In a comment to my post about the Detroit Zoo, Patrick in Des Moines said that he's sick of being preached to by people who see humanity as a threat to the planet:
Just went to the zoo recently myself. I'm a big fan of Zoos, Aquariums and Museums, but have grown tired of being preached to at all of them. The continual drumbeat of how man is threatening every other living thing is getting a bit old.
My favorite recently was a lecture disguised as a 'show' where you could watch the sea lions getting fed. We were told that overfishing threatened the survival (of course) of the sea lions by cutting off their food supply.
They also mentioned that one of the main functions of the sea lions is to prevent overpopulation of fish.
I'm sure there's a happy balance out there somewhere, but it doesn't start with blaming man for everything.
He's absolutely right about these lectures. Nearly every exhibit I saw yesterday had some kind of scolding message accompanying the description.
This one was typical:
If you're having trouble reading the text, here's what it says:
What can be done to stop the biodiversity crisis? The biggest threat to biodiversity is the insatiable demands of humankind. We are extremely short-sighted and consuming natural resources at a rate that cannot be sustained. Tropical forests are disappearing at a rate of 500,000 square kilometers per year, or 4-5 football fields every second. At this rate, they will be gone by 2020. The human population is currently estimated at almost 6 billion, 3 times what it was just 70 years ago. It is growing by 90 million people per year and will reach 8 billion by 2017.
Unless we do something soon to control our growth and consumption, we will lose more than just biodiversity... we will lose our ability to survive on this planet.
Why I happened to take a picture of that scolding little lecture yesterday, I don't know. Perhaps because it seemed Ehrlichistic, and I remember being made to read The Population Bomb while I was in high school, when I was not only naive enough to believe it, but thought being told not to have children was a form of scientific wisdom. Eventually, Ehrlich turned out to be wrong, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the narrative scientific consensus that he established from continuing on. (Isn't Obama's new science advisor some sort of neo-Ehrlichian?) Anyway, I have long found the doctrines of Paul Ehrlich to be annoying, and I sometimes feel like having kids just to spite the whole Ehrlichian mindset that wants to tell people not to have children. If you think about it, telling people it is immoral to have children is every bit as much of an attack on sexual freedom as telling them it's immoral to be gay. Busybodies telling people what to do with their genitalia -- and even their dogs' genitalia -- are endlessly annoying.
What I had not known until this morning was that Norman Borlaug had died. Borlaug has been praised in this blog (and Paul Ehrlich's attacks on him have been ridiculed), and I noticed today that the bloggers who are mourning his passing seem to be overwhelmingly libertarian or conservative.
Can it be that helping to ending world hunger is no longer a liberal cause? That saving a billion people from death is just not cool? That progress is no longer progressive?
The answers to the above are so obvious that they look like rhetorical questions.
Unfortunately, it's easy to see why a man like Norman Borlaug would not be mourned by the left.
After all, saving a billion people threatens biodiversity.
A fitting tribute would be to mulch Paul Ehrlich into fertilizer for a Third World wheat farm.
I'm sorry, but the environmentalist in me simply cannot countenance polluting the soil with toxic substances.
MORE: I have been reminded in the comments that science Holdren is not a Neo-Erhlichian, but a Paleo-Ehrlichian (n that he co-authored a book with the discredited Paul Ehrlich).
Considering that the Obama administration is solidly on the wrong side of the Borlaug-Ehrlich dispute, it's quite obvious why the left does not mourn the passing of a great man who saved countless lives and made the world a better place.
posted by Eric on 09.13.09 at 03:02 PM
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Comments
Well, it's not like he did something useful like Rachel Carson or anything. I mean, her totally scientifical sciencey book was all about teh science and it saved an eco-system or something.
What's there to celebrate about him? He created "Frankenfoods" that will...uhhh..... WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!1!!
You left out Ace, and this highlighted comment http://ace.mu.nu/archives/292222.php
Quote A fitting tribute would be to mulch Paul Ehrlich into fertilizer for a Third World wheat farm.
What's even more interesting is the fact is that he is an American who was (1) obscure in this country and (2) lauded throughout the rest of the world, especially the Third World. There was a time when those two facts alone would be cause for the intellectual, progressive leftist elite to celebrating the life of someone. That time passed.
Rhodium Heart · September 13, 2009 05:07 PM
Penn and Teller have a nice bit on Borlaug within their Bullsh*t episode on GM foods
Penn is a libertarian of course. And a favorite commenter of mine. I believe Teller is libertarian too.
SteveBrooklineMA · September 13, 2009 05:08 PM
The people putting on the sea lion show were very bad biologists. The "purpose", if we can even use the word, of all organisms is to reproduce. Nothing else counts. There is no mystical Gaia/ecosystem policy that is being carried out by organisms. There is no balance of nature. There is no steady state in nature. Every day is a new adventure for the organisms of Earth.
Bob Sykes · September 13, 2009 07:42 PM
Neo-Erlichian? Holdren's a got-damned Paleo-Erlichian. He co-wrote a book with that bastich.
Anonymous · September 13, 2009 08:24 PM
When I saw and heard references to his death yesterday, I found some irony in the fact that he was referred to as a father of the "green revolution" without much explanation as to what that was or just how it differs from the aims of the "greens" of today.
Until his death, the last time I thought about Borlaug was when I was trying to make it through The Omnivore's Dilemma. Although Borlaug isn't explicitly presented as a villain in the book, it feels like he's indirectly part of the crowd that Michael Pollan is trying to demonize for applying modern scientific methods and research to improving agriculture. And recognizing that gave me even less patience with Pollan's dietary puritanism.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Well, it's not like he did something useful like Rachel Carson or anything. I mean, her totally scientifical sciencey book was all about teh science and it saved an eco-system or something.
What's there to celebrate about him? He created "Frankenfoods" that will...uhhh..... WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!1!!
You left out Ace, and this highlighted comment
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/292222.php
Quote
A fitting tribute would be to mulch Paul Ehrlich into fertilizer for a Third World wheat farm.
That's "Heh" worthy.