Eggplant at #92,
“It’s hilarious how the language thing has gone back-to-front.”

Another linguistic switch: the progressives no longer use the word “conservation” when addressing resources-use or environmental issues. Conservation, and conservatism, used to figure prominently in the environmental debate. The early green movement relied on conservation to shame profligate users of coal, water, gasoline and food. In fact, CAFE standards and gas-taxes were enacted in order to force conservation onto us pleebs.

But now, perhaps because the word reminds the user of the Conservative movement (a.k.a. “Republicanism”), “conservation” has been wiped from the environmentalists’ lexicon. I doubt this excision from the popular media and political lexicon is accidental.