uninvolved. There is a balance there.
Ted Roosevelt (17:12):
One of the things that I think is probably the biggest mistake that I see from environmentalists, particularly—I'm going to call them "urban environmentalists," is that they have not always partnered well with the farming community, with hunters, with outdoorspeople. And the fact of the matter is that humans have a track record of protecting things that they value because they're interacting with those things. And they have a pretty terrible track record of protecting things that are just conceptually important to us.
Benji Backer (17:42):
Polar bears.
Ted Roosevelt (17:44):
Polar bears, exactly. The most adamant conservationists are often the hunting and fishing community, the people that are interacting with nature and the outdoors on a regular basis. Do you feel like that's kind of the core of where your messaging could take root is with this, I'm going to call them rural, pro-gun hunters, they're using the land to develop resources that we use, but they also understand that this land needs to be sustainable for their family and for future generations. Is that the prototype of the conservative conservationist?
Benji Backer (18:17):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think it's a return to the love of their local community and the national landscapes that they care about. This far off kind of belief that we need to save the polar bears is something that doesn't really resonate with a lot of people because it's not tangible. It's not something that they understand. So yes, hypothetically, do we want to save the polar bears? I don't think there's a single person who would say no.
Ted Roosevelt (18:39):
But it's like number 50 on their list of things that they care about.
Benji Backer (18:42):
Right—maybe 5,000. What they care about is if you're a farmer, the crop yield and the ability to keep a farm going for generations, which means that the environment is healthy and their farm. What it means for a hunter is restoring a coastline for duck habitat that has also an ability to protect against the worsening effects of climate change. It means something different for everyone,
(19:07):
but if I said, who here wants to take care of their land? Who here wants to take care of the forest that's in their backyard? Every single person would say yes. So I think it's that deep connection to nature that can bring us back to working together on this, but also that is what makes a conservative a conservationist, and we have to tap into that.
Ted Roosevelt (19:27):
I got a chance to talk to Liz Cheney recently. One of the things that she talked about, which you hear all the time, is—listen, the majority of Republicans in Washington don't like Donald Trump. They think he's a problem. They understand the sort of risk that he represents, but they can't come out and say it publicly because it's going to cost them their seat. What does it take for Republicans to start publicly saying what they believe in their hearts around climate?
Benji Backer (19:55):
I love that question, and I think it's probably at the heart of what will actually change the course of this issue. And this is what I'm trying to do with the Nature is Nonpartisan campaign is show elected officials that their constituents do care about this, to help constituents in these communities realize that there's a way to engage that's authentic to their principles. Voters and the narrative need to change before the policy changes. The politicians are responding to the voters in fear and they're fearful of being primaried. And if people aren't fearful of being primaried or losing an election over climate and the environment, then they're going to be more open to saying the right thing on it. And if we can show that half a million Americans across the political spectrum all agree with these same principles, it'll start to work, I think. But we'll see. It's kind of a pipe dream, but we'll see.
Ted Roosevelt (20:55):
I don't think it's a pipe dream. I think it's a really valuable dream, and I think it's important work that you're doing. You spent seven years really pouring your heart into the ACC and recently in June of 2023, you stepped down from your leadership position in that role. I know you're staying involved, but I'd love, if you're comfortable, to hear you talk about that decision and what led you to that.
Benji Backer (21:21):
Yeah, it's an important question because it's obviously kind of where I'm headed next, and it was a mixture of a few things. I mean, running a CC full-time as an 18, 19, 20-and-onward-year-old was not for the faint of heart. I mean, I was traveling nonstop, physically, mentally, very, very taxing and kind of got a little burnt out, honestly, from the level of workload— hundred hour weeks, a hundred plus flights a year, every year type of thing. And it wasn't that I lost sight in the mission, it was like I was losing myself, and then I wasn't passionate about the issues anymore. I was kind of clinging on to the negativity of what wasn't happening and how slow it was happening and working within the political process and how frustrating that was to see everything behind the scenes instead of focusing on what my hopes were. I realized that it's not that I've lost my passion in this, which is what I thought,
(22:17):
I didn't lose it, but I didn't. And it's not that I lost it, it's that I was burnt out and I needed to put my efforts where I felt like they were more authentic to me. And that meant publishing this book, which is the first right of center book on the environment that's really ever been written since before I was born. I call it "The Conservative Environmentalist." And also launching this Nature is Nonpartisan platform. That's what I want to do. And ACC does an amazing job of working in DC and elevating advocacy voices to get the right to the table and all that stuff, but working within the political system just isn't working right now. And I want to kind of attribute my voice to what I think is authentically me and lead on the principles that I think are right. Candidly, the right and the left, you kind of have a no-strike policy. If you call out something on one side, then you're banned, and I don't want ACC to lose its access from being in these important conversations that they need to be in because I'm not partisan. There needs to be a right of center group on this, but they can't be the—I can't be the partisan person. I just can't.
Ted Roosevelt (23:35):
Benji, what I love about that answer, and it sounds like it was a real challenging few months, maybe years, I don't know, for you—
Benji Backer (23:42):
It was, yeah.
Ted Roosevelt (23:43):
—and I think one of problems with politics today and maybe even our country today is that people are putting party above principles. And it sounds like you said, I'm just not going to put partisanship above principles. And I think that's a key message and a key lesson for our listeners to understand that, again, not to reference the Liz Cheney podcast again, but that's at least her view of the world. As she said, listen, I got to stand up for what I believe in. And I believe, and I could be wrong in this and I'm not in politics, but I think there's a huge appetite for that. I think it's the sort of silent majority of our country right now is people to say, these are my actual principles.
(24:28):
I'm not doing this because it's because of party expediency, and I realize you're not a politician, but I think it's a human condition in our country right now as well. So I really want to applaud your decision and your self-awareness at 26 to be able to do that. It usually is something that people start to do in their forties and fifties, if at all. So you should really be proud of yourself for having the self-awareness to do that.
Benji Backer (24:54):
Thank you.
Ted Roosevelt (24:55):
And I'm a big believer in the value, if you have the ability, to take time away from what you're doing and clear the head space because you end up dealing with the sort of immediacy of whatever it is you're working on, and you don't get to sort of take a step back and open the aperture up.
Benji Backer (25:12):
Process.
Ted Roosevelt (25:13):
Yeah, process, and just see the whole picture unless you do that sometimes.
Benji Backer (25:18):
I appreciate that a lot, and it definitely was a really hard decision for me. But you're right. I mean, to me, solving this issue is more important than the partisanship within the politics, and I think there's a huge appetite for that right now. Obviously, like you said, ideally people realize that in their forties or fifties. I don't think anyone in Congress really has realized that outside of a few people, and they might die not ever realizing it unfortunately. America is far worse off, and all of our people, of all incomes, all cultures, all backgrounds, all geographies are worse off because of the way politics is right now. Every single person's worse off. And people are sick of it, but yet that isn't translating to the narrative yet. If you turn on the news, that's not where you're going to find it. If you open up a newspaper or look on social media, you're not going to find it. There's really nowhere to find it other than in these individual conversations, but I do believe that we're almost at a tipping point on that, and I'm excited to be at the forefront of the charge on the environmental side of things, and hopefully it can stem out to other issues and be part of returning our country to normalcy again as much as possible in a time when we need to solve some critical issues. And the way that we're going about it, it's just never going to do it.
Ted Roosevelt (26:37):
Well, Benji, I'm thrilled that you're out there doing this work and fighting this fight. We have a couple of questions that we end every podcast with. We like to give our listeners a sense of action, what they can do themselves so that it's not just a one-sided podcast. Is there an action that you would encourage our listeners to take?
Benji Backer (26:57):
Absolutely. Well, if you go on my social media channels, I'll have all the links there. Nature is Nonpartisan, take that pledge. There's going to be a bunch of principles that we talked about here that are on there, and you'll be able to really see that this is something that's going to hopefully take shape, and I would love to have anyone listening take that pledge.
Ted Roosevelt (27:17):
Well, I will certainly do that right after this podcast. And this may have been implied in your answer, but is there an organization, maybe another organization that you would encourage folks to look to or to support?
Benji Backer (27:30):
I do think ACC is doing incredible work, but I also think that there are other really incredible groups like Bipartisan Policy Center, ClearPath, which is a partner of ours, the National Wildlife Federation. There's some really, really good organizations out there.
Ted Roosevelt (27:46):
Thank you very much for joining this podcast. It's been awesome. Really interesting conversation. I appreciate you taking the time. I'm excited for your media blitz, but I think it'll be great.
Benji Backer (27:55):
Well, thank you so much, and I mean, truly it's an honor and I love the family legacy that you've continued on, and I am so grateful for the work that you guys are doing in the private sector too. It means a lot.
(28:09):
And let's do a quick selfie or a screenshot of us so I can post it, if that sounds good.
Ted Roosevelt (28:17):
All right. Absolutely. I don't know how to do that, but I'll let you do it. Okay.
Benji Backer (28:21):
3, 2, 1. Got it.
Ted Roosevelt (28:25):
Thank you for having this great conversation with me, Benji. You can find the selfie on social media, and of course, you can find Benji's new book, "The Conservative Environmentalist," on sale now. I want to emphasize how much I enjoyed this conversation. Talking about ways to approach climate change from different sides of the political spectrum is critical to finding a solution. Benji is part of a younger generation looking for areas of agreement to find a path forward. If you appreciate this type of dialogue, be sure to join the conversation online and don't forget to follow the podcast so you don't miss an episode. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the Future of StoryTelling and Charts & Leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at trlibrary.com.