Rescuing Hokget and Everybody Else

Several months ago, I read "The Problem With Human Compassion," an excerpt from Shankar Vedantam's book The Hidden Brain, printed in the February 19th issue of The Week. I include a lengthy selection here.

"On March 13, 2002, a fire broke out in the engine room of an oil tanker about 800 miles south of Hawaii. The fire moved so fast that the Taiwanese crew did not have time to radio for help. Eleven survivors and the captain’s dog, a terrier named Hokget, retreated to the tanker’s forward quarters with supplies of food and water.

[...] Drawn by wind and currents, the Insiko got within 220 miles of Hawaii. It was spotted by a cruise ship, which rescued the crew. But as the cruise ship pulled away, a few passengers heard the sound of barking.

The captain’s dog had been left behind on the tanker. A passenger who heard the barking dog called the Hawaiian Humane Society in Honolulu. [...] The Society alerted fishing boats about the lost tanker and soon media reports began appearing about Hokget.

[...] Money poured in to fund a rescue. Donations eventually arrived from 39 states and four foreign countries. One check was for $5,000. 'It was just about a dog,' Pamela Burns, president of the Hawaiian Humane Society, told me. 'This was an opportunity for people to feel good about rescuing a dog. People poured out their support. A handful of people were incensed. These people said, ‘You should be giving money to the homeless.’' But Burns thought the great thing about America was that people were free to give money to whatever cause they cared about, and people cared about Hokget.

The problem with a rescue was that no one knew where the Insiko was. The U.S. Coast Guard estimated it could be anywhere in an area measuring 360,000 square miles. Two Humane Society officers set off into the Pacific on a tugboat. The Society paid $48,000 to a private company called American Marine to look for the ship.

[...] The U.S. Coast Guard had said it could not use taxpayer money to save the dog, but under the guise of training exercises, the called the U.S. Navy began quietly hunting for the Insiko.

[...] Human beings from around the world came together to try to save a dog. The vast majority of people who sent in money would never personally see Hokget. It was, as Pamela Burns suggested to me, an act of pure altruism and a marker of the remarkable capacity human beings have to empathize with the plight of others.

There are a series of disturbing questions, however: Eight years before the Hokget saga began, the same world that showed extraordinary compassion for a dog sat on its hands as hundreds of thousands of human beings were killed in the Rwandan genocide.

The philosopher Peter Singer once devised a dilemma that highlights a central contradiction in our moral reasoning. If you see a child drowning in a pond—and you would ruin a fine pair of shoes worth $200 if you jumped into the water—would you save the child or save your shoes? Most people react incredulously to the question; obviously, a child’s life is worth more than a pair of shoes. But if this is the case, Singer asked, why do large numbers of people hesitate to write checks for $200 to a reputable charity that could save the life of a child halfway around the world—when there are millions of children who need our help?

The answer is that our moral responsibilities feel different in these situations; one situation feels visceral, the other abstract. We feel personally responsible for one child, whereas the other is one of millions who need help - there are many people who could write that check.

[...] The brain is simply not very good at grasping the implications of mass suffering. Americans would be far more likely to step forward if only a few people were suffering or a single person were in pain. Hokget did not draw our sympathies because we care more about dogs than people; she drew our sympathies because she was a single dog lost on the biggest ocean in the world. [...] We are best able to respond when we are focused on a single victim."

Vedantam and Singer are correct; we humans act more compassionately when we are able to put a face to a cause, yet too many faces dull our response.

I've noticed such a benumbing in myself recently, an unexpected consequence of my transitioning from New York City to San Francisco. Both cities have substantial homeless populations, but panhandling in San Francisco is far more common. My street charity policy, modeled on the approach of a rabbi I heard lecture, is simple enough: I give change to any panhandler who says that he or she will use the money for food (or cites hunger as their reason for begging). I don't give change to those individuals requesting money for any other reason. In New York City, confronted with a few beggars each day, I typically gave change two or three times every week. In San Francisco, however, beggars ask for handouts on every other block, and a good number of them say that they're hungry. If I hold to my standard, I'll give change two or three times a day, if not more often! Shamefully, I've noticed that I've almost ceased giving during my visits to San Francisco.

This is a personal failure that I must address. Each of those many faces is an individual, a single person in need, despite the fact that their larger numbers and concentration counter-intuitively make them relatively anonymous or invisible. The rabbi's rule should be no less applicable in San Francisco than it is in New York. I'm confronted, then, with more need, and I must respond in kind; a hungry person is a hungry person.

But what about a hungry dog? Is Vedantam right to suggest that the thousands of people who contributed money to the Hokget search did not "care more about dogs than people"? Not exactly.

Our species' evolved, inborn behaviors haven't made our adaptation to the globalized world easy. In fact, it seems that contemporary humans are increasingly suspicious of other humans, especially of those outside our respective tribe, whereas animals (and perhaps especially dogs) are seen as uncomprehending innocents. I don't mean to suggest that no one cares about miners trapped in a coal mine, but it's clear that the little girl trapped in a well sells more newspapers, and that the little dog trapped on an abandoned tanker not only sells newpapers, but also inspires a flood of unsolicited donations and generates public outcry.

"Facing intense public pressure to save Hokget, government officials concluded that asking the Navy to sink the tanker—750 miles from Hawaii and drifting away from the distant U.S. mainland—posed unacceptable environmental risks. The Coast Guard finally agreed to access $250,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds to recover the Insiko. It wasn’t officially called an animal-rescue effort. Instead it was authorized under the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, based on the argument that if the aimless Insiko managed to drift westward for 250 straight miles, it might run aground on Johnston Atoll and harm marine life.

[...] On April 26, nearly a month and a half after the dog’s ordeal began, the tugboat’s crew found the Insiko and boarded the tanker. Hokget was still alive, hiding in a pile of tires. [...] Hokget arrived in Honolulu on May 2 and was greeted by crowds of spectators, a news conference, banners welcoming her to America, and a red Hawaiian lei."

What a marvelously strange species we are!? I applaud our ability to extend compassion to other animals (we're one of handful of species that have demonstrated such empathic ability), but I wonder at our brains' curious moral calculus.

I suppose all I can do is begin with myself, and humbly pledge to keep my pockets filled with coins.

Image credit: ripped from Corbis Images

March of the Chaplinesque Lovebirds

Made cautious by all the fuss surrounding Luc Jacquet's 2005 documentary, "March of the Penguins," I elected to avoid the film during its theatrical run. Even the assurances of my co-workers - "Oh, you'll absolutely love it! It's right up your alley since you're so into animals." - only served to strengthen my sanction. When a film generates excessive buzz, especially of a vaguely politicized variety - in this case, much ink was spilled debating the socially conservative subtext of the documentary - I prefer to wait out the media storm, to let the reviews fade from my mind before heading to the rental store.

And so, on a blustery, wet Saturday, over a year after the film's release, I scanned the shelves of Astoria Video Express and settled on the image of an Emperor penguin looking down at its hungry chick. I sighed, thought about it for a moment and decided that I'd waited long enough. I did want to the see the film, after all, and even the blurbs boldly printed on the DVD case, snippets I usually ignore as creative collage work on the part of the studio, further whet my appetite. "Astonishing!," proclaimed David Ansen in Newsweek. "Riveting!," promised Stephen Holden, of the New York Times. And so, that evening, as Ernesto soaked the Tri-State area, I popped in "March of the Penguins," turned up the volume on my home stereo, and prepared to be riveted, astonished, and generally engaged.

Encouragingly, the film opens with some stunning aerial photography of Antartica's otherworldly landscape. (In fact, the film work throughout "March of the Penguins" is exceptional and cinematographers Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison have been justly lauded.)

But then, not two minutes in, the first sign of trouble: "Based Upon the Story by Luc Jacquet," the credits read. Wait. Isn't this a documentary? What "story" are the credits referring to? There is, after all, a significant difference between documentary and fiction, even fiction inspired by real events. Shortly thereafter, Morgan Freeman's dulcet voice begins to describe the harsh conditions at the bottom of the world. After hearing only a few lines of Freeman's narration, I realize this is a film best suited to children. Freeman's genial reading brings to mind the cliche of the old, patriarch storyteller. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with this, but Freeman's lilting delivery too often sounds condescending.

But these issues are forgivable, minor faults. If National Geographic and Jacquet can produce an intelligent nature documentary that engages young viewers by framing the penguins' annual journey as a children's epic, then so be it. The world needs more children interested in the well-being of other species and the health of ecosystems at large.

Unfortunately, "March of the Penguins" is not an intelligent story pitched at a young audience. Jacquet supplies Freeman with an appalling script, one that manages to patronize both viewers of the film and the bird it ostensibly celebrates. A minute or so into the narration, Freeman says, "So, in some ways, this is a story of survival, a tale of life over death, but it's more than that really. This is a story about love." Sentimental clap-trap of this stripe is a staple of Disney-style animal documentaries(1), but I am surprised to see National Geographic associated with it. Why must so much natural history writing, particularly film narration, reduce the wonders of the natural world to cartoon significance, clumsy or cute approximations of human behavior? Whatever their reasons, the team behind "March of the Penguins" feeds viewers a canned narrative, replete with emotive musical selections and conservative film editing, tricks and techniques not foreign to an editor of daytime television or Hollywood romances. If we were to transplant ourselves to Antarctica and, in person, observe the mating ritual of an Emperor penguin pair, would we find the vaguely violent frenzy romantic? Would we "see it" in slow-motion, accompanied by a soothing a New Age soundtrack? When the chicks take their first, tentative steps, would we giggle as they stumble about the ice and hear in our heads some sweet, doodling tune? Probably not. These actions aren't funny or romantic for the participants and, unedited, they would not likely be so for us. Why not honor the arduous, annual journey of Aptenodytes forsteri and the marvel of the chick's birth and maturation without attaching our own assumptions and moral framework?

Before I'm written off by some readers as one more proponent of cold, hard science, I should point out that I am no less guilty of anthropomorphizing animals than anyone else.(2) The attribution of human characteristics and emotions to other species is an altogether natural activity. What's more, it is an important, even vital one. Zoomorphism and animal-human relationships, often sexual, are central to the myths of many cultures and religions, and, for time immemorial, we've understood the world via other animals just as we understand those species through ourselves. Lest we forget, we too are animals, and the words we use to describe our more abstract and profound emotions - love and grief, for example - are merely qualifications of deeply rooted drives, behavior observed in different measure throughout the animal kingdom. In other words, the temporary bond experienced by a mated Emperor penguin pair may not be entirely irrelevant to human marriage (or any other romantic union), but we should take care not to confuse the two. It's well and good to talk of love when considering a human couple - if not always accurate - but to project this word, our word, and all that we associate with it, onto another species is problematic. Firstly, it confuses viewers who know no better. Secondly, doing so is no different than projecting the assumptions and practices of one culture onto another. In short, it's ignorant, and reflects a laziness or a woeful lack of curiosity.

Again, I'm not advocating a prohibition of anthropomorphism. Disney - and other studios, particularly those specializing in animated features - has made a fortune appealing to our desire to anthropomorphize, both for laughs and pathos. Clearly, most people appreciate these sentimental takes and, although I feel such fictions more often reduce than celebrate, I don't want to get sidetracked attacking Disney. Disney doesn't claim that "Bambi" is an accurate portrayal of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) behavior, nor do they argue that "The Lion King" provides a lesson in lion (Panthera leo) pride dynamics. Luc Jacquet, however, does claim that Emperor penguins are in love.

Curiously, when asked about the "family values" subtext of the film, the director balked, telling the San Diego Union Tribune that he intended no such message and that "it [is] intellectually dishonest to impose this viewpoint on something that's part of nature....You have to let penguins be penguins and humans be humans." I agree completely, but "March of the Penguins," whatever its stance on family values and gay marriage, does not "let penguins be penguins." In fact, the French version of the film - the original script Jacquet produced - goes so far as to include "dubbed" voices for different penguin characters. Charles Berling, Romane Bohringer, and Jules Sitruk speak as if they are father penguin, mother penguin, and chick. Instead of attaching Morgan Freeman's soothing narration about "family time" to a shot of a mated pair huddled about a young chick, Jacquet prefers to present the adult penguins whispering sweet nothings to one another and cooing approvingly of the product of their "lovemaking." That certainly isn't my idea of letting penguins be penguins!

As I sat through the closing credits of "March of the Penguins," I found myself recalling the emotional reaction I had to Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," a powerful film that wrestles with man's complicated relationship to other species and our own species' coping mechanisms. "Grizzly Man" was overlooked by the Academy Awards - indeed, the documentary was not even nominated - the same year "March of the Penguins" was awarded the golden statue. In fact, in terms of revenue, the French production is the second most popular documentary ever made. But I suppose I shouldn't be entirely surprised by the Academy's choice or any of the excessive praise lauded on Jacquet's "documentary." Most people prefer animals as cartoon proxies and are uncomfortable understanding them as flesh-and-blood relatives. Luc Jacquet threw out the slop - he is guilty of making a weak, if pretty film - but the rest of us marched to the trough to feed.

Photo credit: image ripped from the homepage of South African scientist, Neil Malan

(1) The most notable of these series, and the one most often subjected to academic consideration, is Disney's True-Life Adventure Series, which aired in the late 1940s.

(2) If you were a fly on the wall of my studio or apartment, you would witness lengthy conversations - note the word choice, as though they are two-sided - between my cat, Mister Misi, and myself. The same is true for my three snakes, Zuri, Sefu, and Kali. Given the rudimentary brain of a snake, the pythons certainly aren't engaged in any way with my rambling, but what matters is my involvement with them and my interpretation of their movements. The exchange is only as valuable as I make it, the communication abstract at best, but not absent. The relationship between pets and caretakers is largely defined by human projection and is one of many examples of healthy anthropomorphism. Lines can be crossed, however. When humans begin to clothe their dogs, for example, they cease relating to the animal as a fundamentally different creature and, in my opinion, do it a great disrespect. Each to his or her own, I suppose.

Predators in Penang...and elsewhere

The short missive below was brought to my attention by HerpDigest, an email newsletter devoted to herpetology. Originally, the article was published in a newspaper printed in Penang, Malaysia (pictured above). I can find no link to the article, so I've pasted the text below.

“Breeding Ground For Snakes”
Monday, May 09, 2005, Penang, Malaysia

A vacant piece of land in Penang has turned into a breeding ground for pythons and cobras, endangering people's lives.

The site, at the junction of Perak Road and Macalister Road, is now covered with bushes and weeds and the residents nearby are now living in fear. Resident Teh Boon Seng, 42, said the owner who used to come yearly to clear the weeds failed to do so this time around. He said he had seen pythons and cobras in the area.

“Recently, I called the Fire and Rescue Services department to catch a huge python which crawled out from the site,” he said. “A few days ago, a cobra crawled into my house. We are now having sleepless nights,” he said at a press conference arranged by Komtar state assemblyman Lim Goon Soon recently. Lim said he had told the landowner four years ago to put up proper enclosures at the site, adding that the vacant land was once a haven for drug addicts.

“We want the landowner to clear up the mess fast before the snakes bite people,” he said.

There were at least 35 parcels of idle land in his constituency, he said. He urged the owners to rent out the land as parking lots.

Such situations are not uncommon in Southeast Asia, but the last sentence of this article set it apart. I’ve never been a big fan of Joni Mitchell’s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” in which she suggests we will "pave over paradise to put up a parking lot," but the explicit parallel is jarring. (I prefer a more contemporary damning tribute to sprawl, Modest Mouse’s “Convenient Parking,” off their 1997 EP, Lonesome Crowded West.) What does an increasingly urban demographic mean for green space in our larger cities and towns? More to the point, what does such green space mean for the city's inhabitants, human and otherwise?

Yesterday, I received in the mail a plea for support from The Trust for Public Land. An attached questionnaire was comprised of questions designed to provoke ‘Yes’ replies, thereby encouraging you to pledge money. “Do you appreciate our national park system and wildlife refuges?” “Do you think it important to have wilderness areas in which you and your family can recreate?” “Do you feel our cities and towns should include more public parks and greenways?”

For the past three years, I have considered myself a champion of the wildlife corridor concept, a worldwide conservation measure trumpeted by the so-called “deep ecology” groups; the terrific Wildlands Project is an example. The “deep ecology” movement, and the wildlife corridor push with it, is often dismissed as a pipe dream but, as I see it, the only valid critique is one which focuses on the “inordinate” amount of time needed to construct this “network of networks.” Protecting and connecting all the ecosystems of the United States, much less the world at large, is an undertaking which promises to take years – perhaps centuries – of ugly courtroom battles and litigation. As Stephen Meyer writes in his excellent article, “The End of the Wild,”

“In theory this strategy could reduce the slide of ghosts and relics into oblivion if it could be implemented immediately and universally. It would be a form of global ecological zoning that would significantly lessen the influence of human selection in the excluded regions. Wildlands would enable species and populations to adapt to climate change. As an ecologically centered strategy it is most likely the only approach that could truly reduce the scale and scope of the biotic collapse that is already underway.

Yet the notion that upwards of seven billion people could live hobbit-like with nature is hard to accept. With the right social framework we might have been able to do it modestly in 1304, but not in 2004 and certainly not in 2104. Global society is moving rapidly and inexorably in the opposite direction.

To be fair, advocates of wildlands acknowledge that, owing to enormous social, political, and economic hurdles, their vision would be at minimum a 100-year undertaking. The problem, of course, is that the end of the wild will already be complete.”

There is a more specific and more interesting question, however. Where the towns and cities “touch” the wildlife corridors, how much connection is to be allowed? For example, if species are able to make their way from a designated wildland to a city park, we suddenly face potential threats from unknown invasive species and a surplus of prey species “hiding out” downtown.

I turn here to Reed F. Noss, a biologist closely associated with The Wildlands Project. The following excerpt is taken from his paper, “Can Urban Areas Have Ecological Integrity?” (I can no longer locate this paper online, but it was published in conjunction with the 4th International Symposium on Urban Wildlife.)

"There are 2 potential problems with this 'network of networks' design. One, corridors leading from the more developed zones of the network might funnel exotics and other opportunistic, weedy species into wildland areas. We know that roads and roadsides, for example, are frequent avenues for the invasion of these pests. I predict, however, that the wildlife corridor network is unlikely to facilitate weedy species invasion of wildlands beyond that already facilitated by roads. In fact, well-designed corridors, especially if wide, may provide habitat for predators of these weedy species. In addition, corridor bottlenecks could be used to trap weedy species and possibly reduce their spread.

A potentially more serious concern is that of corridors connected to wildlands or rural areas funneling problematic large mammals into suburban and urban areas. This is already a problem with deer....Following the deer into suburban areas, however, may be a natural predator of deer - mountain lions. Unfortunately, these predators sometimes also attack joggers and other people. Wildlife corridors have been implicated in bringing both deer and lions into Boulder, Colorado which has created some problems."

And so, at long last, I come back to the Lim Goon Soon comment about the need for more parking lots in Penang. Though Malaysian cities are not surrounded by anything resembling the wildlife corridors advocated by the deep ecology movement, the rural and the urban do butt up against one another in a more explicit fashion than they generally do in the western world. The boundaries blurred, predators passing through a town or city are that much more likely to take up residence in the vacant lots.

So what is to be done? Is their a solution that allows for all parties to be represented or must we “pave over paradise” to quell our fears? For my part, I feel that predators (whether lions, bears, or cobras), living in close proximity to humans need not be a problem. If people were more willing to live alongside other species – a tolerance developed over several generations – safety precautions and sensible behavior would result in less conflict between man and beast. If a mountain lion (Puma concolor) has been frequenting your backyard, bring your dog indoors at night rather than allowing Buster to romp unattended. If a large Great White shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has been repeatedly spotted just beyond the breakers, don’t paddle your board out. Unfortunately, less conflict doesn’t mean a cessation of mawlings or snakebites and so the primal fear of predators will remain an issue for many more generations of man. When and if it does vanish, odds are there will no longer be any predators remaining. Modern man continues to repeat the mistakes of the preceding generations: pave it, mine it, milk it, and propagate, propagate, propagate. The recent boom and bust seizures of the economy are merely a time-lapse film of human history.

Photo credit: Penang, Malaysia, Copyright Chris Rouch. 1999-2005

In Brief: Taxonomy, Natural Selection, "Pets"

Chris, at Organic Matter, offers this thoughtful post about taxonomy, one of my favorite messes. The current debate over species organization is concerned with two possible modes of classification. The Biological Species Concept (BSC) is based on breeding potential (that is, if duck A can make a duckling with Duck B, the two birds are the same species). The BSC results in fewer distinct species, but some biologists insist that it is overly simplified. The Phenetic and Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC) are based on distinct characteristics, both genetic or physiological; it makes for many more distinct species, but requires an extensive overhaul of the current arrangement. Still other biologists call for a unitary, web-based alternative, a kind of Wiki-taxa open to all users, but designed and funded by an international committee of serious taxonomists. Whatever system biology opts for, confusion is likely to remain constant for a long while. What will such biological debates mean for conservation biology at large? Politicians love simple answers to complex questions; taxonomy, like most sciences, has few simple answers...unless, of course, we fudge the science. (See also Dave Roberts' post at Gristmill.)

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Observable instances of natural selection don't get much better than this. In the November 29, 2004 issue of PNAS (Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences), Ben Phillips and Richard Shine published this study (unfortunately, you can only read the abstract) on the effect of cane toads (Bufo marinus), an introduced species, on native Australian snake populations. Because the toads are large and toxic when full grown, snakes capable of swallowing the adult cane toad are more likely to be poisoned. Since the introduction of the cane toad in 1935, snake head sizes have been gradually shrinking relative to body size. You gotta love this stuff! Those folks dunderheaded enough to still decry evolutionary theory are also missing out on the fun!

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Are you into exotic pets? If so, you're not alone. With nearly 7,000 tigers kept as pets and only 2,500 remaining in the wild, it's clear that more and more people are bringing wild animals into their homes. As a keeper of multiple pythons and, at various times throughout my life, Northern flying squirrels, European starlings, Eastern box turtles, snapping turtles, and several species of snake, frog, and toad, I understand the desire to keep wild animals in captivity. One can learn a lot about animal behavior and develop a life long love of other species. But I think it cruel in all but the most exceptional cases and, although I'd like to keep a starling or crow again, I view these animals less as pets than as creatures in my care. (Reptiles and amphibians, if reasonably sized, do fairly well in captivity, but I get very upset when I see a reptile owner being careless with temperature/humidity control or mishandling the animal.) Their needs are often specific and unusual and I fear most people purchasing a caracal or kinkajou don't think about long-term commitment; these animals are impulse buys.

I'm reminded of the "Mr. Show" "Sulu the Iguana" skit in which David Cross gets angry at his "pet" iguana for knocking over his bong, beats it to death with an encyclopedia, and then sobs over the reptile's body. Undaunted in his quest to be the most "original" pet owner, however, David buys a "real, live albino boy" to replace the iguana. Funny though it may be, it accurately depicts the selfish impetus of many exotic pet owners.

Make Me A Mutt

Every blogger with an interest in sustainability and conservation will certainly be making some reference to Nicholas Kristof’s March 12th op-ed piece in the New York Times. I’m no exception.

Kristof’s conclusion that Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, co-authors of “The Death of Environmentalism,” are right, that “modern environmentalism…must die so that something new can live,” is bound to provoke vitriolic response from many folks with “greening” on their mind. (Dave Roberts, the usually thoughtful assistant editor of Grist Magazine, calls Kristof’s article a “lazy, risible piece of sh*t.”)

I’m electing to take the middle road on this one. For every informed environmentalist, there are at least three ignorant screamers. Both sides (if the situation must be reduced to such black-and-white perspectives) know this to be true, and, more importantly, we have all been one of these screamers at some point, no matter how informed we may be otherwise.

Allow me to use myself as an example. I used to rant about the urgent need for blanket prohibitions on the importation of any wild-caught exotic reptiles and amphibians. Further, I insisted that states should require permits, obtained upon completion of a basic training course, for private reptile or amphibian ownership. My reasons were valid: I had grown tired of seeing “pet” reptiles and amphibians improperly cared for and exotic introduction (consider the Burmese pythons currently thriving in Florida’s Everglades) is more likely when dealing with “fad” herp owners, those that think a snake or lizard will be a “cool pet” but soon become bored by a relatively sedentary animal.

Yet, after considering the issue for several years, I no longer think prohibition a wise idea. Economic incentives overseas, in the form of local breeder farms and conservation projects in heavily pressured areas, and restricted foreign breeder partnerships seem a more sound response to the problems caused by the burgeoning interest in herpetoculture. (Of course, this won't prevent a negligent owner from releasing an exotic locally and I still favor a permit system for large or venomous herp ownership.)

So I changed my mind; I still want the same end result, but the means I now think best are notably different. This wouldn’t be a problem if I hadn’t been so eager to hop on the soapbox when I was calling for prohibition. Now, despite my current attitudes being more nuanced and informed, I am what some dub a “flip-flopper.” But flip-flopping is not always bad. It proves one is engaged and considerate. Unfortunately, it can also be cited as a weakness.

What does my flip-flopping have to do with Kristof’s criticism of the environmental movement? In his editorial, Kristof writes,

“The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neo-cons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance.”

He is right. Too often we opt to bang the table and throw a tantrum, presumably operating on the maxim, “Make enough noise, and they will come.” Jared Diamond, a contemporary hero of mine, correctly suggests that being an alarmist is better than not alerting others to the burning building, but the fact remains, alarmists are annoying. Taking the extreme position - the championing of wind power and denial of related criticism, for example – virtually guarantees you will be deemed wrong in the end. If you tell someone that drunk driving will surely result in their death and they drive off a bridge and nearly drown, they’ve proved you wrong by surviving the terrible accident. Your ultimate point, that drunk driving is stupid, dangerous, and wrongheaded, is true...but, technically, um, you said he would die.

Don’t think for a minute that the “other side” won’t hold us to our word. “Global cooling” is still pilloried by the neo-cons and energy industry spokesmen. If you try to explain that “global cooling” and “global warming” are essentially descriptions of the same phenomenon, you’ll get nowhere fast. The dire forecasts made by meteorologists in the 1970s didn’t materialize. Neither did Paul Ehrlich’s population predictions. Now Kristof cites these as examples of environmentalists crying wolf. Technically, he is correct, but global climate change and population pressures remain serious threats to the health of society and biodiversity.

The challenge that the environmental movement faces now, just as it did thirty years ago, is one of image. The Pew Research Center statistic Kristof cites is encouraging; 3/4 of Americans polled agree that environmental protection is vital. With that sizable majority in mind, it may not be necessary to throw tantrums. Reasonable, determined methods will serve the movement well. In environmentalism, like anything else, contradictions abound. Rather than dogmatically championing every device or idea that comes out of the green camp, we should fully consider each and push for thoughtful action as a diplomat would.

As Garret Keizer writes in his recent essay, “Life Everlasting,”

“We can dare to walk on this ground of dubious footing, because we are holding one another up as best we can, and because it is we ourselves and not some deterministic logic that writes our civil laws…We can sniff out our options and pick and choose among them, a birthright generally less appreciated by a dogmatist than by a dog.”

Photo credit: Superdog Inc, copyright 2003