Environmental science

Summary Response Example

Protecting Species Is Self-Preservation” (The Seattle Times, January 7, 1993)  Colman McCarthy  During the campaign when George Bush, somewhere between whining and ridiculing, attacked the spotted owl crowd, Bill Clinton, more astute, chose to attack the issue. “I started reading all the legal documents, he recalled in late December. “And I discovered there was a lot more than the Endangered Species Act involved . There were six separate government agencies involved and they had five different positions, under the same administration.

  Compared with gays in the military, Haitians and immigration or other looming domestic policy walls that Clinton is hurtling into, the protection of endangered species promises to be a political, economic, moral and environmental brawl likely to go unsettled for much of the next Congress. The reauthorization of the act, passed in 1973 and amended in 1978, is scheduled for debate in early 1993.

The record of the past 20 years confirms that humans are not especially humane to the fish, wildlife and plants with whom they share the earth. Developers, poachers, hunters, gunners, miners, pavers and sprayers are among those who are causing declines in 38 percent of the some 600 species under the protection of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the main enforcer of the act. The numbers of only 10 percent of protected species were increasing, with 31 percent stable.  The earth itself, the global habitat, is an ecological war zone in which human beings, when they aren’t killing off each other in wars and homicides, are obsessed with doing in nearly everything else. Less than 5 percent of the earth’s land surface is preserved in national parks or other areas, legally off limits to exploiters. If not stopped, the violence means that as many as 15 million plants and animals are likely to vanish in the next few decades as the competition for space increases. For human predators, it’s always one more land grab and we’ll be happy.

It’s asked by those who put human progress first and all else last: So what if a few spotted owls or snail darters don’t make it? Without waiting for the day when the last owl nests in the last pine in the last forest next to the last pond where the last fish swims, an answer is available: Human progress isn’t possible unless all other forms of life have their progress.

  An example of human dependency on plants is reported by the National Audubon Society in its 1992 book, Rebirth of Nature. It’s increasingly clear that the (world’s) rain forests are like huge medicine chests whose doors have hardly been opened. A single survey of 1,500 plants from the Costa Rican rain forest revealed that some 225 of them could potentially produce anti-cancer drugs. Researchers believe that as much as 10 percent of the 90,000 plant species thought to grow in Latin America will yield anti-cancer drugs.

In the United States, the collision between jobs and development, as one force, and endangered species and habitat preservation, as the other, has meant a test of power between opposing lobbies and interest groups. As arbitrators, federal officials enforcing the 1973 law have consistently favored leniency and indulgence: protection, yes, but let’s not get emphatic about it.  On December 22, The Los Angeles Times reported, “Of 1,989 federal projects affecting endangered species from 1987 to 1991, only 23 were rejected.” Most species, the Times said, diminish because of loss of habitat, and the law has not substantially stemmed the development of their lands, particularly private property.

Without the power of the law to stave off biological impoverishment, only the power of reason is left. There, fortunately, enormous strength can be found. In “The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson writes: “In democratic societies people may think that their government is bound by an ecological version of the Hippocratic oath, to take no action that knowingly endangers biodiversity. But that is not enough. The commitment must be much deeper to let no species knowingly die, to take all reasonable action to protect every species and race in perpetuity . . . The more that other forms of life are used and saved, the more productive and secure will our own species be.

In the months of congressional wrangling ahead, Wilson’s thought ought to shape the debate. Every piece of research in the past quarter-century says that we have entered the age of extinctions. We are roaming in a danger area without a clue that the destruction to animals and plants is really self-destruction.  Summary:  The reauthorization of the Endangered Species Act will prove to be a political, economic, and moral battle in Congress, even though the ESA has been largely ineffective in protecting the 600 species on the endangered list in the U.S. Thirty-eight percent of those 600 have declined in population. The problem is perceived competition between human beings and other species for land use, meaning, in the case of humans, development and jobs. In almost every case of competition, however, humans win and plants and animals lose their habitat and thus their lives.  We need all species for our survival. Only if all life forms advance do we advance. Up to 10 percent of the 90,000 plant species that grow in Central America may be used to develop anti-cancer drugs. According to E.O. Wilson, we must not jeopardize the viability any species because using and saving other life forms make our species more productive and secure. Following Wilson’s wisdom will stem the age of extinction for many species, including our own.  Response:  Colman McCarthy makes a good argument for conservation. While I agree with him, I don’t think he went far enough in his reasoning. After saying that all species should be protected from destruction because we need them for our own progress and security, Mr. McCarthy supports his position only by stating that among the plants that we are currently destroying or planning to destroy in the rain forests of the world, there could be plants that might produce cancer cures.

  When Mr. McCarthy talks about protecting all species, he means, I think, protecting large, whole tracts of intact ecosystems. Tropical rain forests are only one such type of ecosystem, or biome, but an extremely important one. Tropical rain forests provide many services. First, because they are so dense with plants, they produce a lot of oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Second, trees, like all living things, are made up of carbon, and in effect, forests are huge carbon reservoirs. (This release of oxygen and absorption of carbon is why Wilson calls the tropical forests the lungs of the Earth.) One of the ways to destroy forests in the tropics to make way for development is to burn them. This burning releases the stored carbon in the trees and plants, thus increasing the amount of atmospheric carbon, which, in turn, also increases the greenhouse effect. Third, forests absorb sunlight, thereby limiting the amount of heat re-radiated back into the atmosphere. When forests are cleared of trees, the bare ground reflects more light and heat, thereby increasing the greenhouse effect even further. Fourth, rain forests cycle water slowly through the process of transpiration. This slowed processing helps keep the cycle of precipitation constant. Similarly, rain forests hold water and prevent erosion of the soil, which would clog streams and rivers, causing riparian fish populations to decrease and reducing the quality of drinking water downstream.

There are many more reasons why tropical rain forests and all other ecosystems and species should be protected, but perhaps it is clear that everything is connected to everything, and we can never do just one thing. When we destroy species, we are, as Mr. McCarthy says, destroying ourselves.