For the climate changers, it is also about religion, sort of. God as the state, or the state as God. Why the push for something that may or may not happen, and may or may not be anything we could affect?
There's a big difference between "hey, let's not dump as much junk into the air", and this fantasy about how the government is going to use recycling to turn the country into some sort of Orwellian nanny state.
It's not a matter of "may or may not happen", it's already happening, we're dumping more pollutants into the environment than what is naturally sustainable, the experts are all pretty much in agreement on that.
CONTROL. They have been searching for the perfect catch. Something that will finally give government the last bit of power it needs to control every aspect of our lives and businesses.
Eh, if that's the governments power grab, then it's not a very good one. Recycling and pollution reduction mandates are a far cry from "total absolute control over everything in our lives"
We've heard the same assertion about:
Common Core education standard (aka, making sure 9th graders know how to do long division)
Any nuanced form of gun control (making sure mentally ill don't get guns is depicted as some tyrannical government takeover of everyone's lives)
Anytime the government goes against the evangelical movement in any way, it's viewed as "a war on <insert ideology here>"
Unless there is something that I'm overlooking, I fail to see the connection between environmental regulatory measures and "total control"...is there a connecting dot that I'm unaware of? Are they planning on coating the handles of recycling bins with some sort of mind controlling drug that's absorbed through the palms or something?
...and to be honest, maybe the folks from that camp would seem more sincere about their quest to "keep government out of people's lives" if they weren't taking the polar opposite stance of that on other issues.
Many of the same people who claim that eco-measures are "government interfering in the lives of citizens", are in the same group that's completely okay with state governments telling people which bathrooms they can and can't go in.
Sorry, but if it's okay for the government to say "hey, you're not allowed to poop in that room!", then I don't see why they'd have a problem with the same government saying "hey, you're not allowed to dump that much smog in the air"
I find that very few people (on either side) have a consistent view on the topic of "government dictating aspects of peoples' lives"
