Two Rants in Response to Deb's Question Three (long.)

At the end of the article on the coyote killings, “Hunters Flock To Small Town for Fundraising Event,” the Albuquerque Journal reports that, “Mackechnie Chapman said she objects to the idea that the kids involved in hunting are being taught to kill. She said they know the difference between hunting to manage predators and wanton killing.”

If I’d been eating anything while reading that, I would have choked on it. Why? Well, because the entire article has been about sport-killing coyotes in order to sponsor a girls’ athletics program—it hasn’t been about managing the coyote population. The references to the coyotes as nuisances that kill livestock and destroy crops come across more as excuses to kill than as reasons for actually having an organized campaign to control the coyote population, which, in case it didn’t seem obvious to you, a killing contest is not. And, the Albuquerque Journal lets this woman get away with the last word on it—she calls it “managing predators” rather than “wanton killing” and the Journal doesn’t even appear to question this! And the Journal posits the only issue with the killings as the possibility that kids are being taught to kill, but doesn’t even go after the fact that this ISN’T wildlife management by any stretch of the imagination. This is the definition of wanton killing. This is sport killing. And the irony that it’s to support a girls’ sports program isn’t funny. It’s chilling. And for one final point that just really got to me—the Journal doesn’t even question the fact that the girls’ sports program relies on this kind of activity for monetary support. Presumably the boys' athletics are already fully supported without the need for the coyote hunt? Presumably there isn’t any other money in public schools to fund either education on conservation or sports? Apparently not. Ugh. I’m disgusted, not only with the practice, but especially with the Journal’s lame reporting on the issue.

This brings me to what I was thinking about when I was reading Deb’s question (3) and the other two articles posted. Let’s see if I can get all of this out in an order that makes sense.

Suzuki argues we need to change our understanding of, and our relationship to, the earth and ourselves, or else we won’t be able (or willing) to make the changes in our own lives that might lead to real change. Suzuki asks a lot, I think, of those who don’t already feel somewhat convinced that something is wrong with our unrelenting capitalist pursuit of more stuff and more stuff and more stuff.

Friedman makes up the gap, slightly, by making an economic and national security argument for dealing with climate change/global warming on a massive scale. His argument seems less “frou frou” somehow, in spite of the fact that Suzuki makes arguments based in hard science—everything from evolutionary biology to psychology to soil chemistry appears in The Sacred Balance to shore up the argument, after all. But Friedman’s argument appears to be based in the American desire to consume, and while he still advocates consuming less, he doesn’t outright say, hey, you have to change your individual orientation to everything around you in order to do this (even though I think that’s what his argument, taken to its logical conclusion, would entail).

Perhaps Doug Fine is the one who really helps to reach out to that segment of the population that is ALWAYS going to refuse to give up creature comforts, and won’t do anything unless it can be sold as EASY and compatible with consumerism and other bad American habits.

But Suzuki, Friedman, and Fine, as persuasive as I can see that they are to particular populations, don’t do anything to sway the John Boehners and the Darrell Issas of the world, who for some reason have an investment (monetary? moral?) in denying climate change (and, apparently, in actually going after scientists). So, who can reach those people? I think that we need the Pope and Billy Graham to issue a joint statement saying that they believe in climate change before those on the religious right or who use religion to deny the reality of climate science will be swayed in any direction. I don’t know that the rest of the potential rhetors in the world could muster the ethos to convince the non-believers to change the way they see the world and the climate. By the same token, if there is a swell of religious leaders who speak up about climate change and who make it the moral obligation of their congregations to be educated about the issue, then perhaps there could be some change. And if that happened and then Boehner and Issa and all other climate change detractors continue ranting against the scientists, their allegiances may be revealed as something other than a particular (odd) moral persuasion.

This is why I feel a real need to resist any attacks on the teaching of evolution or other “controversial” science in schools. We need to make sure that children are educated and capable of thinking critically not just about science, but also about the rhetoric surrounding the science.