“Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story about Looking at People Looking at Animals in America” by Jon Mooallem, Intro-ch. 8

What will the graduate students of 2100 be studying? Based on the premise of the trajectory of biodiversity set forth by Jon Mooallem in Wild Ones they’ll be entranced by bullfrogs, dandelions, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. The species we consider as weedy pests will rise in the ranks of revered life forms that have been able to withstand the test of time and our transformative impacts on the landscape. Maybe they’ll finally assign names to all those diverse forms of fungi, bacteria, and viruses, unearthing a diversity of life only seen through a microscope or by the signature of DNA.  They may likely be as concerned (but not more so) than we are about the state of the environment and the influence of humanity, pointing to ever mounting stories of species and ecosystems pushed to extinction like polar bears, Atelopus frogs, and coral reefs. They will likely parrot the same things that we are saying now and have been saying since the 1800s in an effort to help other people understand their impact on the environment.

This image is the one that comes to mind for me as I think about what the future might hold after reading the first half of Wild Ones. Although people have an undeniable need to interact with wildlife in some way, seemingly we cannot balance our desire to protect wildlife with our capitalist needs for the bigger and the better. What I take away from this reading is a dismaying story of our inability to balance our desires and moderate our habitats to protect the things that we care about outside of our immediate concerns. The efforts that people who are trying to preserve our wildlife are outweighed by the choices that others make.

No other story illustrates this point as does the polar bear, our primary example of the enormous effects of climate change on a species. The carbon we release as a byproduct of most things that we do (driving, heating/air conditioning, buying products, growing food, farting, etc.) is directly linked to deterioration of the habitat the polar bears need to survive. Are we worried about their existence? Overwhelming, scientists and non-scientists alike agree that the answer is “yes!”. We rush to photograph and film these creatures, evidence of our interest and admiration of this species and effort to spread the word of their peril. Yet, frustratingly the collective efforts sum to far less than 0 because we are not able to pass the legislation that would ultimately limit carbon emissions, warming of the planet, and the destruction of their habitat. 

All we can do is manage the extinction of species. Like the polar bear, some species of butterflies like the Lange’s metalmark are endangered past the point of return to stable population sizes. Many of these tremendous declines are caused by habitat destruction and fragmentation. In these cases, underfunded, understaffed efforts towards conservation only slow the evitable process of the loss of another species. What changes must we make in order to even begin to undo our impact? I think Naomi Klein was right. Nothing but the complete reorganization of society will save us now.