ABSTRACT
Conservatism is a venerable political philosophy that was developed for our time by such sterling minds and principled personalities as Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, Frank Meyer, Friedrich Hayek, Leo Strauss, and Willmoore Kendall, to name just a few of the earlier authors. These scholars were not themselves "environmentalists" in today's sense, for most of their works were produced in the years before our environmental problems became acute. Although conservative scholars have continued to ignore the environment in recent years, many politicians who call themselves conservatives most certainly have not. Conservatism, as it developed in America, includes two primary schools of thought: free market libertarianism, which is based on the heritage of Adam Smith, and traditionalism, whose intellectual roots go back to Edmund Burke. Libertarians generally want a government with little but police and military power to protect the citizens and judicial power to try criminals, enforce contracts, and judge tort cases.
