Biodiversity, anyone?
So we're facing "catastrophic species loss." Is it something to worry about?
There seem to be a great deal of things to worry about, meaning that prioritisation becomes one of the most significant challenges. I like the approach of the Copenhagen Consensus lot - trying to find out how $50bn could best be spent for the good of mankind. Unfortunately biodiversity doesn't seem to appear on the list at all...
There seem to be a great deal of things to worry about, meaning that prioritisation becomes one of the most significant challenges. I like the approach of the Copenhagen Consensus lot - trying to find out how $50bn could best be spent for the good of mankind. Unfortunately biodiversity doesn't seem to appear on the list at all...
posted by Peter at 10:01
10 Comments:
I know this is deadly serious, but I have to say I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at the idea, presented in the Guardian's report, that governments can stop species loss.
So you disagree with the US Government's attempts to save the bald eagle? You oppose the endangered species list and the measure it implies? You think that natural preserves (which can only be established thanks to government (legal and enforcement)) do not contribute to the preservation of species? What about the fight against poachers? Don't see much ivory these days...
I think the government can take measure to help slow species loss; it cannot stop it altogether but I think every little bit helps. If anything we should try because - and I don't think we can say it enough - we need nature to live...
I'm picturing a bureaucrat with charts in a small, nondescript office, the architecture of which is Soviet-inspired concrete, working diligently in the last outpost of the speckled horny toad.
Yeah, okay, government can make a few extraordinary efforts, but imagine extrapolating the Bald Eagle program to 20% of the earth's species, many of which are located in places with governments the officials of which have a hard enough time not waking up dead or being removed from power by a coup.
Besides, if Gould was right, this is natural and as predictable as nature gets. Don't take me wrong: I'm all for standing athwart natural processes and yelling "stop" -- I, after all, am a perpetual student, and some component of that must be a refusal to grow up/old. But it seems many who might endorse this kind of effort are precisely the same ones who make a fetish of nature and the environment. Nature can be pretty and colorful and nurturing... but also terrible, violent, destructive, diseased, and downright icky.
There are pretty major barriers to governments preserving species. For instance:
A: Species loss may not be primarily caused by humans, therefore we're unlikely to be able to do anything about it.
or
B: Species loss is primarily caused by humans, but either:
1: Government is incapable of stopping the activities that lead to it or
2: Actions to prevent species loss would cause such economic damage that there would be net harm to humanity.
Like a good student, I would conclude that a combination of these factors are at work. As Kevin alluded, probably the most significant is B:1, i.e. so much species loss is occurring in places where the state is weak that concerned people can only manage to affect a small amount of said loss.
I don't think A is true.
How can it be that A is controversial? Humans haven't been around for most of the history of the earth and don't inhabit most of the inhabitable portions (including the oceans). Species loss, also known as extinction, is not new and is one of the most natural processes in life's great panoply. The fossil records indicate that, in the history of earth, extinction rates have not been linear but rather come in fits and starts.
Check out Steven Jay Gould's work. He ascertained, contra the regnant thinking, that there are fewer species now than in millenia past rather than more. And that species appear in explosive periods and die off at unpredictable intervals.
On the note of Peter's A, I would like to point to a recent film and book release by one Al Gore, "an inconvenient truth". Therein he alludes to a similar argument against the human involvement in global warming, which I feel he then nullifies with rather convincing evidence.
I therefor strongly back pete's opinion that A is not true, it's just convenient to think it is.
Then how, Roof, do you account for "species loss" that occurred prior to man's appearance on the scene?
That is, if "species loss" is caused primarily by humans, how is it that the majority of the species that have ever gone extinct did so prior to man's appearance in the history of earth?
Absurdly humorous.
all right. I duly note your point. However, just to exploit the parallel to global warming once more, there have been rather dramatic changes in global temperature before, not caused by humans. Yet it is in recent decades that the effects caused by humans have made the temeprature fluctuate above natural average.
Just because species have been lost in high humbers prior to man's arrival as a natural might doesn't mean that we are not - at least partly - responsible for a large part of species loss now.
Beyond that I agree with germain ("every little helps"); what does a government have to lose by looking out for the environment and ist species? who knows, might even create some jobs...
I'm not sure I want to get Kevin started on climate change; postings on his blog (linked right) suggest it could be a fruitless debate.
Nonetheless what Roof says is, er, germane; noone doubts that the fossil record shows earlier periods of great species loss, but to therefore conclude that we have little or nothing to do it is erroneous. Or perhaps Kevin's implying that even if we do have something to do with it, we shouldn't worry because these things happen from time to time anyway.
As far as I can tell, humanity's greatest contribution to species loss (while we're still waiting on the full impact of climate change) will be the destruction of habitat. This is most visible in the Amazon basin, where, as we've known for about 20 years, immense illegal deforestation is occurring.
We know that rainforest is the most diverse habitat on the planet, and that Brazil's government has outlawed indiscriminate forest clearances. Why, therefore, ought we not envisage a situation in which Brazil's government, in line with the benefits of the growth that country is experiencing, is able to increase its capacity to police the forest, conserve habitat and slow species loss?
Again, support for this kind of effort risks fetishizing nature. It may be that the species we save serve up a cure for cancer. It may also be the case that the species we save from their otherwise natural demise spawn a super-infectious flesh-eating global pandemic that kills off all of humanity. Nature isn't per se nota good; if you think you disagree, then give up housing and clothes for a few months. And don't eat any domesticated agricultural products.
At bottom, I think most of such an effort would be a fool's errand and a waste of resources.
If, on the other hand, there is a specific thing some government wants to save because, like the bald eagle, it's beautiful or useful and thus pleases the people, and if that country has the resources to devote to such pet projects, then sure, go for it. But as a matter of public policy in Kevin-land (where I am sovereign), I'd put it on the list somewhere between getting rid of decals that sport Calvin pissing on something and making CD cases easier to open.
Post a Comment
<< Home