Endangered Species Report

March 1, 2010

There are at most 120 Florida Panthers left alive in Florida; the southwest Mexican Wolf population living wild is dangerously low; the developers still threaten the Tejon ranch, in southern California, part of which lies in Condor Territory. The Center for Biological Diversity has stood on principle in all of these cases, but lawsuits can so often be evaded by those in charge. Especially traagic is the failure of Fish and Wildlife to insist on their right, under the Endangered Species Act, to study habitats scientifically, and to clearly draw lines around minimum habitats for each endangered species.

First we have to face this hard fact, that the major environmental organizations, with few exceptions, have chosen to make compromises with timber companies, grazing interests, condo builders, mountain top removers and on down the list of organizations that have an interest in ruining the earth. Even the nuke builders are getting into action, under green banners. Now, unfortunately, these interests are international, huge business interests having their way with the planet.

We all know the disaster at the Supreme Court recently: endorsing each business enterprise with a "personal" status that allows them to act as indiviuals, handing out huge money grants to electoral campaigns. We also have witnesssed the disaster at the Copenhagen Conference: no binding agreements.

Do we need any more smoking guns to convince us that we are under the harsh rule of a tiny group of bankers and financiers who are in charge? At least, they think they are, but that is not entirely true. I remember well the two weeks of power outage in far north New York state--ice storm. After it was all over, a clear day. We stood outside, listened to ice falling from trees and houses. It sounded like an artillery barrage. I took my chain saw to a dealer to be sharpened and the proprietor told me that "Mother Nature is in charge." That is one more hard truth we have to face up to, although with this qualification: Mother Nature wreaks more havoc than usual, taking advantage of human-caused resource devastation.

Aother abstraction we assent to is that We Are A Part Of The Ecosystems that make up life on our planet. But we humans do not act from abstractions. How can we convince The People that we are nearing the edge of the cliff?

Individual experiences are what counts in politics; they cut deep, as when a worker is laid off. He or she begins to look around, take seriously the faults in the system. That's where we are now. What is the next step forward?

Strikes against management is a form of taking to the streets. We can support labor union actions, making sure we bring our environmental activism with us. We take care to listen to strikers and then they are more willing to listen to our tales of woe - polar bears not on the endangered list; drouth in the middle of our nation that, whether due to global warming or not, is an act put on by Mother Nature. Of course, we can refer to acidification of oceans, overfishing, factory farming that inevitably involves use of anti-biotics and feeding of contaminated foods, clear-cutting of forests - that's where our human actions count. We will never run out of smoking guns.

The real dangers badgering most modern environmental movements are (1) LEANING OVER IN TRADITIONAL OVER-COMPROMISE POSITIONS and (2) ARROGANCE.

E.O.Wilson wrote, in an adapted extract from his new book, The Creation (W.W.Norton and Company), "Paramount is the irreversible loss of natural ecosystems and species that make up the human life-support systems. Humanity must make a decision, and make it right now: Conserve Earth's natural heritage, or let future generations adjust to a biologcically impoverished world."

The anti-climate-change folks present us with arguments that simply do not hold water. They exaggerate mistakes made in the scientific community, work them into denials of climate change. The devastation we humans have achieved on Earth's fabric and on the species that once thrived there, are not all connected to climate change, but the automobile culture is every day spewing CO2 into the atmosphere.

I saw this sign, spelled out in lights, in Xenia, Ohio; "You don’t need people if you own a brand new car." No, that’s not a joke; I swear to you, I saw it.

Each of us can make a real change in life style. I won't be arrogant enough to suggest how each individual reacts to reality, but, as Wilson wrote, we have to "make a decision right now."

Peace/Resist

Martin