Republicans used to be more gung-ho about saving endangered species and other environmental causes, e.g., a Republican president established the Environmental Protection Agency and the late, great John McCain fought many battles to protect natural habitats. But then the ardor cooled. Why was that? 

Partly, a party that promotes the free market and limited government is bound to be less okay with environmental regulation. But that was always the case. Something happened over the last couple decades that made Republicans even less okay with attempts by the government and environmental activists to interfere with their way of life in the name of environmental protection.  What happened is that the environmental movement joined forces with the left and became stridently anti-business. Of course that's not the whole story but it's an important part of it.   

Consider this 2010 editorial from the National Wildlife Federation magazine, which sets the tone in its opening sentence: 

“The famed Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes understood that great revelations create great enemies. He once warned: “You never need think you can overturn any old falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the horrid little population that dwells under it.” 

Long story short, per the NWF editorial: today's horrid little creatures (i.e., the "enemies") are "profit-peddling" corporations and their "hired critics" of anything that can save nature and the planet. You got virtue on one side and the Devil on the other. End of story.  

That narrative alienated a lot of people, including farmers and business owners.  

You can't just tell farmers and business owners they need to sacrifice profit for the greater good and that they’re just greedy profiteers if they resist. It's a stupid way to go about things, i.e., bound to fail. Plus it implies that wanting to prosper is somehow morally suspect in itself. Wrong on so many counts.

—

Note: This is a revised and re-purposed version of a 2018 post, First Step in Helping Farmers Help the Environment: Listen, Don’t Tell, Part I.