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U.S. Significantly Weakens Endangered Species Act

165 points by Osiris30 7y ago

aaronbrethorst 7y ago
The current Interior Secretary is, of course, a former oil industry lobbyist.
Circuits 7y ago
Anyone know why they (The NYT) want people to create an account in order to read their articles? I have always been curious about this as it seems to me there is no finical benefit for them or am I missing something?
apacheCamel 7y ago
These animals/plants do not have a choice in the matter. They have no say whenever we destroy their homes or their food sources. How do people honestly think it is their right to destroy and take all for their mighty money? Why do we let corporate greed take over so many things that should be simple?
- qsymmachus 7y ago
  Because capitalism is an optimization function for making money. It doesn't care about anything else.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    Will we develop practices that preserve what we like about free markets without capitalism being the economic function?
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      That's where regulation comes in. For example we have outlawed practices like killing others for profit and the markets still work. We can outlaw other things too. Markets will adapt. That's what they do best.
    - inscionent 7y ago
      No. Humans will be extinct long before we can overcome our greed and fear. We live in a world of abundance and the only thing holding us back is the concentration of power and wealth.
      - eanzenberg 7y ago
        No we don't live in a world of abundance. This is a common tagline touted by communist and socialist societies, and has been proven false time and time and time again.
    - qsymmachus 7y ago
      Markets != capitalism, markets predate capitalism, and the end of capitalism does not necessarily mean the end of markets.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- CWuestefeld 7y ago
  I own a big chunk of land in upstate NY, where we've got a little cabin. As part of our stewardship of the land, we periodically harvest timber, using the advice of a professional forester. This forester was conducting a survey for us one year, and showed us that we have a specimen of a tree species that's expected to go onto the endangered list in the future. With a wink, he warned us that if we've got that tree there when it goes on the list, we'll be forbidden from doing much of anything with our land in the future - the implication being that we should dispose of it while we've still got the chance. The ESA can impose significant costs even on us little folk. And the way the Act is constructed provides perverse incentives, giving us motivation to do the opposite of what's intended. (we left the tree, but others may not have the same flexibility to make that sacrifice)
  - apacheCamel 7y ago
    I am glad that they do not discriminate on how much they charge: significant costs should be imposed on anyone wanting to further remove endangered species. I get what you are saying, you may want the tree removed but if everyone got their "just this one tree" removed, then it would speed up the extinction of that tree. Does that tree seriously need to be removed? Does it have life threatening consequences to you or the surrounding area? I seriously doubt it.
    - derivagral 7y ago
      My understanding was around the forced loss of freedom without recompense as the contention here. The GP appears to be OK with this, but the nudge from the forester implies that many people wouldn't want the headache and loss of freedom around that kind of thing. I don't know the details of the law, but I would expect that most people might choose "harvest a few trees and skip headaches" over "tolerate headaches for an abstract good feeling."
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    a cabin on a big chunk of land where you can harvest timber using the advice of a professional forester? I must be missing something but I am having hard time fitting this into my definition of the "little folk".
goodroot 7y ago
Words cannot express the depth of sadness these actions make me feel. We are lost.
- ph33t 7y ago
  We Americans are not lost because power is taken away from the Federal government. The states (or even more local authorities) should be in charge of this. Ask someone from sparsely populated northern Minnesota what they think when their cattle are slaughtered by wolves that are over-populated because people in the big cities dictate law.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    I'm from northern Minnesota. I'm dead-set against wolf hunting and trapping and so are my friends from the area. The idea that wolves are "over-populated" up north is a laughable fiction. Since we're on the topic of environmental issues in northern MN, one thing that has upset almost everyone in the area is Trump allowing foreign companies to start mining in the Boundary Waters, an area that is near-univerally cherished by Minnesotans for its undisturbed nature (including its wolf packs!). If you're not a Minnesotan, don't try to speak for us. If you are a Minnesotan, I contend that your perspective reflects only a relatively small minority of us, even among rural northern Minnesotans (like my family and friends!)
  - debatem1 7y ago
    The power to make law regarding wolves already belongs to the state, as grey wolves lost federal protection earlier this year. Independent of that, ranchers are compensated for killed, wounded, and spooked cattle under the pay-for-presence program and similar. The rates are favorable to the point of being a cash grab, and there have been numerous cases of fraud where ranchers claimed kills that simply didn't happen. Independent of that, the federal government has poured subsidies into ranching for decades, to the tune of about $30,000 per rancher per year. Even if they weren't compensated for lost livestock, on balance ranchers are far better off with the feds than they would be on their own. But you don't hear about that because, frankly, the ranchers are spoiled rotten. When something benefits them they accept it without thought, and when it doesn't, well, they either howl in protest on the internet or outright take up arms against the federal government in one of the most poetic examples of "biting the hand that feeds you" which I can name.
SomewhatLikely 7y ago
What good is a legislature when so many of our rules can be changed without approval from the legislature?
- tiles 7y ago
  With the senate filibuster, most Congressional legislation is just appointments and removing rules anyway. New legislation feels impossible to enact.
erickhill 7y ago
Conservatives once stood for "conserv"ation. The word literally means "aiming to preserve". In fact they used to be at the forefront of governmental intervention for environmental causes. (see: Teddy Roosevelt) But that all started to change in the 1980s. And now the scale has completely flipped upside down. I very much appreciate their work from the turn of the 20th century beyond WWII. It saddens me what the current party is doing.
- francisofascii 7y ago
  To add to this, the EPA was established by Nixon in 1970.
- freehunter 7y ago
  I do wonder how being environmentally conscious became a liberal value rather than a conservative one. Environmental causes seem to be more in-line with the perceived stereotype of an American conservative than an American liberal. Liberals tend to live in cities, where there is very little nature. Conservatives tend to live in rural areas. They are more often farmers and hunters and fishermen. They're more likely to drink unpurified and non-treated water. Surely keeping nature as pristine as we can make it should mean more? If we poison the groundwater, my well becomes useless. If we poison the lakes, I can't fish. If we cut down the forests, I can't hunt. Even though I live in the city now, I grew up on a farm and I consider myself to be a conservationist, and I can't for the life of me figure out how any rural American could feel otherwise. Destruction of natural environments impacts rural America far more than anyone living in a city.
  - kyralis 7y ago
    There are a couple pieces here, I think. 1) Environmental regulations and property rights are frequently viewed as in conflict by the rural population, examples of government reach onto the property owner's perceived absolute rights upon their own land. 2) The view that the wilderness exists to be made use of- which, really, is a view that's quite in line with what the rural population is generally living out. Farms can look beautiful and green from the outside, but they're generally intensely managed little plots of nature, where every year is a fight against Nature's encroachment. 3) A feeling that life is hard enough in those areas and those lifestyles without further restrictions on what you can and can't do, or more work that has to happen just to keep doing the same thing that you've been doing for generations. These are generally not the people who feel like they are (or actually are!) really getting ahead in life, and anything that makes it feel like they've got to run faster on that treadmill isn't going to go over well. I think a lot of city-dwellers idolize the wilderness, it being something that is not at all part of their daily life, to a much greater extent than the rural dwellers who can walk out into acres of forest with no one around practically whenever they feel like it. I'm city to rural transplant who's very much conservation-minded, but it's important to acknowledge where people are coming from, too. These are certainly not the only reasons, nor are they reasons that every rural citizen is going to agree with, but they're certainly some of the reasons that I've encountered.
uberman 7y ago
This despite the fact that about 80% of Americans support the act as it was. https://www.hcn.org/articles/endangered-species-most-americans-support-the-endangered-species-act https://www.hcn.org/articles/endangered-species-most-america...
- pzone 7y ago
  The other 20% have come into contact with the ridiculous kabuki of environmental reviews.
  - vkou 7y ago
    I'll accept that this sort of thing could be reworked... After you implement tangible solutions to the ridiculous kabuki of trying to litigate against a business that has damaged the environment. When there is no meaningful recourse to environmental damage done after the fact, excessive effort in prevention is the only solution that actually works.
- cloakandswagger 7y ago
  Thank goodness we live in a republic where majority opinion from non-specialists doesn't determine policy. I'd wager that 95% of Americans are not qualified in any way to speak to conservationism and the myriad of inscrutable legal issues that come with it. Of course you'll get a load of positive replies when you ask a random person on the street if they support the "Endangered Species Act" or if they would prefer to see it "weakened". Until you've seen a $150 million data center project abandoned because the FWS wanted a multi-year, multi-million dollar study on its effects on the local spotted boll-weevil population you don't fully understand how destructive and absurd the legislation has become.
  - mustacheemperor 7y ago
    I think it’s completely reasonable that if you’re going to build a data center in a habitat for a protected species then you’re going to have to make sure the species remains protected. It sounds like said data center took their business elsewhere, which is also completely reasonable and leaves the spotted boll-weevil unscathed.
reimertz 7y ago
It makes me sad that topics like this are politicized when it should be looked at as a crime against the Earth. The only voice animals on our earth have is their plummeting population numbers, if we can't even look at that as a sign of global crisis and act on it, I don't know what else we can do.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  When you say politicized, do you just mean that there is not universal agreement on the subject? Because anything where there isn't universal agreement is inherently political...
  - Dumblydorr 7y ago
    Is there an issue with universal agreement in politics? If so, is it then political or merely logistical and practical concern? I dont think our polarized times has to mean that all discord and disagreement is politics. For instance, we could disagree on the fundamentals of a topic yet agree on a solution and politically compromise to enact laws. For instance, how much regulation? Some say none, some say a lot, disagreement fundamentally, but politics is also about the subsequent agreement on compromise. In short, I dont think we can redefine politics as disagreement. Politics is more about social and rhetorical maneuvering towards a desired end state. That maneuvering is necessary due to conflict and disagreement, but the part is not the whole.
  - chewbacha 7y ago
    In the biological community, biodiversity is seen as the mark of a stable ecosystem. There is little debate whether it should be protected because lack of biodiversity is repeatedly being shown to reduce the fitness of the other species in that ecosystem. It's the same rationale for using a permaculture versus a monoculture in agriculture. It's "politicized" almost entirely because of misinformation campaigns that have torn down the search for truth and the trust of science. Instead, government leaders (especially in the current whitehouse administration in the USA) are actively destroying scientific communities, running them out of non-partisan offices, destroying scientific research, defunding other research, and restricting access to publications. It's not that there isn't a universal agreement, there actually is a bipartisan appreciation of the endangered species act (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/12/20802132/endangered-species-act-trump-weakening https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/12/20802132/en...) and it seems most people appreciate what it brings. So yes, it's definitely being "politicized" as the objective science behind it is being destroyed.
Sangama34 7y ago
The law was not sensible to begin with and has helped kill many species. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-stossel-loving-endangered-animals-to-death https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-stossel-loving-endanger...
- francisofascii 7y ago
  "Hunting bans don't stop poaching. In fact, bans create more crime," If we go by that line of reasoning, then we should eliminate murder laws, since they don't completely stop murders and we could reduce crime since murders would no longer be illegal.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    "Increasing success by lowering expectations."
  - LanceH 7y ago
    "Abortion laws don't stop abortion, they just make it unsafe." Allowing that line of reasoning seems to flip teams a lot. (I don't condone either side's usage)
- kyralis 7y ago
  An opinion article with absolutely nothing to do with the Endangered Species Act is hardly a serious citation for such a claim.
ericmay 7y ago
If you don’t like this you need to write to your representatives or call their office. Literally send an email or pick up the phone right now and call them to tell them you disapprove of this action. If you can’t even just a single minute for a phone call... I’m just disappointed.
- zackmorris 7y ago
  I was born and raised in Idaho and have seen almost no movement on environmental issues here in my lifetime. For those of you in coastal states, big cities and predominantly democratic (blue) states, you may not realize that most republican (red) states like mine are still controlled by the "good old boy" network. Which means that the pretty much the ONLY way to hold a public office here, especially a federal office like US senator or representative, is with the approval of one of the timber, mining or grazing families like Simplot (which supplies the potatoes for fast food chains and beef for the northwest). So although I write my elected officials often, I have only seen concern from Mike Simpson and a handful of others. Crapo, Risch and Fulcher are firmly pro-industry and for the most part ignore all environmental concerns. So it's really up to you in your state to write to your officials, even though Nevada, Utah and Idaho have the most public land in the lower 48 (and many endangered species). I realize that big cities have their own problems with corruption from democrats, for example with unions or boondoggle construction projects (although I'm not personally familiar with them). But make no mistake that environmental degradation is almost purely a republican problem, and it happens almost entirely at the behest of red states. And the citizens of red states are almost powerless to do anything about it once the demographics reach about 60/40 red. We have to go to great lengths via groups like the Sierra Club to prevent clearcuts and mass killings of wildlife, and the battle never ends. Even if you are a conservative living in a blue state, it's up to you to contact your elected officials if you feel any concern at all for the environment.
xamuel 7y ago
Hypothetical question: Suppose in the past hundred years a new species of gnat evolved to live in asbestos insulation. As asbestos is phased out, this species faces an extinction crises. Should humans intervene to preserve the species? Daily reminder: extinction and speciation go hand-in-hand. It's not like there's a finite number of species and we're going to run out of them. "So profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!" ~Charles Darwin
- throwaway94857 7y ago
  It's hilarious that the continued existence of all species presently on Earth at this very moment has become some sort of moral imperative in the minds of activists. Let's flip the situation on its head: by not allowing species to go extinct today, we prevent new and better adapted species from evolving tomorrow.
  - Retra 7y ago
    Extinction does not drive evolution, reproduction does, and if a species' food goes extinct, they reproduce less, not more. Secondly, these animals aren't abandoning their niches, they're losing them due to human activities. There is no room for another species to adapt to it, because there is nothing there to adapt to anymore.
  - kyralis 7y ago
    Would you like to provide a source for "the continued existence of all species presently on Earth at this very moment has become some sort of moral imperative in the minds of activists"? Because it's certainly not generally true. The goal is to limit species loss due to human impact on the natural environment. Generally, no one's even suggesting that we stop impacting that environment; merely that we stop ourselves when our impact becomes great enough to threaten biodiversity loss.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  We're the only species that can make those decisions and the only species that can consider the consequence of those actions. We've grown beyond just letting things run their course and watching what happens - it's become increasingly obvious we work against our own self interest in how we run around destroying things. I don't find the ecological equivalent of "boys will be boys" in any way satisfying.
throwaway94857 7y ago
It's perfectly reasonable to consider cost - which is what this move entails - when deciding whether or not to protect a species. We already employ this calculus, in that we are not spending our entire national budget on protecting some endangered subspecies of river fish in Arkansas. Anyone suggesting we do such a thing would be laughed at, because it's not worth it to spend all that money protecting fish. The protection of obscure species concerns a small portion of activists very much, and they are very loud in their activism, but there are other large portions of the population that don't care nearly as much and would prioritize economic growth over protecting endangered species. The activists' personal convictions are not more important or more valuable than those of people who don't care as much for endangered species. They're just different, and the activists tend to be louder and more passionate in voicing them.
- padobson 7y ago
  Seems to me an activist loud enough to get legislation passed could also be loud enough to organize an effective boycott or at least a pretty effective PR campaign against companies (or even individuals) that are threatening species. People like animals. I'd certainly be willing to buy Coke rather than Pepsi if I thought it was going to save an owl or a possum or something. I also don't think Coke would be above putting an owl on some of their packaging to remind people that buying Coke will save owls. I'd much prefer this approach to legislation.
  - throwaway94857 7y ago
    This is true, but it's a matter of abstract ideals vs concrete benefits. Who are we to tell people in a poor community that certain economic development cannot take place because it will harm certain animals or plants? This is a very real problem for communities in Africa and the Amazon basin; they are unable to build the infrastructure necessary for further development because privileged Western animal rights activists are more concerned with protecting animals than other humans.
    - defterGoose 7y ago
simonh 7y ago
“a new regulation announced Tuesday will require all organisms facing extinction to actively search for a new habitat in order to receive funding for their protection” https://www.theonion.com/new-regulation-requires-all-protected-species-to-be-act-1821910556/amp?__twitter_impression=true https://www.theonion.com/new-regulation-requires-all-protect...
trhway 7y ago
a drunk-on-power binge of no mercy toward anybody who is weaker than a white male in power. No mercy to women and children, no mercy to the poor and less fortunate, no mercy to the oppressed in this society, no mercy to the oppressed in their own countries/societies, no mercy to the farm and wild animals.
jsnider3 7y ago
If this offends you (and you're an American), you can express your feelings through voting.
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  This is pretty laughable for me. Many Americans are underserved by their assigned politicians. Gerrymandering based on political gain merely makes it worse. The most representative folks they have to vote for generally have little power to change things because of the local nature. Not saying not to vote - in fact, I encourage it - but this seriously also isn't as easy as simply voting. It gets even trickier if you are American and live overseas. You still have to file taxes even if you've not lived on american soil for years. If you are in a low-tax nation, you might have to pay the American government taxes. You still theoretically can vote in at least federal elections based on where you lived before you moved, but... seriously, the voting forms ask if I'll be living in the US again and when. I have absolutely no confidence in being heard by any politician and truly don't feel that my vote counts. This is especially true where I'm from - Indiana - and have never really had a politician reflect my views nor have I gotten much more than a form letter in response to a letter. I have more representation where I live and I'm not a citizen. I can vote in local elections here in Norway, so have some representation at least.
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  I mean I can also scream into a pillow with similar results.
slowhand09 7y ago
Very politicized headline IMHO. Legislation gets "traded" all the time. Not every liberal proposition is good or bad. Nor is every conservative proposition. Nor libertarian, etc. The congress-people trading votes for other votes, and block voting to pass or block legislation is the crux of the problem. Each item should stand on its merit, rather than be a beachball batted about a concert venue. I watch local enviro-lobbys, some whom I support, engage in the politics more than the environmental stewardship people typically picture them as. And we don't need a law for everything.

165 points by Osiris30 7y ago

The current Interior Secretary is, of course, a former oil industry lobbyist.

Anyone know why they (The NYT) want people to create an account in order to read their articles? I have always been curious about this as it seems to me there is no finical benefit for them or am I missing something?

apacheCamel 7y ago

These animals/plants do not have a choice in the matter. They have no say whenever we destroy their homes or their food sources. How do people honestly think it is their right to destroy and take all for their mighty money? Why do we let corporate greed take over so many things that should be simple?

qsymmachus 7y ago
Because capitalism is an optimization function for making money. It doesn't care about anything else.
- jMyles 7y ago
  Will we develop practices that preserve what we like about free markets without capitalism being the economic function?
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    That's where regulation comes in. For example we have outlawed practices like killing others for profit and the markets still work. We can outlaw other things too. Markets will adapt. That's what they do best.
  - inscionent 7y ago
    No. Humans will be extinct long before we can overcome our greed and fear. We live in a world of abundance and the only thing holding us back is the concentration of power and wealth.
    - eanzenberg 7y ago
      No we don't live in a world of abundance. This is a common tagline touted by communist and socialist societies, and has been proven false time and time and time again.
  - qsymmachus 7y ago
    Markets != capitalism, markets predate capitalism, and the end of capitalism does not necessarily mean the end of markets.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
CWuestefeld 7y ago
I own a big chunk of land in upstate NY, where we've got a little cabin. As part of our stewardship of the land, we periodically harvest timber, using the advice of a professional forester. This forester was conducting a survey for us one year, and showed us that we have a specimen of a tree species that's expected to go onto the endangered list in the future. With a wink, he warned us that if we've got that tree there when it goes on the list, we'll be forbidden from doing much of anything with our land in the future - the implication being that we should dispose of it while we've still got the chance. The ESA can impose significant costs even on us little folk. And the way the Act is constructed provides perverse incentives, giving us motivation to do the opposite of what's intended. (we left the tree, but others may not have the same flexibility to make that sacrifice)
- apacheCamel 7y ago
  I am glad that they do not discriminate on how much they charge: significant costs should be imposed on anyone wanting to further remove endangered species. I get what you are saying, you may want the tree removed but if everyone got their "just this one tree" removed, then it would speed up the extinction of that tree. Does that tree seriously need to be removed? Does it have life threatening consequences to you or the surrounding area? I seriously doubt it.
  - derivagral 7y ago
    My understanding was around the forced loss of freedom without recompense as the contention here. The GP appears to be OK with this, but the nudge from the forester implies that many people wouldn't want the headache and loss of freedom around that kind of thing. I don't know the details of the law, but I would expect that most people might choose "harvest a few trees and skip headaches" over "tolerate headaches for an abstract good feeling."
- perfunctory 7y ago
  a cabin on a big chunk of land where you can harvest timber using the advice of a professional forester? I must be missing something but I am having hard time fitting this into my definition of the "little folk".

goodroot 7y ago

Words cannot express the depth of sadness these actions make me feel. We are lost.

ph33t 7y ago
We Americans are not lost because power is taken away from the Federal government. The states (or even more local authorities) should be in charge of this. Ask someone from sparsely populated northern Minnesota what they think when their cattle are slaughtered by wolves that are over-populated because people in the big cities dictate law.
- iron0013 7y ago
  I'm from northern Minnesota. I'm dead-set against wolf hunting and trapping and so are my friends from the area. The idea that wolves are "over-populated" up north is a laughable fiction. Since we're on the topic of environmental issues in northern MN, one thing that has upset almost everyone in the area is Trump allowing foreign companies to start mining in the Boundary Waters, an area that is near-univerally cherished by Minnesotans for its undisturbed nature (including its wolf packs!). If you're not a Minnesotan, don't try to speak for us. If you are a Minnesotan, I contend that your perspective reflects only a relatively small minority of us, even among rural northern Minnesotans (like my family and friends!)
- debatem1 7y ago
  The power to make law regarding wolves already belongs to the state, as grey wolves lost federal protection earlier this year. Independent of that, ranchers are compensated for killed, wounded, and spooked cattle under the pay-for-presence program and similar. The rates are favorable to the point of being a cash grab, and there have been numerous cases of fraud where ranchers claimed kills that simply didn't happen. Independent of that, the federal government has poured subsidies into ranching for decades, to the tune of about $30,000 per rancher per year. Even if they weren't compensated for lost livestock, on balance ranchers are far better off with the feds than they would be on their own. But you don't hear about that because, frankly, the ranchers are spoiled rotten. When something benefits them they accept it without thought, and when it doesn't, well, they either howl in protest on the internet or outright take up arms against the federal government in one of the most poetic examples of "biting the hand that feeds you" which I can name.

SomewhatLikely 7y ago

What good is a legislature when so many of our rules can be changed without approval from the legislature?

tiles 7y ago
With the senate filibuster, most Congressional legislation is just appointments and removing rules anyway. New legislation feels impossible to enact.

erickhill 7y ago

Conservatives once stood for "conserv"ation. The word literally means "aiming to preserve". In fact they used to be at the forefront of governmental intervention for environmental causes. (see: Teddy Roosevelt) But that all started to change in the 1980s. And now the scale has completely flipped upside down. I very much appreciate their work from the turn of the 20th century beyond WWII. It saddens me what the current party is doing.

francisofascii 7y ago
To add to this, the EPA was established by Nixon in 1970.
freehunter 7y ago
I do wonder how being environmentally conscious became a liberal value rather than a conservative one. Environmental causes seem to be more in-line with the perceived stereotype of an American conservative than an American liberal. Liberals tend to live in cities, where there is very little nature. Conservatives tend to live in rural areas. They are more often farmers and hunters and fishermen. They're more likely to drink unpurified and non-treated water. Surely keeping nature as pristine as we can make it should mean more? If we poison the groundwater, my well becomes useless. If we poison the lakes, I can't fish. If we cut down the forests, I can't hunt. Even though I live in the city now, I grew up on a farm and I consider myself to be a conservationist, and I can't for the life of me figure out how any rural American could feel otherwise. Destruction of natural environments impacts rural America far more than anyone living in a city.
- kyralis 7y ago
  There are a couple pieces here, I think. 1) Environmental regulations and property rights are frequently viewed as in conflict by the rural population, examples of government reach onto the property owner's perceived absolute rights upon their own land. 2) The view that the wilderness exists to be made use of- which, really, is a view that's quite in line with what the rural population is generally living out. Farms can look beautiful and green from the outside, but they're generally intensely managed little plots of nature, where every year is a fight against Nature's encroachment. 3) A feeling that life is hard enough in those areas and those lifestyles without further restrictions on what you can and can't do, or more work that has to happen just to keep doing the same thing that you've been doing for generations. These are generally not the people who feel like they are (or actually are!) really getting ahead in life, and anything that makes it feel like they've got to run faster on that treadmill isn't going to go over well. I think a lot of city-dwellers idolize the wilderness, it being something that is not at all part of their daily life, to a much greater extent than the rural dwellers who can walk out into acres of forest with no one around practically whenever they feel like it. I'm city to rural transplant who's very much conservation-minded, but it's important to acknowledge where people are coming from, too. These are certainly not the only reasons, nor are they reasons that every rural citizen is going to agree with, but they're certainly some of the reasons that I've encountered.

uberman 7y ago

This despite the fact that about 80% of Americans support the act as it was. https://www.hcn.org/articles/endangered-species-most-americans-support-the-endangered-species-act https://www.hcn.org/articles/endangered-species-most-america...

pzone 7y ago
The other 20% have come into contact with the ridiculous kabuki of environmental reviews.
- vkou 7y ago
  I'll accept that this sort of thing could be reworked... After you implement tangible solutions to the ridiculous kabuki of trying to litigate against a business that has damaged the environment. When there is no meaningful recourse to environmental damage done after the fact, excessive effort in prevention is the only solution that actually works.
cloakandswagger 7y ago
Thank goodness we live in a republic where majority opinion from non-specialists doesn't determine policy. I'd wager that 95% of Americans are not qualified in any way to speak to conservationism and the myriad of inscrutable legal issues that come with it. Of course you'll get a load of positive replies when you ask a random person on the street if they support the "Endangered Species Act" or if they would prefer to see it "weakened". Until you've seen a $150 million data center project abandoned because the FWS wanted a multi-year, multi-million dollar study on its effects on the local spotted boll-weevil population you don't fully understand how destructive and absurd the legislation has become.
- mustacheemperor 7y ago
  I think it’s completely reasonable that if you’re going to build a data center in a habitat for a protected species then you’re going to have to make sure the species remains protected. It sounds like said data center took their business elsewhere, which is also completely reasonable and leaves the spotted boll-weevil unscathed.

reimertz 7y ago

It makes me sad that topics like this are politicized when it should be looked at as a crime against the Earth. The only voice animals on our earth have is their plummeting population numbers, if we can't even look at that as a sign of global crisis and act on it, I don't know what else we can do.

maxerickson 7y ago
When you say politicized, do you just mean that there is not universal agreement on the subject? Because anything where there isn't universal agreement is inherently political...
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Is there an issue with universal agreement in politics? If so, is it then political or merely logistical and practical concern? I dont think our polarized times has to mean that all discord and disagreement is politics. For instance, we could disagree on the fundamentals of a topic yet agree on a solution and politically compromise to enact laws. For instance, how much regulation? Some say none, some say a lot, disagreement fundamentally, but politics is also about the subsequent agreement on compromise. In short, I dont think we can redefine politics as disagreement. Politics is more about social and rhetorical maneuvering towards a desired end state. That maneuvering is necessary due to conflict and disagreement, but the part is not the whole.
- chewbacha 7y ago
  In the biological community, biodiversity is seen as the mark of a stable ecosystem. There is little debate whether it should be protected because lack of biodiversity is repeatedly being shown to reduce the fitness of the other species in that ecosystem. It's the same rationale for using a permaculture versus a monoculture in agriculture. It's "politicized" almost entirely because of misinformation campaigns that have torn down the search for truth and the trust of science. Instead, government leaders (especially in the current whitehouse administration in the USA) are actively destroying scientific communities, running them out of non-partisan offices, destroying scientific research, defunding other research, and restricting access to publications. It's not that there isn't a universal agreement, there actually is a bipartisan appreciation of the endangered species act (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/12/20802132/endangered-species-act-trump-weakening https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/8/12/20802132/en...) and it seems most people appreciate what it brings. So yes, it's definitely being "politicized" as the objective science behind it is being destroyed.

Sangama34 7y ago

The law was not sensible to begin with and has helped kill many species. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-stossel-loving-endangered-animals-to-death https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-stossel-loving-endanger...

francisofascii 7y ago
"Hunting bans don't stop poaching. In fact, bans create more crime," If we go by that line of reasoning, then we should eliminate murder laws, since they don't completely stop murders and we could reduce crime since murders would no longer be illegal.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  "Increasing success by lowering expectations."
- LanceH 7y ago
  "Abortion laws don't stop abortion, they just make it unsafe." Allowing that line of reasoning seems to flip teams a lot. (I don't condone either side's usage)
kyralis 7y ago
An opinion article with absolutely nothing to do with the Endangered Species Act is hardly a serious citation for such a claim.

ericmay 7y ago

If you don’t like this you need to write to your representatives or call their office. Literally send an email or pick up the phone right now and call them to tell them you disapprove of this action. If you can’t even just a single minute for a phone call... I’m just disappointed.

zackmorris 7y ago
I was born and raised in Idaho and have seen almost no movement on environmental issues here in my lifetime. For those of you in coastal states, big cities and predominantly democratic (blue) states, you may not realize that most republican (red) states like mine are still controlled by the "good old boy" network. Which means that the pretty much the ONLY way to hold a public office here, especially a federal office like US senator or representative, is with the approval of one of the timber, mining or grazing families like Simplot (which supplies the potatoes for fast food chains and beef for the northwest). So although I write my elected officials often, I have only seen concern from Mike Simpson and a handful of others. Crapo, Risch and Fulcher are firmly pro-industry and for the most part ignore all environmental concerns. So it's really up to you in your state to write to your officials, even though Nevada, Utah and Idaho have the most public land in the lower 48 (and many endangered species). I realize that big cities have their own problems with corruption from democrats, for example with unions or boondoggle construction projects (although I'm not personally familiar with them). But make no mistake that environmental degradation is almost purely a republican problem, and it happens almost entirely at the behest of red states. And the citizens of red states are almost powerless to do anything about it once the demographics reach about 60/40 red. We have to go to great lengths via groups like the Sierra Club to prevent clearcuts and mass killings of wildlife, and the battle never ends. Even if you are a conservative living in a blue state, it's up to you to contact your elected officials if you feel any concern at all for the environment.

xamuel 7y ago

Hypothetical question: Suppose in the past hundred years a new species of gnat evolved to live in asbestos insulation. As asbestos is phased out, this species faces an extinction crises. Should humans intervene to preserve the species? Daily reminder: extinction and speciation go hand-in-hand. It's not like there's a finite number of species and we're going to run out of them. "So profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel when we hear of the extinction of an organic being; and as we do not see the cause, we invoke cataclysms to desolate the world, or invent laws on the duration of the forms of life!" ~Charles Darwin

throwaway94857 7y ago
It's hilarious that the continued existence of all species presently on Earth at this very moment has become some sort of moral imperative in the minds of activists. Let's flip the situation on its head: by not allowing species to go extinct today, we prevent new and better adapted species from evolving tomorrow.
- Retra 7y ago
  Extinction does not drive evolution, reproduction does, and if a species' food goes extinct, they reproduce less, not more. Secondly, these animals aren't abandoning their niches, they're losing them due to human activities. There is no room for another species to adapt to it, because there is nothing there to adapt to anymore.
- kyralis 7y ago
  Would you like to provide a source for "the continued existence of all species presently on Earth at this very moment has become some sort of moral imperative in the minds of activists"? Because it's certainly not generally true. The goal is to limit species loss due to human impact on the natural environment. Generally, no one's even suggesting that we stop impacting that environment; merely that we stop ourselves when our impact becomes great enough to threaten biodiversity loss.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
We're the only species that can make those decisions and the only species that can consider the consequence of those actions. We've grown beyond just letting things run their course and watching what happens - it's become increasingly obvious we work against our own self interest in how we run around destroying things. I don't find the ecological equivalent of "boys will be boys" in any way satisfying.

throwaway94857 7y ago

It's perfectly reasonable to consider cost - which is what this move entails - when deciding whether or not to protect a species. We already employ this calculus, in that we are not spending our entire national budget on protecting some endangered subspecies of river fish in Arkansas. Anyone suggesting we do such a thing would be laughed at, because it's not worth it to spend all that money protecting fish. The protection of obscure species concerns a small portion of activists very much, and they are very loud in their activism, but there are other large portions of the population that don't care nearly as much and would prioritize economic growth over protecting endangered species. The activists' personal convictions are not more important or more valuable than those of people who don't care as much for endangered species. They're just different, and the activists tend to be louder and more passionate in voicing them.

padobson 7y ago
Seems to me an activist loud enough to get legislation passed could also be loud enough to organize an effective boycott or at least a pretty effective PR campaign against companies (or even individuals) that are threatening species. People like animals. I'd certainly be willing to buy Coke rather than Pepsi if I thought it was going to save an owl or a possum or something. I also don't think Coke would be above putting an owl on some of their packaging to remind people that buying Coke will save owls. I'd much prefer this approach to legislation.
- throwaway94857 7y ago
  This is true, but it's a matter of abstract ideals vs concrete benefits. Who are we to tell people in a poor community that certain economic development cannot take place because it will harm certain animals or plants? This is a very real problem for communities in Africa and the Amazon basin; they are unable to build the infrastructure necessary for further development because privileged Western animal rights activists are more concerned with protecting animals than other humans.
  - defterGoose 7y ago

simonh 7y ago

“a new regulation announced Tuesday will require all organisms facing extinction to actively search for a new habitat in order to receive funding for their protection” https://www.theonion.com/new-regulation-requires-all-protected-species-to-be-act-1821910556/amp?__twitter_impression=true https://www.theonion.com/new-regulation-requires-all-protect...

trhway 7y ago

a drunk-on-power binge of no mercy toward anybody who is weaker than a white male in power. No mercy to women and children, no mercy to the poor and less fortunate, no mercy to the oppressed in this society, no mercy to the oppressed in their own countries/societies, no mercy to the farm and wild animals.

jsnider3 7y ago

If this offends you (and you're an American), you can express your feelings through voting.

Broken_Hippo 7y ago
This is pretty laughable for me. Many Americans are underserved by their assigned politicians. Gerrymandering based on political gain merely makes it worse. The most representative folks they have to vote for generally have little power to change things because of the local nature. Not saying not to vote - in fact, I encourage it - but this seriously also isn't as easy as simply voting. It gets even trickier if you are American and live overseas. You still have to file taxes even if you've not lived on american soil for years. If you are in a low-tax nation, you might have to pay the American government taxes. You still theoretically can vote in at least federal elections based on where you lived before you moved, but... seriously, the voting forms ask if I'll be living in the US again and when. I have absolutely no confidence in being heard by any politician and truly don't feel that my vote counts. This is especially true where I'm from - Indiana - and have never really had a politician reflect my views nor have I gotten much more than a form letter in response to a letter. I have more representation where I live and I'm not a citizen. I can vote in local elections here in Norway, so have some representation at least.
fallingfrog 7y ago
I mean I can also scream into a pillow with similar results.

slowhand09 7y ago

Very politicized headline IMHO. Legislation gets "traded" all the time. Not every liberal proposition is good or bad. Nor is every conservative proposition. Nor libertarian, etc. The congress-people trading votes for other votes, and block voting to pass or block legislation is the crux of the problem. Each item should stand on its merit, rather than be a beachball batted about a concert venue. I watch local enviro-lobbys, some whom I support, engage in the politics more than the environmental stewardship people typically picture them as. And we don't need a law for everything.