“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.   

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change

Naomi Klein makes a compelling argument for the complete reorganization for human society as we know it in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change. After reading this book, I am left speechless and a little afraid about what the next 50 years of our lives will look like. The vision that has inspired this apprehension in me most strongly is Klein’s comparison of the dissolution of our reliance on fossil fuels to the abolition of slavery.

First, do we have (or can we build) the social inertia to over the reigning political, social, and economic ideologies of our times? We are an individualistic society focused on expanded our personal gain through competition. To fight against the impending doom that will ultimately come as a result of climate change, we must turn into a society that values cooperation, reciprocity, and the good of entire groups of people, not individuals.

For the changes that Klein calls for, in the very least we need 1) a congress and a judicial system that is supportive (and imaginative) to push for the necessary changes, 2) a society of people who are willing to abandon their dearly held beliefs, and 3) industry innovation to change from the use of an infrastructure present on almost every place on the globe. Maybe all three are not absolutely needed, but at least two of three would be.

I’m left with a pit in my stomach with the full knowledge that they system as we know it is not sustainable, but I’m left wondering what kind of effort will be needed to push us into the transition of the next stage? Will blood be spilled in wars as was necessary in the Civil War? Will inequality of disadvantaged groups remain as freed slaves were forced into indentured servitude? It doesn’t seem like the answers to these questions are obvious or easy, but we must start pushing for them to be asked because the alternative is not so bright.

Merchants of Doubt Ch. 5-Epilogue

Merchants of Doubt continues to be a fascinating, if not soul-crushing, story of how a few scientists, aided by well-meaning journalists, engender doubt in the public mind about environmental and human-health related catastrophes. This week’s readings were a bit easier for me to digest compared to last week because of the pace of the writing. The authors inched away, ever so slightly, from the laundry lists of committees, people, and he-said, she-said accusations and had a stronger focus on the actions of events, which was aided by the inclusion of more emotions.

The authors added just a sprinkling of human emotions through the use of humor and frustration. The humor, at times, came coated in very nerdy references with which only a small portion of readers might connect. For example, “…type 2 errors aren’t really errors at all, just missed opportunities.” (p 157).  This humor might connect more strongly with a comprehensive exam question than as a joke for a broad audience. I can see students sweating as their committee asks them to explain, given this excerpt 1) the validity of the claim that type 2 errors are missed opportunities and 2) how the probability of the missed opportunity might change with varying levels of alpha. Although experimental biologists might have felt like the authors were giving them a secret high-five with this aside, this line would not connect with most of the general population. Potentially adding more comic relief would help connect with the audience.  

The authors do connect with the audience in a more direct way when their show of emotions comes in the form of anger. When describing the unethical steps the “Cold Warriors” took to discredit science by “…attacking science in the name of freedom” (p 166), the authors reference an unattributed quote of an unnamed epidemiologist criticizing the work of the EPA as “rotten science” (p 166). The authors react in what I could only assume was outright indignation, “Did any one actually say that? Maybe yes, maybe no—there’s way to tell, because it was given without attribution. It’s not the sort of thing scientists typically say, but even if it were true, so what? It would just be the opinion of one man—and hardly evidence of a conspiracy to undermine the free market.” (p 166).

This reaction by the authors in all likelihood mirrors what the readers are feeling. The realization that these men are making conscious, immoral decisions to promote distrust in science is appalling. Both reader and author can throw their hands up in shared frustration that the unethical actions of a small group have permeated so many modern human-health and environmental crisis. This type of response in which authors place themselves within the story by communicating their thoughts and feelings about the given circumstances, does so much to improve the readability of the text. This type of author involvement in the prose was much more common in Elizabeth Kolbert’s writing. Without much use of this technique in the current book, we can observe the power of this technique when it is excluded.

Merchants of Doubt, Introduction-Chapter 4

I have little doubt that I will be in the minority for my opinion about our reading for this week’s seminar. I’ve heard whispers (and sometimes shouts) of ardent love for the content and communication style of Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s Merchants of Doubt from my fellow seminar participants. While the authors tell a historically factual tale of intrigue, deceit, and conspiracy against scientific consensus, I will openly admit that I could hardly keep my eyes open while reading the first half of this book.

I am left wondering why such a fascinating story left me so sleepy and in need of caffeine or a brisk walk. The story seemingly has is all: a small group of rogue scientists have been pulling the wool over the eyes of the American public for decades on the largest environmental and health related issues of our times. Their deceit has delayed and shaped policy and transformed the public understanding of causative factors behind the human health impacts of smoking, acid rain, climate change, and the hole in the ozone layer.

But, my eyes droop every time I crack this book open. And the clack of my officemate’s keyboard becomes more interesting to listen to than concentrating on the tiny words on the pages before me. My lack of interest stems, not from the story, but from its presentation. A few pages into the introduction, we are told the story arc and that the story will be repeated over and over again in different scenarios. The rest of the book tells about these different scenarios in, what was for me, excruciating detail. The combination of an over abundance of details and repetitive story arcs was tiresome to me.

In contrast to Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, very few characters are described in much detail in the book. When characters are described, each seems eerily similar to the other. To overgeneralize, they are “hawkish,” male, physics professors. My mind would fill with characters all resembling an aging version of Professor Snape, except in my imagination they are balding, and wearing worn sweater vests and tweed jackets with elbow patches bumbling about as they try to scheme.

The movement of the action was slow and repetitive as well. The description of the actions of committees from corporations and government took to support or negate scientific findings were overly detailed. I felt like I was reading through passive aggressive emails of a couple in the throws of a long-standing argument, given one party is manipulative and deceitful. The overall story was important to me, but the day-to-day quibbles were not.

I am going to throw historians along with scientists into the remedial class for communicating with the public. Simplifying the presentation of the story and removing unnecessary detail might help this text engage a wider audience of people.