"Defending species on a one-at-a-time basis has proven politically treacherous, at least beyond the defense of bald eagles, bison, and other charismatic megafauna." - Red Sky at Morning, James Gustave Speth, p. 25
More than any other, this snippet from the Speth reading caught my eye. While serious environmentalists generally have a sense of respect for all forms of life, it can be difficult to rally the public around the idea of saving a rare snail or fern. While saving the whales is important, the whales have somewhat hogged the spotlight for the past 40 years. Smaller, less iconic, less "majestic" animals get little press.
It brings me back to 2007, watching the film "Happy Feet," which does do a good job of presenting overfishing in a way that is accessible to children. But I ended the movie feeling that the point was, "Let's save the penguins because they entertain us with their wacky tap-dancing antics." The film presented this as a triumph, but for me, it more closely resembled a scene in a different animated film: the scene in The Lion King, where Zazu is being forced to sing for Scar's amusement, and if he stops he will be fed to the hyenas.
At the end of the chapter (p. 42) Speth notes that the cost of a well executed nature reserve plan would equal the amount of money spent on pet food annually by wealthy OECD countries. Pet owners are often mistaken for animal lovers, and while those two groups sometimes overlap, they certainly do not always overlap. I frequently meet pet owners who love their pets, but care little for other animals. While there are clearly much better ways of funding conservationism, I appreciated the notion that a sudden abolishment of pets could free up enough money to meet present and future forest needs.
-----
Side note: Comedian Denis Leary also has something to say about saving the cute animals (first 1:20 of the clip. Contains profanity, and quickly devolves into some disturbing imagery after about 1:30).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4/5
ReplyDeleteEli,
The two central points you raise are spot on. How do we get past charismatic megafauna environmentalism? And relatedly, how do we relate to nature? Are our pets some proxy for something else we're missing? Excellent points. Develop them even more-- ie. what does the pet thing say to you about us? Or, what do these movies tell you about popular conceptions of nature etc.? Good job!