James McWilliams
January 2014
What’s really happening here is a process of abstraction that enables enviro types to publicly demonstrate their concern for global warming and its resultant species extinctions while continuing to exploit animals to meet our selfish little palate fetishes. It allows us to weep over the loss of a species while sharpening our knives to keep eating the chops and steaks that make our lives so happy and hypocritical.
Sensible people take climate change seriously. We do so because, in a vague way, we care about the planet and, in a less vague way, we’re troubled by the conspicuous ecological devastation that results from a world set on slow simmer.
One of the more troubling consequences we lament when we broadcast our concerns over climate change centers on the issue of species extinction. As a rule, reasonable people don’t like the idea of a species gasping its last breath under their watch, especially when the driving force appears to be anthropocentric. When polar bears come under threat from melting ice caps, we get upset.
This all seems mighty obvious and appropriate. What’s less obvious and appropriate is the self-serving distortion that happens when environmentalists inveigh against the anthropocentric demise of another species.
You frequently hear vegan activists argue that you can’t be a meat-eating environmentalist. This carbon-calculator critique holds water. But there may be a more fundamental way to confront the meat-eating environmentalist: challenge the way he conceptualizes animals. This must be done because, as matters now stand, the environmental movement rests its anti-global warming stance on a conveniently deceptive view of animals.
Many environmentalists indulge in a kind of eco-tourist environmentalism. Despite having no real appreciation of an ecosystem’s underlying complexity, they make an earnest fuss about the demise of elephants, orcas, lions, eagles, and other “majestic” animals one might encounter while traveling on an eco-venture or watching a nature show.
Concern for these animals—and concern for the potential of their extinction—is certainly a good thing. But it also allows us to root a superficial notion of environmental responsibility in shallow aesthetic ideals represented by a species that–due to no fault of its own–embody an overly stylized concept of “nature.”
According to this strategy, we “care” about these animals not as animals per se, but because of what they collectively represent to us: the ability to stoke our awe for the natural world. We “care” about these animals not as animals per se but for the conceptual purposes they serve as noble “species” clinging to existence in the age of global warming. This props them up for our righteous outrage. But not our compassion.
Again, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with admiring these animals as a species. They are indeed majestic, awe-inspiring creatures who capture the imagination and, for many of us, bring us closer to the natural world. But it’s worth exploring the question that this admiration begs: if we love iconic animals as a species, why do we not also love them as individuals? After all, you can’t really do the latter without the former, or vice-versa.
Environmentalists will object to this charge. They will claim that they do love animals. But exactly how is this love manifested? After all, love rarely prevents environmentalists from shooting animals, eating animals, culling animals, domesticating animals, and wearing animals. As long as the beloved “species” is not unduly threatened by massive environmental exploitation, then the individuals within it seem fair game for exploitation. The implications of this inconsistency are rarely acknowledged.
But they’re worth exploring.
One could start with this question: Is there a problem with raging over the loss of polar bears’ habitat without raging over the loss of individual polar bears? The anger we feel over dying polar bears is an anger we couch in terms of “losing a species.” That’s safe, because it keeps the idea of a sentient being at a distance while allowing us to experience the guilty pleasure of high dudgeon. But is it the species that really tugs at our emotions? No.To lament the loss of a species is ultimately disingenuous. It’s to lament the loss of an impersonal collective phenomenon, sort of like lamenting the loss of an obscure language.
What’s really happening here is a process of abstraction that enables enviro types to publicly demonstrate their concern for global warming and its resultant species extinctions while continuing to exploit animals to meet our selfish little palate fetishes. It allows us to weep over the loss of a species while sharpening our knives to keep eating the chops and steaks that make our lives so happy and hypocritical.
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