Conservation versus Preservation
This post is primarily an answer to a comment from Misty Fowler on this blog. Her comment:
“I give up, I don’t think people that are set against the idea of global warming are just being blind and don’t want to hear the truth. I’m really truly not sure what people like you have against the idea of taking care of our planet.”
My first response to this question is a question. How does my opposition to those pushing the global warming movement immediately make me someone who opposes the idea of taking care of the earth? This is a plain and simple logical falacy in that it assumes that I can only take care of or that I only care for the planet if I buy into a particular worldview on global warming.
I have already highlighted some of the bungled attempts to legislate “earth” sensitive products (GE fluorescent bulbs and ethanol), which especially in the case of ethanol are actually more destructive to the earth than the ‘dirty’ products they were supposed to replace. Given the track record of these ecologically friendly products, I believe I have the right and responsibility to be skeptical of the fixes many of the advocate propose regardless of my feelings about the science.
I think what Misty mistakes as lack of care for the earth really is based perhaps (I can’t speak directly for Misty, so I am generalizing here) in a fundamental philosophy difference in how we see the world. I am a conservationist, meaning that I believe in personal (not government mandated) stewardship and wise use, and that I have what Peter Borrelli calls a anthropocentric world view. This view starts with viewing man as the measure of creation.
This view [conservationalism] is opposed to the preservationist philosophy, which fundamentally has a biocentric view of man and nature, meaning that man is just another creation and so is of no more value than a dog, cat or house fly. The preservationist advocates a position of nature lock out because humans have no right to disturb the flight patterns or mating habitat of an animal, reptile, bug or whatever. It also centers on a scarcity versus abundance mentality or zero sum world view–i.e., if man’s population grows xyz animal loses. It is this view that allows preservationalists to make man the problem because he is the great annoyer of nature. It is this view that allows environmentalist to ignore the human costs of their actions/policy initiatives (i.e., DDT and 40 million children [who have died since DDT’s ban– thanks Ed for the correction here. WHO puts the number at 1 Million+/year, 90% of which are in Africa] around the world from malaria or the increased burden the poor and low-income families in America are carrying) because their suffering is equal to or in some cases not as significant as the bird that has the minor risk of dying from DDT exposure.
As a conservationalist, I am and will forever be opposed to prohibitionist and mandate policies regarding the earth, because they a) increase the size and scope of government and b) lead to a huge loss in freedom and liberty. With respect to the first point, I lived in Russia and saw first hand the effects of a state run everything. This form of centralized government ultimately leads to unwise use of resources and the destroying of the environment. It also destroys the average citizen’s desire to be a good steward.
My idea of good principle grounded environmental policy is based on incenting behavior not mandating or punishing behavior. This incentive based policy is one of the primary reasons that the polar bear population is growing as noted in a recent USA TODAY article. This policy approach limits the role of government, frees humans to make good choices and fosters freedom and liberty. So do I favor tax breaks for enviro-friendly cars; yes. Would I favor mandating that by 2012 every American should run a enviro-friendly car; absolutely not. Should I be rewarded for paying extra for energy efficient windows and appliances; yes. Should the government mandate my choice in appliance or windows; no.
rmwarnick said,
March 11, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
I welcome anyone to join the conservation movement. However, you can’t redefine the word “conservationist” any way you like. Government stewardship of natural resources, particularly public lands, is fundamental to conservation. Many conservation initiatives, for example the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act, affect private interests.
Lyall said,
March 11, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
rmwarnick…despite your assertion, i’m not defining conservation any way i like. i think if you look at the two “founding” conservationists in America: John Muir (preservationist) & Gifford Pinchot (conservationalist) you will see better where these two definitions or philosphies on conservation played out during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration.
By in large the preservation world view has dominated the conservation/environmental movement for the last century. A good source on this debate of philosophies is Peter Borrelli, “The Ecophilosophers,” The Amicus Journal, Spring 1988.
Ed Darrell said,
March 12, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
The “global warming movement” is a small offshoot of pollution control. After 60 years of dramatic success at controlling air pollution, the next steps are very expensive (it would take a lesson in the economics of pollution extraction to demonstrate why this is so, and why it’s rather good news). Part of the cost-benefit analysis of the next steps included looking at the global environmental change that has been increasingly manifest and evidenced.
I don’t see you offering alternatives, especially alternatives that are effective. I don’t see you offering alternatives that would not involve the cleanup of pollution, but instead would protect those who are being hurt now.
If you are not anti-conservationist in your “don’t-tell-me-the-truth-I-find inconvenient” stand, what evidence should we look at? Where are you fighting encroaching oceans? Where are you fighting any kind of air pollution? Where are you mitigating climate change?
I’d love to count you as a conservationist. But where is the case for doing so?
Ed Darrell said,
March 12, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
This sort of historical revisionism, completely upending the facts to make a nasty political barb, is part of what convinces me you’re not a conservationist in any form.
DDT is a deadly poison. In Africa, it ceased working against mosquitoes in the 1960s where it was used (chiefly abused, really, as a crop pest controller); in much of Africa nothing was used because the governments were too unstable to mount any anti-malaria campaign.
DDT was banned in the U.S. because it ruins the soil and water, and kills far more than it targets. In fact, once released, it’s completely uncontrollable. Worse, those creatures it is most effective in killing are often those that prey on the pests we had wanted to get rid of. DDT is particularly deadly against bats, for example, who are particularly good at eating mosquitoes.
DDT is no panacea against malaria. Malaria resurged because the pharmaceuticals used to treat humans became ineffective — the parasites became resistant to them — and other, less poisonous methods of mosquito control were either never effectively implemented or abandoned.
Rachel Carson wrote about how to fight malaria in 1962, in a book titled Silent Spring. The adoption of the methods she urged, integrated pest management (IPM), have turned the tide against malaria once again, allowing the safe and effective use of DDT even, as Carson had urged. Delays in implementing this environmentalist-advocated and much-resisted program allowed malaria to spread and remain a serious killer, in conjunction with other changes, including climate change which extends the range of vectors of malaria (including, once again, into North America).
By the way, the annual death toll of malaria is less than two million people in a bad year, trending towards one million. Malaria doesn’t kill 40 million kids a year.
This reckless disregard for the facts leads me to believe you are not a conservationist with regard to knowledge, preserving the good for future use, and that you are not a conservationist in other ways, either, if you’re using that bad information to make choices.
Ed Darrell said,
March 12, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
I gotta stop rereading this thing.
That’s among the more stupid claims I’ve ever seen. No serious conservationist or environmentalist makes such a claim. Philosophers who reason through that argument do so to consider the relative claims of value — such as the view that humans are so “valuable” that humans may exploit and waste all the planet.
So, your use of that argument here is a straw man. It’s easy to knock down — but no one seriously makes it, and it’s not a basis for environmental protection.
Lyall said,
March 12, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
Ed,
the global warming movement is more than a century old. The first global warming movement was started in 1895 by a fellow named Arrhenius. His movement collpased because the next 15 years temperatures fell. The second global warming movement phase was started in 1938 by a fellow named Callendar. His efforts also stalled because for the next 30 years temperatures again fell, which led many to during those thirty years including Stanford Prof. Schneider (now a leading global ‘warming’ scientist) to warn of an impending ice age.
So your assertion that global warming is just a small offshoot is not correct when we examine history.
Lyall said,
March 12, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
Ed,
thanks for the catch on the number. It should have been 40 million since the ban on DDT (which I have changed in the post), with WHO putting the malaria death number at 1 Million + per year.
Lyall said,
March 12, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Ed,
Let me try to respond to your comment below:
In terms of evidence to look at to see if I am a conservationalist, I guess I’d have to say take a look at the way I live my life. I recycle, drive a car that gets 27 mpg+, built a home with every energy efficient capacity I could (windows, applicances, furnace A/C etc.), and do my best to live a life of use what i need and not taking more than I need. I feel like I do a pretty good job (could always do better) at living by the old Boy Scout addage of leaving a place better than I found it. But perhaps these are “don’t-tell-me-the-truth-I-find inconvenient” facts you won’t believe.
In my post I did not say that I am anti-pollution control. It is that I favor those pollution measures that incent versus mandate and prohibit.
I also find it interesting that those pushing global warming are now changing to climate change, which allows them to always be right.